America’s Awkward Energy Insecurity Problem

For the United States—a country that, especially under incoming President-elect Donald Trump, aspires to be not only energy secure but energy dominant—one energy insecurity problem remains, which could dog the development of a key source of new power.

Some five months after the United States swore off imports of Russian enriched uranium, a key source of fuel for the nuclear reactors that provide almost 20 percent of the country’s electricity, U.S. reliance on imports, including from Russia, remains an issue. At stake is less the fuel supply for the current fleet of nuclear reactors than the fuel for the coming generation of advanced nuclear plants that are meant to provide all the extra power needed to run data centers and power artificial intelligence; Russia has a complete monopoly on the commercial production of that richer blend of fuel. (Tech companies are so eager to line up new sources of power that Microsoft is re-commissioning part of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania and will buy all of its output.)

U.S. imports of Russian enriched uranium for reactor fuel fell by about half last year, when legislation barring Russian products was passed in the spring and went into effect in the summer. But the use of waivers by the United States to allow continued imports of some Russian uranium for existing customers means that the country has yet to wean off Moscow entirely, even after sweeping efforts by the rest of the West to cut dependence on Russian energy supplies that help finance the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. (Even Russia seems keen to let that trade continue: Despite announcing its own ban on exports to the United States last fall, Russia promptly issued waivers of its own to allow fuel to be sent to U.S. customers.)

Europe, after a buying spree in 2023 to stock up on specialized Russian fuel needed for Soviet-era reactors, also cut back its purchases of Russian uranium last year, but it is still a buyer—especially France. The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently released a report that noted 2025 will be a record year for nuclear power generation and the start of an era of huge nuclear growth, but it also underscored the risks of relying on countries like Russia and China for such a critical industry.

“Highly concentrated markets for nuclear technologies, as well as for uranium production and enrichment, represent a risk factor for the future and underscore the need for greater diversity in supply chains,” the IEA said.

But sourcing nuclear fuel is not like sourcing fossil fuels: It can take years to secure government and regulatory permits that allow for the import of enriched uranium to keep reactors running. That means that even the three-year grace period included in last year’s legislation to find new suppliers to replace Russia leaves little cushion.

“If I were a nuclear power operator, I would be making sure I have fuel in place for two to three years from now, because that is how long it can take to go through the process,” said Cindy Vestergaard, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

The legislative ban and the decrease in Russian imports are the beginning of U.S. efforts to come to grips with a self-inflicted energy vulnerability that came about with the end of the Cold War and the sudden availability of cheap, abundant nuclear fuel from a former geopolitical rival. This transition period means the United States will remain largely dependent on foreign sources of fuel for its reactors, a stark contrast to its virtual self-sufficiency in oil, gas, and coal.

“We definitely have not fixed the problem entirely,” said Rowen Price, a nuclear policy advisor at Third Way, a center-left think tank. “The fact of the matter is that we still rely on our geopolitical adversaries for uranium.”

And at the same time that Russian imports in the United States have gone down, imports of Chinese enriched uranium have increased, sparking the Biden administration to review if China is helping Russia indirectly circumvent U.S. efforts to kick its reliance on bad actors.

“We certainly don’t want to be in a position where we are trading reliance on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin for [Chinese President] Xi Jinping, so it adds to the urgency” of rebuilding U.S. and European enrichment capacity, Price said.

By Keith Johnson, a reporter at Foreign Policy covering geoeconomics and energy.