The Department of Energy will “move with alacrity” to jumpstart a new civilian uranium refining industry once Congress bans imports of Russian uranium to unlock billions in funding, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told lawmakers today.
“[H]opefully we can get that ban in place,” Granholm said during the first DOE budget hearing of the year before the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee.
Granholm was responding to questioning from subcommittee chair Rep. Chuck Fleischman (R-Tenn.).
In a 2024 appropriations law signed March 9, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy conditionally received $2.7 billion to fund a competitive program with multiple awards to help the government acquire a large stockpile of domestically enriched uranium, including the energy-dense high assay low-enriched uranium needed by some reactor designs DOE wants to help commercialize.
The condition was that Congress ban imports of uranium from Russia, which more than two years after the federation’s second invasion of Ukraine this century makes up much of the supply for U.S. utilities.
There are multiple bills pending in Congress to ban Russian uranium, and though one passed the House of Representatives in December on a voice vote, none had passed both chambers as of Wednesday.
“I strongly hope and encourage that Congress does that,” Granholm said Wednesday.
Although funding remains an issue, DOE already has the procurement machine rolling for the domestic uranium enrichment effort.
In January, the agency solicited bids for a contract to acquire 145 metric tons of high assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). The total value of that 10-year contract, which would be split among multiple companies via task orders, would be about $2.7 billion.
That followed a solicitation in November for a separate but related HALEU deconversion contract, which would turn acquired HALEU into a form suitable for reactor fuel.
HALEU is enriched to 19.75% uranium-235 by mass, just below the internationally recognized threshold of highly enriched uranium.
Without much fanfare, Congress and the administration of President Joe Biden (D) have cooperated both on the uranium enrichment program and the potential ban on Russian uranium.
A little less than a year ago, Granholm told a different congressional committee that the administration thought it would be difficult to wean the U.S. off Russian imports without large subsidies for a new domestic refining industry.
