MenuEven as Russia remains under unprecedented Western economic sanctions, the U.S. finds itself dependent on one Russian vital import: enriched uranium. The U.S. is the largest producer of nuclear energy in the world, but it has allowed its civilian nuclear infrastructure to languish since Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan’s presidencies in the 1970s and 1980s.
While the U.S. has coasted on its laurels, with nuclear energy production not changing much in over 30 years, Russia continues its gradual climb upward and exports many reactors, while China is investing heavily in civilian nuclear tech and boosting its atomic power generation at home. Beijing plans to build 24 new nuclear power plants by 2030, bringing the total up to 60, overtaking the U.S. with its old reactor fleet. For comparison, the U.S. has 93 operational nuclear power plants in total, and in the same period as China’s building spree, the U.S. added 2 with none under development now.
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