Amazon, Google and the goal are only some of the heavy weights that Appeal to an increase in the production of nuclear energy. In the direction of the recent conference, technological giants signed commitment to support for the nuclear three around the world by 2050. The application follows a similar announcement made by large banks in September last year, as well as politicians in COP28.
In total, 31 countries have already signed a commitment to triple atomic energy capacity by 2050, as well as 140 nuclear companies. According to the World Nuclear Association (WNA), about 9% of world electricity currently come from nuclear energy used by 440 energy reactors.
The price of intelligence uranium has increased over the past five years, an increase associated with geopolitical tension and more demand forecasts. One of the factors is the invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions imposed on Moscow.
Although Russia is one of the leading in the world of suppliers of natural uranium, the pressure on prices is more related to the country’s ability to enrich Uranus. In most reactors, the gross product should be the first ground, transformed and enriched before it can be used as fuel.
According to the US Government, Russia owns about 44% of the global power of the enrichment of uranium. From the point of view of demand for uranium, enriched by the United States, Russia represented 27% of this amount (SWU) in 2023.
In the same year, Russia provided 37.9 % of the total equipment for the supply of EU companies, according to Eratoma.
Faced with this dependence on Moscow, former US President Joe Biden introduced a law that prohibits the Russian import of uranium in mid -2024. The legislation allowed some money transfers to continue until the end of 2027, although Russia responded to its measures, temporarily banning this export to the United States.
“The United States and Europe can quickly create new conditions for conversion, but enrichment will be more difficult,” said Benjamin Godwin, PRISM analysis director. EuronewsField
“Inconsistency in the definition of politics, both in the USA and in the EU, complicates the organization of companies to make intensive capital projects, but as the Trump administration is installed, there is hope that the industry will receive a clearer signal on this issue,” he added.
According to experts, one of the problems is that both nuclear operators and fuel suppliers do not dare to devote themselves to future projects. Nuclear energy manufacturers do not want to sign long -term supplies if they do not know that uranium processing products are being built. On the other hand, processors are reluctant to expand if they have no agreements with buyers.
“Conversion, enrichment and discourse services are three stages of the nuclear fuel supply chain that can challenge their offer over the next decade,” he said Euronews Craig Stover, senior manager of the program at the Institute for Studies of Electricity.
“The greatest embarrassment is the enrichment services that have the longest time to install power. Based on WNA growth forecasts, the search for enrichment will exceed the proposal in 2035 at current bets, ”he explained.
Natural supply of uranium
As for natural uranium, the main suppliers of the United States are Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan. Canada provided 27% of YellowCake purchases in the United States in 2023, while Australia and Kazakhstan provided 22% each. Russian material amounted to 12% of the total amount of delivery, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Only 5% come from the United States.
According to Euratom, the main suppliers of the EU natural uranium in 2023 were Canada (32.94%), Russia (23.45%) and Kazakhstan (21.00%). The internal sentence amounted to 0%.
“There is a diversified range (natural) of Uranus suppliers located in the countries of the world,” he said Euronews Jamie Fairchald, uranium analyst and nuclear fuel of the nuclear energy association (Nea), which means that this feature is not at risk.
“We hope that the increase in Uranus prices, along with the growth in the search, encourages new research and improvements in production and processing operations that provide proper supply over the next decades,” he added.
After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, when the tsunami flooded the nuclear center in Japan, the prices of uranium fell out of safety problems. In recent years, expenses are constantly growing, since countries tend to free themselves from fossil fuel. The cost of companies that extract, make, produce live uranium and materials associated with uranium have increased by more than 500% over the past five years.
The growth of artificial intelligence also contributes to the “nuclear renaissance”, With large technological companies, investing money in energy centers for feeding data centers that consume a lot of energy. Although some analysts suggested that the arrival of the DeepSeek AI model can cool this demand, Jamie Fairchald predicted the opposite.
“Despite the fact that events can make AI more effective, cases of using AI and AGI, when it comes into effect, is so universal that there will be few aspects of the global economy that do not affect this technology,” he said.
Customs rights to import Uranus
Despite restrictions on enrichment services, Henry Preston, communication director of the World Nuclear Association, Euronews that nuclear energy is still less susceptible to geopolitical risks than other energy sources.
“Nuclear fuel uranium can last a couple of years in the reactor,” Preston explained, “and then we can have two years of fuel in place before stopping on replenishment.”
These much longer terms mean that in the event of a supply crisis, existence ensures that the effects do not immediately lead to an increase in the price of energy.
Despite this, an uncertain business environment can affect long -term purchases, as obviously in the case of the current tariff war of US President Donald Trump. Trump plans to impose a 10% rate on energy from Canada, a measure that begins nuclear energy companies in the United States.
“A 10%rate proposed by an important source of sentence, such as Canada, will effectively increase the price of uranium by 10%, because if we think well, the US domestic demand is inelastic for contractual volumes,” said Grant Isaac, financial director of Cameco in February. Cameco is one of the largest manufacturers of Uranus in the world based in Saskatun, Canada.
According to the previous trade agreement, Uranus suppliers, such as Cameco, would absorb additional expenses associated with Trump’s tariffs, instead of transferring them to the US public service. This situation changed in 2018 from the adjustment of the free trade agreement in North America, which means that the United States will now support this influence.
“In order to violate the dependence on Russia and other state-owned companies, coordinated Western answers are needed,” said Cameco representative at the end of last year, when the first threats of tariffs were spread.
“An announcement of Russia (blocking export in the USA) emphasizes what we said for some time, that the total risks for the supply of nuclear fuel are significant,” the representative added.