Nuclear energy is poised for a major comeback in the United States. Donald Trump has made the revitalization of the domestic nuclear power sector a major aim of his administration, with the stated goal to reestablish the United States as the global leader in nuclear energy. The idea is that updating and expanding the United States’ aging nuclear fleet will give the country a major leg up in terms of energy independence and autonomy.
However, the U.S. nuclear energy sector – like the vast majority of the global nuclear sector – is extremely reliant on imported nuclear fuel, largely from Kazakhstan and Russia. And prices for uranium are soaring on the global market thanks to a global nuclear energy resurgence. The World Nuclear Association projects that global demand for uranium will balloon 28 percent by 2030 and nearly double by 2040, causing increased competition between nuclear energy producers around the world.
At present, only five plants in the world operate large-scale uranium conversion, and half of global capacity is controlled by Russia, resulting in a major resource bottleneck and precarious geopolitical pain points. As a result, “U.S. nuclear energy faces fuel supply chain vulnerabilities, with tight uranium supplies, geopolitical risks, and rising costs threatening both existing reactors costs and advanced reactor development,” according to a January report from Stanford Energy.
What is more, China and Russia have been securing nuclear fuel supply chains for decades as the West backed away from nuclear energy. Now that the world is re-embracing the controversial resource, it may be too late for Europe and the United States to get a foothold in key uranium markets. “Russian and Chinese players have been very keen to secure access to resources in central Asia and Africa, creating a very aggressive competitive environment,” Benjamin Godwin at Prism Strategic Intelligence told the Financial Times last year.
Achieving true nuclear energy independence will therefore require the United States to cultivate a homegrown nuclear fuel sector. As luck would have it, the United States is home to vast quantities of uranium, but building up supply chains to extract and enrich that uranium takes a lot of time and money. To homeshore these supply chains efficiently and cost-effectively, multiple approaches are necessary, including the extraction of new uranium resources as well as the recycling of spent nuclear fuel. And the United States is making considerable progress on both.
Just this month, uranium production began at the largest uranium in-situ recovery (ISR) site seen in the country in over a decade. “The estimated resource from the project, located on a 20,000-acre site, is currently 6,155,000 pounds of U3O8, the most stable form of uranium oxide,” states an Interesting Engineering report published last week. The Burke Hollow site in South Texas is the latest development from The Uranium Energy Corporation (UEC), which also has a similar operation site in Wyoming.
“UEC’s recent production achievements in Texas and Wyoming highlight the importance of uranium production as the foundation of a secure, domestic nuclear fuel cycle,” said Chris Wright, US Energy Secretary. “As we continue rebuilding the full fuel cycle, including key downstream infrastructure, this progress shows we can build it here and lead from here.”
The United States is also funding high-level research into recycling spent nuclear fuel, which could potentially boost resource utilization by a jaw-dropping 95 percent. “Used nuclear fuel is an incredible untapped resource in the United States,” Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Ted Garrish was quoted by World Nuclear News back in February. “The Trump Administration is taking a common-sense approach to making sure we’re using our resources in the most efficient ways possible to secure American energy independence and fuel our economic growth.”
Together, these measures will be transformative for the independence and autonomy of the United States nuclear sector, which is the single-largest in the world. It may also inadvertently represent an important step forward for clean energy production in an era of anti-renewable sentiment, as nuclear power production does not release any carbon dioxide.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com