NYT says US remains dependent on Russian uranium

American companies are not engaged in uranium enrichment, Russia  is one of the main exporters of this product to the United States . Potential export halt leaves US nuclear power plants vulnerable, new supply chain takes years to build

Despite the desire of the United States to sever economic ties with Russia due to hostilities in Ukraine , Washington continues to buy enriched uranium from Moscow, writes The New York Times. American companies pay the Russian side about $1 billion for the fuel that generates more than half of the United States' emission-free energy. Similar estimates were given by Newsweek magazine.

As the US wants to reduce the use of fossil fuels, the country's dependence on nuclear power will continue to grow, writes NYT. Now American companies do not enrich uranium, only the European consortium Urenco (Great Britain , Germany , the Netherlands), which has a facility in Ohio, is doing this. About a third of the enriched uranium used in the United States is imported from Russia, the rest from European countries.

Urenco believes that it will take more than a decade to produce enough uranium in the US to compete with Russia's Rosatom. This dependence makes American nuclear power plants vulnerable in case Russia stops selling enriched uranium, writes NYT.

The United States and Europe have almost completely abandoned Russian fossil fuels due to the military operation in Ukraine, but in the case of enriched uranium, this is more difficult to do - it will take years and much more government funding to create a new supply chain than is currently allocated, the newspaper writes. In addition, the US authorities "do not show much zeal" to start enriching uranium at home. “It is inexplicable why, more than a year after the Russian troops entered Ukraine, the Biden administration has no plan to overcome this dependence,” said James Krellenstein, head of the consulting company GHS Climate.

As follows from the data of the US Census Bureau, in January-October 2022, Russia supplied enriched uranium to the United States for $644 million, the Netherlands for $569 million, Germany for $527 million, and the UK for $482 million. In February 2022, Russia stopped publishing customs foreign trade statistics, but this spring decided to partially resume it.

Enriched uranium is exported from Russia by Rosatom's foreign trade company Techsnabexport (trademark TENEX). American companies are now developing next-generation nuclear reactors, but they need HALEU-type uranium with an enrichment level of up to 20% (currently most reactors use 5% uranium) to operate. As noted by Reuters , TENEX is the only company in the world that commercializes this type of uranium, but US authorities say they are seeking to reduce dependence on Russian uranium. Bloomberg also reported that the US Department of Energy is developing a plan . In March of this year, a group of US senators introduced a bill to ban Russian uranium imports.

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According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2022, the purchase of uranium raw materials from Russia was reduced by 24%, to 4.78 million pounds of uranium equivalent U3O8. Analysts interviewed by Kommersant attributed this to rising prices and the specifics of shipment schedules for long-term contracts. Total purchases of uranium raw materials in the US, taking into account domestic production, fell by 13% yoy.