America's Nuclear Power Depends on Russian Mercy

Zero domestic enrichment capacity. 95% foreign dependency. Congressional ban takes effect while waivers run out in 2028.

Dec 25, 2025

The United States operates 94 nuclear reactors. They hum along at over 90% capacity. Day and night. Winter and summer. They anchor the grid. They keep the lights on in data centers gulping power for AI models that most Americans will never see. They stabilize a system buckling under the weight of intermittent renewables that promise clean energy but deliver it only when the wind blows and the sun shines.

Nuclear works. It always has.

But the fuel that makes it work? That comes from somewhere else.

Fifty-two million pounds of uranium every year. That’s what it takes. The reactors burn through it. The utilities order it. The grid depends on it.

America produces less than one million pounds.

Do the calc. The dependency ratio is 95%. Ninety-five percent of the fuel that powers the most reliable energy source in the country comes from foreign soil. From Canada. From Kazakhstan. From Russia.

Russia.

For decades, this wasn’t treated as a crisis. It was treated as a bargain. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the Megatons to Megawatts program turned nuclear warheads into reactor fuel. Diplomacy celebrated it. The market flooded with cheap uranium. Prices collapsed. Western mines shuttered. Workers aged out. Exploration stopped.

The industry fell asleep. The country let it happen.

And now the bill is due.

In May 2024, Congress passed the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act. It banned imports from Rosatom, the Russian state giant that controls 44% of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity. The ban was necessary. It was overdue. But it didn’t come with a plan to replace what it took away.

Waivers were written into the law. They last until January 2028. They exist because without Russian fuel, parts of the grid would go dark. The United States doesn’t have the enrichment capacity to fill the gap. It doesn’t have the mines. It doesn’t have the conversion facilities.

It has the reactors. It has the demand. It doesn’t have the supply.

The enrichment bottleneck is the cruelest part. Enrichment is the process that turns raw uranium into reactor fuel. It’s technical. It’s expensive. It’s slow to build. And it’s controlled by a handful of players. Russia. France. The Netherlands. That’s the list.

When enrichment capacity is scarce, operators overfeed. They use more raw uranium to squeeze out the same amount of fuel. It’s inefficient. It’s wasteful. But it’s the only option. Overfeeding is now driving an additional 20 to 30 million pounds of uranium demand every year. The market didn’t see it coming. The utilities are scrambling.

Prices are rising. Producers are cutting guidance. Kazakhstan, the world’s largest uranium supplier, slashed output by 20% due to acid shortages and construction delays. Cameco, the Canadian heavyweight, reduced its 2025 forecast from 18 million pounds to 15 million. Niger, where grades run as high as 5,000 parts per million, is caught in post-coup chaos. Banks are still talking. Projects are still delayed.

The new mines that could close the gap won’t be ready until the 2030s. NexGen’s Rook I project in Saskatchewan is the largest development-stage uranium asset in the world. It could produce 30 million pounds a year. But it won’t produce a single pound until final approvals clear and construction finishes. That’s years away.

Utilities are hoarding inventory. They’re signing long-term contracts at prices that would have seemed absurd five years ago. They’re not buying for profit. They’re buying to survive.

And the reactors keep running.

Because they have to.

The data centers need power. AI models need to train. The grid needs stability. Solar and wind can’t do it alone. Natural gas is intermittent. Coal is dying. Nuclear is the only thing left that works around the clock.