The US will not be able to replace Russian uranium in the event of an import ban, Assistant Secretary of Energy Kathryn Huff has warned, saying Washington must develop enrichment capabilities domestically.
“Worldwide, there’s not enough capacity to replace that gap from trusted sources,” Huff told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday, adding that it was the US’s responsibility to “encourage and incentivize that enrichment and conversion capability” on American soil.
Huff told the Examiner that US reliance on Russian-sourced uranium posed unique energy security and national security risks, and noted that Russia still provides about 20% of the low enriched uranium at existing US reactors.
“We have the largest nuclear fleet in the world, and we currently do not have the capability to provide fuel for all of our reactors,” she said, claiming that Russia is “no longer a trustworthy source of our fuel, and we need to find alternatives here and build up that supply chain.”