Biden signs bill to end US reliance on Russian uranium by 2028
President of the USA, Joe Biden, signed a bill on Monday introducing a gradual reduction and a ban on uranium imports from Russia starting from 2028. The bill also includes measures for investments in American uranium enrichment facilities for nuclear power plants.
As Jake Sullivan, the USA's National Security Adviser, stated, the bill signed by Biden envisages: "Today, President Biden signed into law a historic series of actions that will strengthen our nation’s energy and economic security by reducing—and ultimately eliminating—our reliance on Russia for civilian nuclear power." The bill was unanimously passed by the Senate and by voice vote in the House.
There will be an embargo on Russian uranium
The bill stipulates a gradual limitation of the amount of uranium imported from Russia—from 579 tons this year—through the next four years and introduces a total embargo on Russian nuclear fuel from 2028. As announced by the bill's author, Republican Senator Tom Barrasso, the limitation is expected to deprive the Russian budget of $1 billion this year alone. Until now, 24 percent of American nuclear power plants were fueled by uranium from Russia.
At the request of the White House, Congress allocated $2.7 billion to develop infrastructure for uranium enrichment, in line with the December agreement between the USA, Japan, France, Great Britain, and Canada on increasing the domestic processing capabilities of the material. This aims to make nuclear energy independent of Russian uranium. Russia possesses about half of the world's uranium enrichment capabilities.
As we wrote on money.pl, a whopping 18 nuclear power plants were designed by Russia, rely on its technologies, and use enriched uranium supplied by Rosatom only in Eastern and Central Europe.
