Russia dominates global nuclear reactor and fuel supply chains

Russia’s war in Ukraine has prompted nations around the globe to abandon Russian oil and natural gas.

Parallel conversations are also imminent in the nuclear energy space, because Russia is also a dominant player in the global supply chain for nuclear reactor technology, as detailed in a report. New paper published Monday from Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy.

There are 439 nuclear reactors in operation globally by 2021, and 38 of them are in Russia, 42 more are produced using Russian nuclear technology and 15 more are under construction by the end of 2021. built using Russian technology.

Reducing or eliminating dependence on the nuclear supply chain from Russia will vary by country and by need.

If a country has not yet built nuclear reactors, it may decide not to contract with Russia in the first place. The US, France, South Korea and China are “viable” supplier options, according to the newspaper.

Second, if a country already has models of Russia’s nuclear reactor, VVER, it is likely to look to Russia for parts and services. (VVER stands for ‘water-water energy reactor’ in Russian, is vodo-vodyanoi enyergeticheskiy reaktor in Russian, acronym for short.) In this case, countries can get word repair support Westinghouseheadquartered in Pennsylvania, according to the report.

Then there’s the fuel issue. Nuclear fission reactors are fueled by enriched uranium.

According to the report, Russia mines about 6% of the crude uranium produced annually. That’s an amount that could be replaced if other uranium-mining nations ramped up their uranium mining.

However, uranium does not go directly from the mine into the nuclear reactor. It must undergo conversion and enrichment before it can be used as a fuel in a nuclear reactor.

Here, Russia is dominating. Russia owns 40% of the world’s total uranium conversion infrastructure in 2020 and 46% of the world’s total uranium enrichment capacity in 2018, according to the report. (This is the most up-to-date data publicly available, according to the report authors.)

This is where the United States and its allies will need to focus their attention, according to the report, co-authored Paul Dabbarformer secretary for Energy Science at the Department of Energy, and Matthew Bowena research scholar at Columbia’s Center for Global Energy Policy.

In addition to Russia, these uranium enrichment and conversion capabilities are available in Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Those capacities are “enough to at least partially replace” the conversion and enrichment required by Western nuclear reactors, but it’s not clear if that capacity can completely replace Russia’s. or not.

The United States also needs to prepare fuel to enter advanced reactors currently under development and requires uranium enrichment to 15-19.75%, of which conventional light water reactors are currently operating at The United States uses uranium enriched to between 3 and 5%.

According to the report, this highly tested low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel is currently only available on a commercial scale from Russia.

Greater investment in extraction, conversion and enrichment facilities may be needed to fully decouple Western nuclear fuel chains from Russian involvement, Dabbar and Bowen write in their report. surname.” “

But to convince private companies to spend money and resources on uranium infrastructure, they need a government commitment not to use Russian supplies.

“Their worry is that in a year or two, perhaps less, Russian uranium products will be allowed back into the national market and will cut them down, costing them the investment,” said Dabbar and Bowen. speak.

In the United States, there’s only one uranium conversion facility – that’s in Metropolis, Illinois – and it’s been on standby since November 2017. The reopening is “pending market improvement and customer support.” row”, according to a power point presentation from partnership between General Atomics and Honeywell plant operator, ConverDyn. It won’t be operational again until 2023, when it can convert 7,000 tons of uranium per year. To increase capacity up to 15,000 tons per year, the plant will take a longer time than 2023.

As a result, Dabbar and Bowen said the United States would be cautious about cutting off Russia’s detention capacity “over a period of years, not months.”