Natural uranium is only 0.7% U-235, which is what you need for your reactor.
Reactors need u-235 in concentrations of 3% to 5%, requiring the enrichment step to make it useful.
The wavelength of the laser light can be tuned to interfere only with u-235 and "excite" the molecules, raising their energy level.
Natural uranium is only 0.7% U-235, the isotope you actually want.
The Russians perfected a far less energy-hogging method that uses centrifuges to spin the uranium hexafluoride at 50, 000rpm so that heavier u-238 separates from lighter u-235.
Iraq constructed centrifuges (which spin uranium to extract the U-235 used in a bomb) before the Gulf War so has the knowledge to do this again.
The device's primary source of neutron radiation was the radioactive element californium, but the stream of neutrons produced by the californium was multiplied by passing it through a lattice of highly enriched uranium U-235, whose nuclear fission released additional neutrons.
Given a start with some other fissile material (U-233, U-235 or Pu-239) as a driver, a breeding cycle similar to but more efficient than that with U-238 and plutonium (in normal, slow neutron reactors) can be set up. (The driver fuels provide all the neutrons initially, but are progressively supplemented by U-233 as it forms from the thorium.) However, there are also features of the neutron economy which counter this advantage.
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While the company's 235 U.S. jets sat parked on the tarmac for two days, executives hit the phones.
In one significant respect U-233 is better than uranium-235 and plutonium-239, because of its higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed.
FORBES: Is Thorium the Biggest Energy Breakthrough Since Fire? Possibly.
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