Last year, the country produced almost 700,000 pounds of yellowcake, good for a more than a dozen-fold increase from the previous year.
For decades, the United States has been the world’s biggest producer of nuclear energy, accounting for 30% of global production. The country, however, currently imports 98% of the uranium feedstock it needs to power its 94 nuclear reactors. Indeed, the U.S. accounts for less than 1% of the world’s uranium output, with Kazakhstan, Canada, and Namibia accounting for nearly two-thirds of global production.
But things have not always been this way. The country’s nuclear age peaked in the 1960s to the mid-1980s when it was the leader in uranium production. The downtrend that followed can largely be chalked up to government policy, with Washington de-prioritizing away from the uranium sector, including providing less government funding and subsidies to support it over the years. Meanwhile, several high-profile nuclear accidents took a heavy toll on public perception and tanked uranium prices, forcing many domestic uranium producers to shutter operations.
However, the U.S. is now enjoying a nuclear renaissance, with the sector seeing a resurgence in recent years. Last year, the country produced almost 700,000 pounds of yellowcake, good for a more than a dozen-fold increase from the previous year, thanks to surging uranium prices and favorable government policies. It all began three years ago, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggering a global energy crisis and driving energy prices to historic highs. Suddenly, governments everywhere started encouraging more nuclear energy production to boost national energy security. Meanwhile, the rise of AI data centers, clean energy manufacturing and the cryptocurrency boom triggered a spike in global electricity demand, putting more pressure on power producers. In 2024, the Biden administration provided $2.7 billion in federal funding to expand the country’s uranium enrichment and conversion capacity, shortly after banning the import of Russian uranium. A month ago, President Donald Trump signed four executive orders that will speed up the deployment of nuclear reactors with a goal to quadruple the nation’s nuclear output from 100 GW in 2024 to 400 GW by 2050.
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Finally, the long-dormant uranium mining industry is sputtering to life. Normally, it would typically take years for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to review plans to reopen shuttered uranium mines; however, the bureau’s regulators green-lit the reopening of Anfield Energy’s Velvet-Wood mine in just 11 days, citing a “national energy emergency”. Canada’s Anfield Energy is also looking to reopen the Shootaring Canyon uranium mill after a 40-year shutdown. Uranium mills convert raw uranium ore into yellowcake, a powdery substance that is later processed into nuclear fuel.
“President Trump has made it clear that our energy security is national security. These emergency procedures reflect our unwavering commitment to protecting both,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Energy Fuels (NYSE:UUUU), another Canadian company, opened the Pinyon Plain mine, located 10 miles from the Grand Canyon, two years ago. Meanwhile, TerraPower is currently building a 345-megawatt fast reactor outside Kemmerer in western Wyoming. More fast approvals for uranium mines are likely on the way, with Trump’s order also applying to oil, gas, coal, hydropower and biofuels–but not renewable energy.
However, the experts are warning that it will take many years before the United States’s uranium mining sector returns to its dominance of yesteryears, if ever, “Even if all the uranium projects in the United States that are currently permitted and operable, we could not satisfy the demand of the United States of America,” says Mark Chalmers, president and CEO of Energy Fuels. The volume of yellowcake that the country churned out in 2024 still falls far short of the 32 million pounds it imported, highlighting the magnitude of the task ahead.
The biggest obstacle to the country realizing its nuclear dream is the fact that the U.S. is home to less than 1% of global uranium reserves. Washington could, however, pursue uranium substitutes like thorium. Thorium comes with key advantages over uranium, including the fact that it produces less waste, has a much higher energy density (one ton of thorium can produce roughly the same amount of energy as 35 to 200 tons of uranium), is meltdown-proof and has no weapons-grade by-products. As an added bonus, thorium reactors can even consume legacy plutonium stockpiles.
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has developed a thorium-based nuclear fuel dubbed ANEEL (Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life). ANEEL is a proprietary combination of “High Assay Low Enriched Uranium” (HALEU) and thorium fuel for pressurized heavy-water reactors (PHWRs), which intends to address high costs and toxic waste issues. Early safety tests of ANEEL by scientists at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) have been successful, with irradiated pellets maintaining their structure and integrity after achieving a burnup of 25 gigawatt-days per ton. The tests will continue until spring 2026 wherein the fuel will be studied under higher burnups.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
