I know this thread is oil related, but I just ran across this article about dependence on Russian uranium.
US Ban on Russian Energy Excludes Key Item to Avoid Rolling Blackouts Across American Cities: Report
US imports of Russian uranium won’t be affected by President Biden’s ban on Russian energy, a source familiar with the situation has told Reuters. The
text of the executive order signed by President Biden Tuesday does not include uranium in its list of banned Russian energy products.
Nuclear power plants account for
about 8.9 percent of US energy needs, including 20 percent of the country’s electricity, but America has no active uranium production or processing facilities, leaving it entirely dependent on imports.
46 percent of the uranium used by the US’s 56 operational nuclear power plants is imported from Russia and its Kazakh and Uzbek allies, with 22 percent coming from Canada, 11 percent from Australia, and five percent from Namibia. The US purchased about 10.2 million kg of uranium from Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in 2020, according to data extrapolated from US Energy Information Administration
figures.
US media reported last week that the National Energy Institute, a trade group of US nuclear power generation companies including Duke Energy Corp and Exelon Corp, had engaged in heavy lobbying of the White House to keep Russian uranium deliveries off any sanctions plans amid fears that their inclusion could
cause a dramatic surge in US electricity prices.
“The [US nuclear] industry is just addicted to cheap Russian uranium,” a source familiar with the lobbying effort
told Reuters last week.
Texas and Wyoming are known to have large reserves of uranium, and several US firms have expressed an interest in the resumption of domestic mining and processing if long-term contracts with the industry could be secured. The Trump administration proposed the creation of a $150 million strategic uranium reserve in 2020, but the effort has yet to gain traction despite support for the idea from the Biden team.