US to start buying up to $2.7bn in domestic nuclear reactor fuel

The US is bidding to eventually buy up to $2.7-billion of domestically-supplied enriched uranium, in an effort to boost the supply chain for the nuclear reactor fuel and steer the country away from buying it from Russia, the Energy Department said on Thursday. The $2.7-billion in funding was unleashed by legislation, signed by President Joe Biden in May, that also imposed a ban on imports of enriched uranium from Russia, as part of sanctions on the country for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia, the world's top seller of enriched uranium, had been supplying about 24% of the fuel used by U.S. reactors.