Can The U.S. Wean Itself Off Russian Uranium?

• The U.S. has been heavily reliant on Russian uranium, and imported about 14 percent of its uranium and 28 percent of all enrichment services from Russia in 2021.
• Russia is home to the world’s largest uranium enrichment complex--accounting for almost half the global capacity.
• The U.S. is actively pursuing alternatives for uranium as a nuclear fuel.
• Thorium-based nuclear fuels offer benefits over conventional uranium nuclear fuel.

Back in March 2022, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden signed an executive order that banned the import of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal to the United States. Although the ban together with EU sanctions were blamed for skyrocketing global energy prices, U.S. refiners were none the worse for wear since Russia supplied just 3% of U.S. crude oil imports.

However, the punters were quick to point out that one notable export was left off of that list: uranium.

For a long time, the U.S. has been heavily reliant on Russian uranium, and imported about 14 percent of its uranium and 28 percent of all enrichment services from Russia in 2021 while the figures for the European Union were 20 percent and 26 percent for imports and enrichment services, respectively. And, there seems to be no end in sight despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy calling on the U.S. and the international community to ban Russian uranium imports following the Russian shelling near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya power plant. U..S companies are sending $1 billion each year to Russia's state-owned nuclear agency, Rosatom, and imported another $411.5 million in enriched uranium in the first quarter of 2023 alone.

Weaning themselves off Russian uranium is a tough call for the country considering that Russia is home to one of the world’s largest uranium resources with an estimated 486,000 tons of uranium, the equivalent of 8 percent of global supply. Russia is home to the world’s largest uranium enrichment complex--accounting for almost half the global capacity.

The U.S. currently has one operational plant managed by its UK-Netherlands-Germany owners that can produce less than a third of its annual domestic needs. Further, the country currently has no plans to develop or find sufficient enrichment capacity to become domestically self-sufficient in the future.  Related: WTI Drops As Demand Fears Take Over Markets

In contrast, China’s China Nuclear Corporation is working to double its capacity to meet the needs of China’s rapidly growing civilian nuclear reactor fleet, so that by 2030 China plans to have nearly one-third of global capacity.

But maybe the U.S. is not forever doomed to kowtow to Russian uranium, with the country actively pursuing uranium substitutes.

Alternative Fuels

With the Biden administration having set a goal of reaching 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2035, nuclear power will likely continue to be a hot-button issue despite being a low-carbon fuel mainly because conventional nuclear fuel creates a lot of hazardous waste.

What would give nuclear energy a major boost would be a significant technological breakthrough in substituting thorium for uranium in reactors. The public would likely be far easier to bring on board with the removal of dangerous uranium. 

Thorium is now being billed as the 'great green hope' of clean energy production that produces less waste and more energy than uranium, is meltdown-proof, has no weapons-grade by-products and can even consume legacy plutonium stockpiles.

The United States Department of Energy (DOE), Nuclear Engineering & Science Center at Texas A&M and the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have partnered with Chicago-based Clean Core Thorium Energy (CCTE) to develop a new thorium-based nuclear fuel they have dubbed ANEEL. ANEEL (Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life) is a proprietary combination of thorium and “High Assay Low Enriched Uranium” (HALEU) that intends to address high costs and toxic waste issues (thorium must be paired with at least a small amount of a fissile material due its inability to naturally fissile on its own). The main difference between ANEEL and the uranium that is currently used in U.S. reactors is the level of uranium enrichment. Instead of up to 5% uranium-235 enrichment, the new generation of reactors need fuel with up to 20 percent enrichment. Several years ago, CCTE started fitting existing reactor designs to enable them to use ANEEL fuel, which the company projected could enter commercial use as early as 2024. Meanwhile,two years ago, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved Centrus Energy’s request to make HALEU at its enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio, becoming the only plant in the country to do so. However, more could be on the way if the new fuel proves to be a success. 

While ANEEL performs best in heavy water reactors, it can also be used in traditional boiling water and pressurized water reactors. More importantly, ANEEL reactors can be deployed much faster than uranium reactors.

Another key benefit of ANEEL over uranium is that it can achieve a much higher fuel burn-up rate of in the order of 55,000 MWd/T (megawatt-day per ton of fuel) compared to 7,000 MWd/T for natural uranium fuel used in pressurized water reactors. This allows the fuel to remain in the reactors for much longer meaning much longer intervals between shut downs for refueling. For instance, India’s Kaiga Unit-1 and Canada’s Darlington PHWR Unit hold the world record for uninterrupted operations at 962 days and 963 days, respectively.

The thorium-based fuel also comes with other key benefits. One of the biggest is that a much higher fuel burn-up reduces plutonium waste by more than 80%. Plutonium has a shorter half-life of about 24,000 years compared to Uranium-235’s half-life of just over 700 million years. Plutonium is highly toxic even in small doses, leading to radiation illness, cancer and often to death. Further, thorium has a lower operating temperature and a higher melting point than natural uranium, making it inherently safer and more resistant to core meltdowns. 

Thorium’s renewable energy properties are also quite impressive.

Yet another benefit: There is more than twice thorium in the earth’s crust than uranium. In India, thorium is 4x more abundant than uranium. Thorium can also be extracted from sea water just like uranium, making it almost inexhaustible.

Even better, in February, Chicago-based Clean Core Thorium Energy and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) kicked off the planning phase of pre-licensing review of Clean Core's ANEEL thorium and HALEU, signaling progress is being made.

The Thorium Curse?

Hopefully, ANEEL will not suffer the thorium curse, and will finally help the country become less dependent on Russian uranium. After all, thorium MSRs (Molten Salt Reactors) have been in development since the 1960s by the U.S. China, Russia, and France yet nothing much ever came of them. Further, the new fuel is yet to be proven on a commercial scale. Nuclear radiologist Peter Karamoskos, of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has advised the world not to hold its breath:

“Without exception, [thorium reactors] have never been commercially viable, nor do any of the intended new designs even remotely seem to be viable. Like all nuclear power production they rely on extensive taxpayer subsidies; the only difference is that with thorium and other breeder reactors these are of an order of magnitude greater, which is why no government has ever continued their funding.”

However, if ANEEL beats the odds, the country could supply the new fuel to countries that operate CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium) and PHWR (Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor) reactors such as China, India, Argentina, Pakistan, South Korea, and Romania. These reactors are cooled and moderated using pressurized heavy water. Another 50 countries (mostly developing countries) have either started nuclear programs or have expressed an interest in launching the same in the near future. The U.S. will probably have a ready market for its new thorium fuel since it has signed bilateral nuclear treaties--including the 1-2-3 Agreement--related to security, weapons non-proliferation and nuclear materials with no less than 48 countries. Overall, 50 of the world’s existing 440 nuclear reactors can be powered using this novel fuel.

Luckily, this is coming at the right time, with nuclear energy enjoying another mini-renaissance of sorts.

The ongoing energy crisis has been helping to highlight nuclear energy’s billing as the most reliable energy source, which ostensibly gives it a serious edge over other renewable energy sources such as wind and solar which exist at the lower end of the reliability spectrum.

Unite, Britain and Ireland’s largest union, has backed the UK’s Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) call for massive nuclear investments by saying that comprehensive investment in the nuclear industry will be necessary to kick-start the UK’s post-pandemic economy, while also fulfilling the EU’s goal to decarbonize all its industries by 2050. EU leaders have recognized nuclear energy as a way to fight climate change though hydrogen remains their top priority.

Meanwhile, Japan has announced a major U-turn in its energy policy after the Asian nation adopted a new policy promoting greater use of nuclear energy, effectively ending an 11-year prohibition and phase-out that was triggered by the Fukushima disaster. Under the new policy, Japan will maximize the use of existing nuclear reactors by restarting as many as possible, prolong the operating life of old reactors beyond their 60-year limit and also develop next-generation reactors to replace them.

ANEEL and ‘Nuclear Diesel’ offer another possible way back to nuclear, but only if it succeeds where thorium has not--so far. 

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

• ‘Nuclear Diesel’ Could Become A Gamechanger In Energy Markets
• Saudi Arabia’s Crude Oil Exports Dropped To A Five-Month Low In April
• UK Manufacturing Sector Soars Thanks To Aerospace Boom