US takes steps to stop buying uranium from Russia and start producing it at home

President Joe Biden signed a new law that bans the US from importing uranium from Russia in hopes of boosting domestic mining to fuel nuclear reactors. The law also unlocks $2.7 billion in federal funding to bolster the domestic supply chain, which Congress previously approved pending limits on imports from Russia.

Russia has historically been one of the largest suppliers of uranium to the US and other countries. When the US banned coal, oil and gas imports in response to the war in Ukraine in 2022, it excluded uranium from its sanctions, which showed how much the US depends on foreign uranium imports, especially from Russia and its allies.

Since then, there has been a bipartisan effort to boost domestic uranium mining and processing. For the Biden administration, uranium plays a key role in meeting US climate goals, combining renewable energies like solar and wind with more consistent electricity production from nuclear reactors. But while nuclear energy can help the US reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, it also fuels conflicts with communities affected by uranium production and nuclear waste.

“Our country’s clean energy future will not depend on Russian imports,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. Press release. “We are making investments to build a secure nuclear fuel supply chain here in the United States.”

Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom supplies about 20% of the US’s enriched uranium. Russia also dominates the world’s commercial supply of highly enriched uranium, used to power next-generation nuclear reactors.

Nuclear energy advocates are confident that there have been enough technological advances to prevent previous disasters, although communities along the uranium supply chain are still at the limit.

The Biden administration has created a new national monument near the Grand Canyon that bars uranium mining along vast swaths of land within the borders, a move state lawmakers are fighting. Pinyon Plain has already been acquired with an existing permitted claim and will still be permitted to dig up uranium within the borders of the new monument.