US aims to bolster uranium stockpiles to curb dependence on Russia

The Trump administration is seeking to expand America’s strategic uranium reserve in an effort to reduce reliance on Russian supplies and strengthen the long-term outlook for nuclear power, according to Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

Speaking on September 15 in Vienna at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) annual conference, Wright said the US is moving toward ending the use of Russian enriched uranium, Caliber.Az reports via Bloomberg.

“We’re moving to a place — and we’re not there yet — to no longer use Russian enriched uranium,” he said.

Russia currently provides about a quarter of the enriched uranium used by the US nuclear fleet, which includes 94 reactors generating roughly 20 per cent of the country’s electricity. A sudden cutoff in supplies could put around 5 per cent of US power generation at risk without alternative suppliers or larger stockpiles.

Wright emphasised the need to prepare for rising demand. 

“We hope to see rapid growth in uranium consumption in the US from both large reactors and small modular reactors,” he said. “The size of that right buffer would grow with time. We need a lot of domestic uranium and enrichment capacity.”

The first Trump administration proposed creating a uranium reserve in 2020, requesting $150 million to purchase supplies from US producers. Congress provided half of that amount, and the idea later gained backing from former President Joe Biden’s administration. In 2022, the Energy Department awarded contracts for hundreds of thousands of pounds of uranium from domestic miners including Energy Fuels, Inc. and Uranium Energy Corp.

US uranium inventories remain comparatively low. Companies hold an average of just 14 months of supply, IAEA data show, versus two-and-a-half years in the European Union and 12 years in China.

The effort to rebuild nuclear-fuel supply chains has accelerated under recent legislation requiring utilities to phase out Russian uranium by 2028. Russia retaliated six months later by temporarily limiting enriched uranium exports to the US.

While Wright declined to specify how large the reserve should become, he suggested it could expand in line with new reactor construction. The US currently has two commercial enrichment facilities: Urenco Ltd.’s plant in New Mexico, which produces fuel for light-water reactors, and Centrus Energy Corp. in Ohio, which recently began isotope separation for advanced reactor designs requiring higher enrichment levels.

The White House also issued an executive order in May to speed up deployment of advanced reactors, with the first models expected to begin testing next year.

Nuclear fuel production has traditionally been dominated by state-owned entities due to its dual-use potential in weapons manufacturing. But Wright said the US wants to attract more private investment, citing Peter Thiel’s General Matter Corp., a startup focused on uranium enrichment.

“That’s key for efficiency and innovation and pace,” Wright said. “That’s how you drive progress.”

By Sabina Mammadli