Patients scheduled for a scan or cancer treatment do not need to know how nuclear supply chains work. They need care on time. The problem is many radioactive materials used in modern medicine have a defined shelf life; they degrade over time — technically, they “decay” — so disruptions in delivery reduce the window of time in which these products can be used. Even more troublesome, most of these products come from outside the United States, making them subject to the vagaries of logistics and geopolitical pressure.

That is why a development outside Lockhart, Texas, deserves attention. In August, a low-power reactor reached criticality less than a year after construction began, but it will not supply power to the Texas grid. Its purpose is to help develop the capability to produce critical radioisotopes here at home, closer to the hospitals, laboratories — even shipyards and oil and gas fields that need them.