![]() ![]() Russia has the world’s largest uranium enrichment complex, accounting for almost half the global capacity, but it is a relatively small uranium producer with only six percent of the global supply in 2020. Also, the loss, along with the cancellation of a new $8 billion reactor order by Finland, would be a setback to Russia’s nuclear conglomerate, Rosatom, which estimated its foreign earnings at about $8 billion in 2021. But ending the US and EU imports of nuclear services from Russia would make them less subject to its blackmail over energy. This is small in comparison to Russia’s earnings of about $200 billion per year from oil and natural gas exports. Combined, annual US and EU imports earn Russia only on the order of $1 billion per year. For their part, in 2020, EU utilities imported 20 percent of their natural uranium and 26 percent of their enrichment services from Russia. In 2021, Russia provided US nuclear utilities with 14 percent of their uranium purchases and 28 percent of their enrichment services. US and EU dependence on Russian nuclear services. Here’s how a complete transition away from Russian nuclear services could happen. ![]() This is a shift that has already started spontaneously. The United States and the European Union (EU), which combined account for about half the global nuclear power capacity, could go one step further by cutting imports of Russian uranium and uranium enrichment services. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the United States, the European Union, as well as other countries imposed punishing economic sanctions in retaliation for its attack.
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