Speaker 1: Like the bees need the flowers, like the plants need
Speaker 1: the showers, so too do nuclear reactors need uranium, but unfortunately,
Speaker 1: most of that uranium comes from Russia. On today's Parts Pervilion,
Speaker 1: we talk about how the nuclear power industry is going
Speaker 1: to meet its needs now that Russian uranium is off
Speaker 1: the table. Hello, and welcome back once again to Parts Pervilion,
Speaker 1: the environmental podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm your host, David Schultz.
Speaker 1: Is nuclear power good for the environment. That's a very
Speaker 1: complicated question that we won't even come close to definitively
Speaker 1: answering today, but it is interesting to think about. On
Speaker 1: the one hand, it's a source of energy with few
Speaker 1: to no carbon emissions, and given how desperately we need
Speaker 1: that in order to have a chance against climate change,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty big plus. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: the fuel that goes into nuclear power plants and the
Speaker 1: fuel waste that comes out is dangerously radioactive, and as
Speaker 1: we all know, the environmental consequences of an accident at
Speaker 1: one of these plants are incalculably high. So, given these
Speaker 1: pluses and minuses, if you're an environmental activists and you
Speaker 1: read Daniel Moore's recent story, it's not clear whether you
Speaker 1: should hang your head or jump for joy More is
Speaker 1: an environmental reporter with Bloomberg Law, and he reported that
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is scrambling to find a new source
Speaker 1: of uranium for the country's nuclear power plants because before
Speaker 1: last month, a huge percentage of that uranium came from
Speaker 1: you guessed it, Russia, since the country invaded its neighbor Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Sourcing anything from Russia, whether it's crude oil, uranium, or anything,
Speaker 1: is fraught, to put it mildly. In a bit, we'll
Speaker 1: get into exactly what the Biden administration is trying to
Speaker 1: do about this, but first I asked Daniel to quantify
Speaker 1: exactly how reliant the US nuclear power energy is on
Speaker 1: Russian uranium. Yeah. So Russia and its allies account for
Speaker 1: nearly half of all US imports of uranium, So the
Speaker 1: US is quite dependent on USA and its allies. The
Speaker 1: other half comes from more US friendly allies like Canada
Speaker 1: and Australia and some other countries. But the US doesn't
Speaker 1: produce virtually any uranium today, so it is it is
Speaker 1: a country that is entirely dependent. The nuclear industry is
Speaker 1: entirely dependent on imports of uranium, and almost half of
Speaker 1: those come from Russia or countries allied with Russia. And
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons why I thought your story
Speaker 1: was so interesting is that we've been hearing about, you know,
Speaker 1: the Biden administration cut off imports of Russian oil, but
Speaker 1: that it wouldn't make much of a difference because you
Speaker 1: know that only accounts for oil from Russia, only accounts
Speaker 1: for like three percent of our oil intake. We need
Speaker 1: fifty percent of our uranium comes from Russia. You can't
Speaker 1: just have a fifty percent drop in your supply and
Speaker 1: have things go on as normal, right correct, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's another layer to the challenge, which is the
Speaker 1: future of nuclear which is advanced reactors, these smaller reactors.
Speaker 1: The nuclear industry trying to scale up. The Energy Department
Speaker 1: supporting ten different pilot projects right now to try to
Speaker 1: demonstrate that technology. And right now, all of that fuel,
Speaker 1: which is a different type of fuel from the current supply,
Speaker 1: comes from Russia as well, and that's one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of that fuel. So the nuclear industry is facing this
Speaker 1: big supply crunch right now with its fuel supplies, and
Speaker 1: something will have to be done. So what's the Biden
Speaker 1: administration doing about this? I mean, I don't think there's
Speaker 1: an easier quick fix, but what are what is the
Speaker 1: Energy Department and the broader administration trying to do? Right?
Speaker 1: So one approach is to create something like a strategic
Speaker 1: uranium Reserve. I think a lot of people have heard
Speaker 1: news about this Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has been releasing
Speaker 1: oil to try to handle high gas prices and lower those.
Speaker 1: This would be where the government buy supplies if uranium,
Speaker 1: keeps them on hand, so if the nuclear industry needs
Speaker 1: supplies in a crunch, they can access them. There's another
Speaker 1: program where the Energy Department would try to scale up
Speaker 1: production of this more energy dense fuel that advanced reactors need.
Speaker 1: And it's another type of program where the Energy Department
Speaker 1: would buy these supplies, keep them on hand, try to
Speaker 1: provide an incentive for fuel companies to produce this fuel,
Speaker 1: which again isn't produced at all in the United States
Speaker 1: right now. So let's talk about that fifty percent number again.
Speaker 1: You know this, has that number been going up or down?
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is has the nuclear
Speaker 1: industry been trying to move away from Russia for a
Speaker 1: long time and now this could accelerate that or is
Speaker 1: this a situation where we've been becoming more reliant and
Speaker 1: this is just going to be falling off a cliff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's more the second one. I mean, these programs that
Speaker 1: the Energy Department to try to increase uranium supply, we're
Speaker 1: created just a few years ago by Congress and they're
Speaker 1: just getting them up and going. So it's recognized as
Speaker 1: a problem. And these imports coming from Russia is you know,
Speaker 1: has been recognized as a national security concern. But I'd
Speaker 1: say the invasion of Ukraine last month really put more
Speaker 1: pressure on the Department to act more quickly and right
Speaker 1: there trying to do now is accelerate these efforts around
Speaker 1: these field supply programs. Let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: environmental aspects here. You mentioned that we don't get any
Speaker 1: uranium domestically, what if we did? What if we started
Speaker 1: mining uranium here in the US? First off, is that
Speaker 1: even possible? And secondly, what would be the environmental concerns
Speaker 1: if that were to happen. Yeah, So at one point
Speaker 1: we did mind uranium here. I mean, uranium mining has
Speaker 1: this legacy in the American Southwest on tribal lands, and
Speaker 1: around tribal lands and around national parks that you know,
Speaker 1: these big open pit mines. You can see them from
Speaker 1: very high up in the air. They don't look very great.
Speaker 1: You know, in the forties, fifties and sixties, during nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons production and during the civilian nuclear program boom, you know,
Speaker 1: we saw a lot of contamination, a lot of radioactive poisoning,
Speaker 1: just a lot of pollution concerns, and so that contributed
Speaker 1: to the drop off and uranium mining in recent decades
Speaker 1: and kind of this loss of support for that type
Speaker 1: of industry here, and so you know, certainly environmental justice
Speaker 1: advocates tribal nations are expressing concerns about something like a
Speaker 1: strategic uranium reserve because they say this is going in
Speaker 1: completely the wrong direction given the environmental liability that the
Speaker 1: government has. Would there be anywhere you could put it
Speaker 1: that would be safe or remotely safe? I mean, this
Speaker 1: is we're talking about a radioactive or yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: the nuclear industry would say, yes, there are places, There
Speaker 1: are uranium mills. There are different facilities out west that
Speaker 1: are far from populated areas. I mean, most people have
Speaker 1: heard of Yuckam out in in Nevada as being a
Speaker 1: geologic repository for waste. There are places where people would
Speaker 1: be at a distance from this material. But again, just
Speaker 1: the whole nuclear fuel supply chain is something that is
Speaker 1: a concern for people because it's the zero emissions power,
Speaker 1: but it has this environmental footprint, particularly near tribal lands
Speaker 1: and environmental justice communities. I'm glad you brought up the
Speaker 1: zero emissions angle because now I want to get into
Speaker 1: how this plays into climate change and specifically fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: Nuclear energy is very expensive. It was already having a
Speaker 1: hard time competing against natural gas and other fossil fuels
Speaker 1: on price. I have to imagine that a massive supply
Speaker 1: chain disruption of uranium isn't going to help that. If
Speaker 1: nuclear becomes even more expensive, what takes its place? Is
Speaker 1: it fossil fuels. Yeah, that's certainly what the nuclear industry
Speaker 1: would argue. It's kind of hard to say what would happen.
Speaker 1: But as of now, gas has been the predominant source
Speaker 1: of electricity growth in this country. Gass, you know, the
Speaker 1: abundance of natural gas domestically has lowered the prices and
Speaker 1: caused a lot of utilities to switch to natural gas
Speaker 1: instead of coal and so as coal has dropped to
Speaker 1: natural gas has gone up, and you're right, that's what's
Speaker 1: put pressure in the market on nuclear energy and caused
Speaker 1: a lot of nuclear plants to end up shutting down
Speaker 1: and decommission. So yeah, I mean a fuel supply crunch
Speaker 1: of fuel prices would go up because you're developing this domestically,
Speaker 1: or you're getting more developing a mine in Canada or
Speaker 1: Australia or some of these other countries that we're friendly
Speaker 1: to the US though, you know, nuclear operates on a
Speaker 1: pretty tight margin right now, so those increased fuel costs
Speaker 1: would be pretty damaging. Yeah, And finally, I want to
Speaker 1: get into the broader kind of implications here. And I
Speaker 1: love talking about nuclear because I think that it highlights
Speaker 1: this really fascinating divide within the environmental movement itself. You know,
Speaker 1: for a long long time, anti nuclear protests were sort
Speaker 1: of a huge part of the environmental movement. But now
Speaker 1: the calculus has changed that we have climate change, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe overrides everything else according to some people.
Speaker 1: And as you mentioned, nuclear power is zero emissions. If
Speaker 1: nuclear power and uranium becomes hard to find and nuclear power,
Speaker 1: you know, wanes even further is that a good thing
Speaker 1: for the environmental movement or a bad thing? I genuinely
Speaker 1: don't know. It's it's kind of a split right now.
Speaker 1: It's the debate is definitely real between different environmental groups.
Speaker 1: I would say in Congress, you're seeing largely bipartisan support
Speaker 1: for nuclear. We should also point out there's also bipartisan
Speaker 1: location of nuclear power plants. There's a lot of nuclear
Speaker 1: power plants in a lot of districts across the country.
Speaker 1: We should also point out that nobody wants to waste.
Speaker 1: Partisan gridlock has led to this waste issue where there's
Speaker 1: you know, ways there is no central repository. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's support for nuclear for its climate attributes, for
Speaker 1: the fact that it's it can get the power sector
Speaker 1: to zero emissions by twenty thirty five, which is the
Speaker 1: Biden administration's goal. But nobody seems to want to address
Speaker 1: in Congress this this this waste issue and the environmental
Speaker 1: footprint of the mining and the demand that this would
Speaker 1: create for new mining. There are some states that have
Speaker 1: rolled back bands on new nuclear, like West Virginia, So
Speaker 1: there seems to be generally this thaw on anti nuclear activity,
Speaker 1: but there's still again with environmental justice groups, tribal groups,
Speaker 1: particularly in the American West, there's this staunch opposition to
Speaker 1: nuclear is still and it'll be interesting to see what
Speaker 1: happens if you know, you have all these taxpayer subsidies
Speaker 1: going to uranium mining or subsidies to prop up nuclear plants,
Speaker 1: kind of how that plays out politically. So fascinating. Well,
Speaker 1: that was Daniel Moore speaking with us. Daniel, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Always happy to talk about nuclear waste. And
Speaker 1: that's it for today's episode of Parts pervillion. If you
Speaker 1: want more environmental news, check us out on Twitter. We
Speaker 1: use the handle at environment. Just that at environment, I'm
Speaker 1: at David B. Schultz. That's b as in, get your
Speaker 1: brackets in their due on Thursday at New and Eastern.
Speaker 1: Don't forget brackets at New. Today's episode of Parts for
Speaker 1: Billion was produced by myself, David Schultz. Parts for Billion
Speaker 1: was created by Jessic Coombs and Rachel Dagle and is
Speaker 1: edited by Zach Sherwood and Chuck McCutcheon. Our executive producer
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