One key issue with expanding nuclear power as it currently exists, however, is that the West relies on Russian-enriched uranium as a fuel.
But there are some considerable drawbacks to the nuclear revolution. For one thing, the West doesn’t have nearly enough nuclear fuel to power the kind of comeback that many are expecting. After, nuclear infrastructure and supply chains in the West have atrophied. But some countries never stopped developing their nuclear power industries. China, South Korea, and Russia, for example, have robust nuclear energy sectors and the supply chains to back them up.
In fact, as the European Union and the United States have condemned Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine through a litany of sanctions, the Russian nuclear sector has. Russian state-operated nuclear energy firm Rosatom remains a key global source of nuclear fuel, enrichment services, and lines of funding for new nuclear facilities, all of which are prohibitively expensive for nearly any private company. Nearly one in five nuclear power plants worldwide are either in Russia or are Russian-built.
According to the Royal United Services Institute in London, companies in the United States alone sent nearly $1 billion to Rosatom in 2022. “That’s money that’s going right into the defense complex in Russia,” Scott Melbye, executive vice president of uranium miner Uranium Energy and president of the Uranium Producers of America, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal. “We’re funding both sides of the war.
But weaning the West off of Russian nuclear supplies is not only a matter of principle, it’s a matter of energy security. If the past year has taught us anything, it’s not to put all your eggs in a despot’s basket. Building up alternative supply chains is therefore paramount to the success of the new nuclear revolution, but it won’t be easy. That being said, there are already major efforts underway to diversify uranium sources.
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