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Why the U.S. Still Buys So Much Enriched Uranium From Russia

by ciao00 2024. 1. 17.

attire

 

Russia is incredibly willing to use energy as a weapon. 

Here's how the U.S. is working to revive domestic production to reduce the risk of critical fuel shortage in the future. 

Nuclear reactors generate nearly 20% of US electricity but the demand is quickly rising as US races to meet its clean energy goal. 

Currently, US lacks the capacity to produce its own. 

That's because uranium ore goes through four main processes to become nuclear fuel and US relies on other countries for three of those steps. 

There is one US-owned converter and there is no US-owned enricher for the current fleet of the nuclear reactors. 

Meanwhile, Russia dominates both of the steps. 

We have seen that Russia is willing to use its energy resources as a tool of leverage. 

The sooner we move ourselves away from that, potential vulnerability, the better off we're all gonna be.