{"id":1916262,"date":"2023-04-18T12:41:16","date_gmt":"2023-04-18T16:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bringing-dead-us-uranium-enrichment-industry-back-to-life-will-be-a-heavy-lift-but-needed-industry-leader\/"},"modified":"2023-04-18T12:47:28","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T16:47:28","slug":"bringing-dead-us-uranium-enrichment-industry-back-to-life-will-be-a-heavy-lift-but-needed-industry-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bringing-dead-us-uranium-enrichment-industry-back-to-life-will-be-a-heavy-lift-but-needed-industry-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing Dead US Uranium Enrichment Industry Back to Life Will Be \u2018A Heavy Lift\u2019 But Needed: Industry Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">36<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbringing-dead-us-uranium-enrichment-industry-back-to-life-will-be-a-heavy-lift-but-needed-industry-leader%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1916262&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<div class=\"aplayer_app\" data-source=\"https:\/\/vs1.youmaker.com\/assets\/2023\/0418\/ea20a235-1daf-4a1a-8a4b-6e7af1f9feb6\/audio.mp3?length=6537357&#038;duration=545\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>Uranium mining in the United States hasn\u2019t been profitable since the Russians flooded the global market with predatorily priced ore and processed fuel a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p>Long before, the nation\u2019s atrophied uranium enrichment industry, episodically idled by market paralyses and perpetually frozen in costly multi-jurisdictional regulatory entanglements, had ossified into obsolesce.<\/p>\n<p>In 1980, the United States produced and processed 90 percent of the uranium used by 251 nuclear power plants that generated 11 percent of the country\u2019s electricity.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, only 5 percent of the uranium used by the 55 nuclear power plants operating in the United States\u2014which now generate 20 percent of the nation\u2019s electricity\u2014was produced domestically.<\/p>\n<p>After years of Russian market manipulation stymied profitable domestic production, Congress has responded since 2020 with a series of bills that could, if approved, collectively spend up to $5 billion by 2035 in an attempt to seed a domestic commercial uranium market back to life.<\/p>\n<p>Despite slow-rolling allocations and delays in launching programs, which some attribute to resistance within the Biden administration to nuclear power, mines across five states\u2014mostly in Texas and Wyoming currently permitted to excavate uranium\u2014will soon begin doing so.<\/p>\n<p>Others elsewhere are also expected to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) uranium consortium and subsidized market incubator.<\/p>\n<p>Texas has the most uranium mining operations, but Wyoming has the most uranium, Wyoming Mining Association Executive (WMA) Director Travis Deti said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor all purposes,\u201d he declared, \u201cthe state of Wyoming is the American uranium industry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are four permitted uranium mines in the Cowboy State and at least three other prospective operations in regulatory review, Deti told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re ready to start digging this spring. \u201cWe can mine all the uranium we need in the U.S. right here in Wyoming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4546979\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/06\/1.download-147.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> Taillights trace the path of a motor vehicle at the Naughton Power Plant in Kemmerer, Wyo., where Bill Gates\u2019 company, TerraPower, will build a sodium-cooled nuclear reactor in the former coal-fired power plant. (AP Photo\/Natalie Behring, File)<\/figure>\n<h2>US Enrichment Capacity: One Mine<\/h2>\n<p>But unfortunately, there\u2019s nowhere in the United States for Wyoming mines to send ore for enrichment. Nationwide, only one plant in New Mexico has the capacity to enrich uranium for use in commercial nuclear reactors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven if we were mining it now, we\u2019re shipping it somewhere else [overseas] to get it enriched and refined,\u201d Deti said. \u201cWhen it comes to conversion and enrichment, we have no capacity to do that\u201d in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Deti told The Epoch Times he has a solution for private industry: build enrichment plants in Wyoming near the mines, where there is a knowledgeable workforce and \u201cfriendly\u201d state regulatory policies geared to spearhead the mine-to-market uranium recovery.<\/p>\n<p>Deti also offers a solution for the Biden administration: to decarbonize energy and ensure a secure domestic energy supply, stop \u201cpaying lip service\u201d to nuclear power as pivotal and de-zombify the nation\u2019s uranium production industry by accelerating and streamlining permitting for ore excavation and processing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, Russia has a hold on conversion,\u201d or processing uranium for commercial use, he said. Russia produces more than 50 percent of fuel used for nuclear power across the world and nearly a quarter used in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGetting everybody to recognize the problem\u201d is a significant achievement, Deti said. But he\u2019s concerned addressing the supply-chain gap won\u2019t get the funding and regulatory relief it needs from the Biden administration, despite mounting bipartisan Congressional support for accelerating long-term remedies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m skeptical but hopeful,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re starting to turn in the right direction. It is possible that we can do it, but it is a heavy lift.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4393097\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2022\/04\/08\/Nucular-Power-Plant-_JF_04072022-1200x768.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> The Edison Nuclear Power plant off San Onofre, Calif., in April 2022. (John Fredricks\/The Epoch Times)<\/figure>\n<h2>Hot For HALEU<\/h2>\n<p>Bipartisan Congressional support for increasing domestic nuclear power generation is reflected in a $75 million allocation to establish a strategic uranium reserve in the Energy Act of 2020, a $6 billion fund to finance reactor upgrades in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, and $700 million in the Inflation Reduction Act to scratch-start a supply chain to seed and feed a domestic market for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).<\/p>\n<p>The urgency in doing so precedes the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is welcomed by the WMA along with the Uranium Producers of America, Nuclear Energy Institute, United Coalition for Advanced Nuclear Power, and U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council, among others.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2020, the DEO also opened a HALEU consortium to \u201cany U.S. entity, association, and government organization involved in the nuclear fuel cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>HALEU is the required fuel for use in innovations such as small modular reactors (SMRs), which could revolutionize the delivery of nuclear generated power with relatively inexpensive, transportable reactors. SMRs are the focus of a $2 billion DOE program featuring 10 demonstration projects.<\/p>\n<p>HALEU will be the nuclear fuel most in demand in coming years but, right now, there is no capacity in the United States to make it\u2014not even for nine of the 10 DOE demonstration projects designed to use it.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed Nuclear Fuel Security Act (NFSA), co-filed by Senate Energy &#038; Natural Resources Committee Chair Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), accelerates domestic HALEU refining and enriching by $3.5 billion over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3827329\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/img.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2021\/05\/23\/id12954630-gettyimages-110951678-612x612-600x400.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><noscript><\/noscript><\/figcaption><\/a> Cooling towers from the Limerick Generating Station, a nuclear power plant in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, seen from nearby Pottstown-Limerick Airport. (STAN HONDA\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/figure>\n<h2>Enough \u2018Lip<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Uranium mining in the United States hasn\u2019t been profitable since the Russians flooded the global market with predatorily priced ore and processed fuel a decade ago. Long before, the nation\u2019s atrophied uranium enrichment industry, episodically idled by market paralyses and perpetually frozen in costly multi-jurisdictional regulatory entanglements, had ossified into obsolesce. In 1980, the United<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":509,"featured_media":1916263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[7197,9838,3642,22541,8879,6984,3939,3848,4937,6761,21046],"class_list":["post-1916262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-a","tag-bringing","tag-dead","tag-enrichment","tag-heavy","tag-industry","tag-leader","tag-life","tag-lift","tag-needed","tag-uranium"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/509"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1916262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1916263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1916262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1916262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1916262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}