Early research into alternative energy supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE). These simulated fuel pellets and the stainless steel fuel pin illustrate the size of actual fast breeder fuel pellets. Just one of these pellets in a fast breeder reactor will produce energy equivalent of any one of these: three tons of coal, 12 barrels of oil, 500 gallons of gasoline, or 75K cubic feet of natural gas. In use in a fast breeder nuclear reactor containing fissile uranium and plutonium surrounded by a core of non-fissile uranium-238 the reaction forms neutrons that collide with the U-238 to form fissile plutonium-239. The reaction generates more plutonium than it consumes. This photo was taken February 15, 1979 at the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF).