Seems relevant.
Energy Information Administration:
In 2023, U.S. nuclear generators used 32 million pounds of imported uranium concentrate (U3O8) and only 0.05 million pounds of domestically produced U3O8. Imports accounted for 99% of the U3O8 they used in 2023 to make nuclear fuel. Foreign producerspredominantly supply the U.S. front-end nuclear fuel cycle, but federal policies have been implemented recently to build out the domestic U.S. nuclear fuel supply chain. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently received $2.7 billion in congressional funding to help revive domestic fuel production for commercial nuclear power plants.
Energy Information Administration:
The uranium material used in U.S. nuclear power reactors is largely imported because it’s more abundant and cheaper to produce in other countries. In 2022, 95% of the uranium purchased by U.S. nuclear power plant operators originated in other countries. Canada, which has large, high-quality uranium reserves, was the largest source of uranium purchased by U.S. nuclear power plants in 2022 at 27%. Kazakhstan was the second-largest source at 25%, followed by Russia at 12%.
Although the United States banned imports of oil, natural gas, and coal from Russia following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, uranium was not sanctioned.
So guess what Canada’s gonna do about those import tarifs…
The reactors used in Canada are all completely different from US models. They don’t have large, forged pressure vessels (which can currently only be made in Asia or Europe), and they use natural, unenriched uranium. US reactors all need enriched uranium , 2 to 5% U235, versus the natural level of 0.7%. Enrichment is a much bigger constraint on supply than uranium ore, which can be found in many countries; only a few have enrichment centrifuge facilities, and Russia was the biggest, and cheapest, producer.
Despite being able to make 90% of their reactor internals within Canada, and all the fuel, as well as having an efficient local industry regularly replacing the reactor pressure tubes on time and on budget, the Ontario power authority chose to build US-designed boiling water reactors from GE-Hitachi for its planned expansion. This despite the chosen BWRX 300 never having being built anywhere, not having type approval yet, and the likelihood that even when completed, United States-based expert refuelling teams would need to be brought in every time the reactor shut down to refuel. (Candu reactors don’t have to shut down to refuel – they reload on the go, and Candu, or Candu-like, plants in Romania, India and Canada have all held world records for uninterrupted operation.)
If Ontario Power Generation baulks, and switches to the home product, that would put a spanner in the Tennessee Vally Authority’s plans to develop the BWRX 300 in concert with the Canadians, and possibly also for GE’s hopes to export reactors to Poland, Estonia, the UK, and other countries. So far site preparation has begun in Ontario for the first ever BWRX, with three more proposed.
Thanks
Texas had some uranium mines that it shut down decades ago.
“In 2023, U.S. nuclear generators used 32 million pounds of imported uranium concentrate (U3O8) and only 0.05 million pounds of domestically produced U3O8. “
You know if it’s domestic you can’t actually call it Uranium. Unless it comes from the Uranium Region of Canada it can only be called “fissioning metal 234, …5 or 8.” Kazakh fissioning material is “Metalkoumiss 238”.