Input Stories

The growing global demand for electricity and nuclear power generation is raising concerns about a nuclear reactor fuel shortage (The Wall Street Journal, subscription).

What’s going on: “Nuclear demand is rising and there needs to be, ultimately, more uranium purchased,” Jacob White, of global asset management firm Sprott, which runs the world’s biggest physical uranium trust, told the Journal.

• The U.S. is the world’s largest generator of nuclear energy (followed by China and France). However, for the past few decades, uranium production worldwide has been lower than demand.
• Utilities are making up the difference mostly by drawing from stockpiles.

Why it’s a problem: While there’s enough uranium “to cover projected growth in nuclear power . . . large quantities of investment are needed in exploration and production to meet future reactor requirements, [the World Nuclear Association] said in its 2025 World Nuclear Fuel Report.”

• Nuclear reactors run on uranium that must be enriched before it can be used, and the U.S. has just two enrichment facilities, one of which is Centrus Energy’s site in Piketon, Ohio.
• With only about 1% of global uranium deposits, “the U.S. imports about two-thirds of its enriched, much from Russia, which faces a total ban starting in 2028.”

Filling the gap: “The question now before us is whether there is sufficient capacity that’s going to come online from Western sources in 2028 to offset the Russian gap,” Centrus Energy Chief Executive Amir Vexler told the news outlet.

• Centrus is expanding its manufacturing operations in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, investing more than $560 million into producing advanced centrifuges for its Ohio site (which is also getting an expansion).
• Advanced nuclear energy company Oklo—which is among the companies chosen last August for a Department of Energy advanced nuclear reactor testing pilot program—is developing technology to recycle spent nuclear fuel.

What should be done: “The administration has done a great deal to boost America’s nuclear energy industry, but in order to avoid a uranium shortage, we must commit to securing and boosting the entire nuclear fuel cycle—from mining and conversion to enrichment and fabrication,” said NAM Senior Director of Energy and Resources Policy Michael Davin.

• “This will require doing what the NAM has long advocated: enacting comprehensive permitting reform, implementing key reforms at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and making more investments of the sort the Department of Energy made in August with its pilot program.”