Nuclear Power Related Media Thread, page-4659

An excellent article on the current state of play in our efforts to decouple of dependence on Russian enriched uranium:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/04/04/us-nuclear-reactors-russian-uranium/

I found this bit interesting and somewhat concerning:

"For now, there might be one more problem with the Western, and especially U.S., effort to kick the habit of Russian nuclear fuel. In the last two years, Russia has increased its exports of enriched uranium to China, which itself is a sizable producer of enriched uranium. At the same time, last year, China for the first time became a significant exporter of enriched uranium to the United States.

Experts say that without access to confidential fuel supply contracts, it is hard to conclude that direct displacement of Russian uranium in the United States by Chinese equivalents is taking place, but they caution that trading dependence on Russia for greater reliance on China would hardly solve the problem.

“Chinese imports from Russia have increased, with high volumes historically speaking, and now there is a frankly quite impressive increase of exports from China to the U.S.,” said Darya Dolzikova of the Royal United Services Institute. “You can’t rule out displacement.”Extending the ban to China will be another big challenge for western governments."

In the end the west will need to out compete Russia and China becuase operators will always chase the cheapest source of supply.

It's good to know we have substanial cost of producation advantages for now. Let's just hope our secrets remain secure.