US President Biden has banned uranium mining from swaths of land in Arizona, in what amounts to a ‘gift to Putin’, according to the Wall Street Journal.
That’s because the US, despite being uranium rich, still imports a large amount of fuel needed for its carbon-free energy from Russia.
The Antiquities Act of 1906 lets Presidents set aside federal land for national monuments to protect historic objects.
This week, Biden declared “a national monument: on 1,562 square miles of uranium-rich land in Arizona, near the Grand Canyon.
The news is even more shocking, when you consider that the wider region holds three times more uranium than the rest of the United States combined, according to a 2010 estimate.
Local Havasupai Tribal Councilwoman Dianna Sue White Dove Uqualla told the media the ban on industrial activity in the area is simply about stopping any uranium mining and exploration.
“It’s really the uranium we don’t want coming out of the ground because it’s going to affect everything around us — the trees, the land, the animals, the people,” Uqualla told media in Arizona.
A scientific study conducted over many years in the region and published in the Journal Nature, found no evidence such impacts.
Area abundant in high-grade uranium
Northern Arizona is extremely rich in high-grade uranium, according to a whitepaper by the US Geological Survey.
The USGS notes the region has an estimated contained mean undiscovered uranium endowment of 1.3 million tons of uranium.
Most significantly, the northern Arizona region has “about three times the total current uranium reserves in the rest of the United States.“
The US Federal government has been slowly withdrawing lands in the region from mining exploration and development for years. In 2012, the Obama Administration suspended mining and exploration activities in the region.
Buster Johnson, a Mohave County supervisor, told Fortune Magazine the move was shocking and bad news for US energy independence.
“We need uranium for the security of our country. We’re out of the game,” he said.
Russian Dependency
In 2021, the US imported nearly 30% of its enriched uranium from a Kremlin-controlled company called ROSATOM.
In 2022, the US paid the Russians at least $1 Billion in enriched uranium purchases.
Ships with enriched uranium leave Russia for the United States frequently, despite extensive US sanctions on other Russian commodities.
“It’s inexplicable that over a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration does not appear to have a plan to end this dependence,” said James Krellenstein, the director of GHS Climate, a clean energy consulting firm told the NY Times.
Members of the US Congress are working to pass legislation to ultimately block Russian uranium imports.
Yet, Biden will wall off lands rich in uranium that could have potentially be used for future US nuclear energy fleet.
Uranium supply slowing down nuclear power development
The uranium supply issues and geopolitical issues facing the US is holding back America’s clean energy future.
Bill Gates-backed SMR company TerraPower has delayed the opening of a nuclear plant by at least two years, in part because it has pledged to not use Russian-enriched uranium.
The US will need to double nuclear energy use to meet ambitious climate change goals, according to the US Energy Department.
At present, the US imports some 50% of its uranium from either Russia or the former Soviet Republic, Kazakhstan, according to EIA.
How the US will secure the fuel needed to meet this goal is anyone’s guess right now.
In order to wean itself off Russian uranium, the US will need to either find domestic sources (which Biden has chosen to limit) or partners elsewhere in the world.
