01/05/2024
This is a very important decision, since Russia provided almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America’s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors, making it the No. 1 foreign supplier, according to US Energy Department data. Those sales provide an estimated $1 billion a year to Russia, but replacing that supply could be a challenge and risks raising the costs of enriched uranium by about 20%.
But in addition to American buyers, there are also European ones. Which do not even buy uranium, but Russian nuclear fuel.
the main step towards ensuring Europe's energy independence from the Russian Federation in atomic energy is ensuring the independence of nuclear power plants located on European territory and using VVER units of Soviet and Russian design from the supply of nuclear fuel from Russia.
The need to ensure the complete independence of the countries of Eastern Europe from the Russian Federation, which also have nuclear reactors of Soviet-Russian production, requires the solution of two key tasks:
1. Ensuring complete independence from raw material components of the nuclear fuel production plant of the Westinghouse Company in Sweden.
2. Construction of new facilities for the production of nuclear fuel in Eastern Europe, capable of supplying fuel to all nuclear power plants located in Europe and Ukraine, which previously used nuclear fuel of Russian origin.
Ukraine and Kazakhstan could potentially be suppliers of raw materials for such production.
The Senate voted Tuesday evening to approve legislation banning the import of enriched uranium from Russia, sending the measure to the White House which has said it supports efforts to block the Kremlin’s shipments of the reactor fuel.