[Note: This article was heavily biased and contained misleading information. The I2M Web Portal Editors have provided balancing information.]
Flanakin reported on December 12, 2024 as the [ex-President] returns to the White House in 2025 [after an extremely close election], his nomination of Christopher Wright to serve as Secretary of Energy, [if he is confirmed by the U. S. Senate], points to a major effort to revive domestic uranium mining, [much like that previously promoted by the current President.]
[That’s especially good news, given the Biden Administration’s recent outstanding] decision to finally discontinue importing uranium from Russia, [an action that supports and stimulates the U.S. uranium mining industry.]
The military authorities in Niger, who now control that nation’s uranium mining operations, are putting the squeeze on French reliance on Niger’s uranium for its nuclear reactors. Niger, which only produces about 5% of the world’s uranium, had been supplying 15% to 20% of France’s uranium imports.
Of the 192 million pounds of refined uranium oxide (yellowcake, U3O8) used worldwide in 2023, American reactor owners purchased 51.6 million pounds, and U.S. nuclear reactors loaded 43.9 million pounds in completed fuel assemblies. Russia today accounts for about 44% of world uranium conversion and enrichment capacity.
Until President Biden signed H.R. 1042, the “Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act,” Russian-origin material (a big moneymaker for Putin’s military) accounted for 12% of U.S. uranium. The top supplier for U.S. reactors remains to be Canada (27%), followed by Australia and Kazakhstan (each at 22%). Another 10% comes from Uzbekistan, while currently only 5% was from domestic sources.
[The U.S. has numerous viable uranium sources around the country, such as in Alaska to Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Texas, New Mexico, and especially in Virgina, which contains a world-class uranium deposit awaiting development. Even new sources are currently being explored in other states. Even though it will take some time for the new mines to be reopened or initiated in the U.S., our friends in Canada and Australia can provide when needed, and at reasonable prices.]
The ban on Russian uranium, however, could trigger Russia to block traditional routes of supply from both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan through the Baltic Sea port at St. Petersburg. The only two alternate routes are by land through China (from Kazakhstan) and across the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan, through Georgia to Turkey and across the Black Sea. Both routes add cost, and time, to the yellowcake delivery stream. [Taken all together, however, these sources can be replaced by U.S., Canadian, and Australian sources indefinitely, as reported by experts in the field.]
The Biden Administration did allocate $2.7 billion toward building U.S. conversion and enrichment capacity, not a dime was approved to support the U.S. uranium mining industry [because he knew the industry will expand to meet the challenge, while in the meantime the political relations with Canada and Australia are in sync with the Biden Administration.]
Worse from a supply standpoint, President Biden in July 2023 established the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, [but the nation’s highest grade uranium resources from mining operations – predating a 20-year mineral withdraw initiated in 2012 – will remain in place, and the two approved mining operations within the boundaries of the monument will be able to operate.]
According to Energy Fuel Resources, which operates Arizona’s sole currently active uranium mine, [but others are in the the planning stage.]
“The uranium deposits of Northern Arizona are geologically unique … very high-grade, close to the surface, and require very little land area to mine. As a result, they are among the lowest-cost and lowest-impact sources of uranium in the United States., making them clean energy assets.”
In a final blow to the domestic nuclear energy industry, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied a request by electric power utility Talen Energy to increase the amount of power one of its nuclear plants in Pennsylvania supplies to a nearby data center operated by Amazon, sending shockwaves throughout the advanced reactor industry. [Talen said it will continue developing the first phases of the AWS data center campus under the existing ISA that allows for 300 MW of co-located power at Susquehanna. Talen said it will explore other commercial solutions while it continues to push for the amended ISA (here).]
Perhaps the best uranium news during the Biden Administration was the 2021 acquisition by Texas-based Uranium Energy Corporation of uranium assets [previously transferred to Russia’s Uranium One Investments Inc.] The deal returned to American hands about 100,000 acres in Wyoming’s uranium-producing Powder River and Great Divide Basins.
Former U.S. Energy Secretary (under G.W. Bush) Spencer Abraham, UEC’s board chairman, boasted at the time that,
“We believe this achievement will accelerate and strengthen the development of domestic uranium production that can supply U.S.-origin uranium for a full range of America’s uranium requirements.”
According to UEC CEO Amir Adnani, the deal included The UEC's Irigaray plant, which has a licensed annual capacity of 2.5 million pounds of uranium oxide, as well as the Christensen Ranch in situ recovery (ISR) project with four fully installed wellfields and six other permitted or development-stage satellite ISR projects. Six months later, UEC disclosed mineral resources totaling over 69 million pounds of uranium oxide for its Wyoming hub-and-spoke uranium properties, far more than the combined historic resource of 41.9 million pounds identified at the time it purchased the [Russian-owned assets.]
The previous President has claimed to have been much more consistently supportive of nuclear energy [than President Biden, but this Administration has passed numerous legislation with funds to further nuclear power and fuel manufacture.] In July 2019, he established the U.S. Nuclear Fuel Working Group with a charge to examine the state of domestic nuclear-fuel production and “reinvigorate the entire nuclear-fuel supply chain.” He saw that the nation’s uranium industry was facing “significant challenges in production uranium domestically” and called that “an issue of national security," [a signal to the uranium mining industry to expedite uranium production from secure sources in North America and down-under.]
In 2020, the previous Administration proposed a $1.5 billion, 10-year campaign to create a national stockpile of U.S.-mined uranium. The rationale was that, even if imported uranium was cheaper, ensuring a domestic supply (just as with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) was (again) “a matter of national security.” And in the final week in office, the previous administration issued an executive order promoting small modular reactors for national defense and space exploration, [the current Administration supported such action as overdue.]
During the 2024 campaign, the previous President promised to support nuclear energy production by modernizing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, working to keep existing nuclear powerplants open, and investing in innovative small modular reactors. He cited the enormous electricity demands of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies as potential users of these SMRs.
Oklo Inc. director (and CEO of oilfield services company Liberty Energy Inc.) Christopher Wright has been proposed as Energy Secretary, [which, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate, signals the recommitment to the concept of a national uranium stockpile and increased domestic uranium production.] Oklo recently submitted the first advanced fission custom combined application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its developing advanced nuclear fuel recycling technologies. [Wright will need to careful with possible conflict of interest if he is confirmed as Energy Secretary.]
But Wright is quite familiar with the needs of the energy-hungry giants like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon to utilize nuclear power to fuel their data centers and artificial intelligence ambitions. Oklo’s vision is to market its Aurora microreactor, housed in an A-frame building, to military installations, isolated and remote countries, remote mining and other energy-using operations, and research outposts.
UEC executive vice president Scott Melbye, who is also CEO of Uranium Royalty Corp., says that nuclear generation and uranium demand are on tract to double [or more] over the next 20 years. He welcomes an administration willing to work to expand domestic uranium production, noting that “the fundamentals behind the supply and demand of uranium have never been more bullish” with now the [previous and current Presidents] in full support of nuclear power and uranium mining.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, long seen by many as the enemy of the domestic uranium industry, will need two new commissioners in the coming months. The NRC choices the [new Administration] makes may signal the depth of the commitment to revitalizing domestic uranium production for the nation’s fast-growing energy market.
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