Republican senators introduced a bill banning the United States from importing Russian uranium.
The bill came as President Joe Biden’s administration is considering sanctions against Russia’s nuclear power company Rosatom, which supplies technology and fuel to power plants around the world.
Uranium is not yet included in the administration’s ban on energy imports from Russia, including oil and liquefied natural gas.
“While banning the import of Russian oil, gas and coal is an important step, it should not be the last step,” said Senator John Barrasso, who presented the bill.
Senator Barrasso represents Wyoming, one of the states that will benefit from the revival of uranium mining in the USA.
Barrasso noted that banning uranium imports from Russia would prevent Russia from allocating more resources to the war mechanism, would stimulate American uranium production and strengthen national security.
The United States has more nuclear reactors than any other country in the world with 90 nuclear reactors and is dependent on uranium imports. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), uranium from Russia in 2020 accounted for 16 percent of the uranium imported by the United States, and 22 percent each from Canada and Kazakhstan.
Russia also supplies a type of uranium fuel (HALEU) that could be used in enriched and advanced nuclear power plants, up to 20 percent, which could be developed this decade or in the 2030s.
Should a ban come into effect, the US would need to build more domestic capacity to supply HALEU.
“I think it’s crucial that our critical fuels, including uranium, be diverted from unstable, unreliable sources,” Kathryn Huff, a senior US Department of Energy official and nominated by President Biden to become deputy secretary for nuclear energy, told Barrosso at the nomination session today.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, one of the important trade groups in the nuclear energy sector, supports the development of the uranium industry in the USA.
But many eco-friendly groups and indigenous communities oppose the industry’s expansion in the west of the country.