I wish some of these articles would at least sketch some of the details of why Am-242m makes such a better fuel than anything else. Reading them is like watching a striptease on network TV; it piques my interest but it stops short of showing me anything really exciting.
It sounds very expensive to produce this fuel. I wonder whether any cost estimates have been made.
From what I've read it is because it can be made into a thin film and still be fissable with it's radiation leaving the material whereas plutonium has to be used in rods that keep the ejected material from being useful.
As for cost the, the americium production link should lead to a memo by a scientist that he thinks a process could be developed that would have a final output of half americium242 and half americium 242m. That's why it would be great if the decay byproduct of the americium 242 (Neptonium something or other) could be used to "cool" nuclear waste creating a very useful market for it.