WASHINGTON, D.C. – Hopes of building multiple new reactors in the United States are anchored in a strong supply chain, with a key focus on uranium enrichment, a panel of nuclear experts told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday.
During the hearing by the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate and Nuclear Innovation and Safety, Adam Stein, director of nuclear energy innovation at Breakthrough Institute, said that nuclear development depends on a strong fuel supply chain. Likewise, it also means reduced reliance on foreign fuels.
In moving away from Russian uranium by 2028, Stein said that the United States would need to increase its enrichment production by two to five times or 70 million to 150 million separative work units.
“That is a significant increase compared to the status quo and will require streamlining and logical expansion of environmental reviews,” Stein said in his opening statement.
Panelists Stein, C3 Solutions President Nick Loris and Clean Air Task Force Group Leader for Fusion, Safety and Regulation Patrick White said the three bills presented at the hearing have the capability of addressing the implementation concerns.
The Senate panel examined the Build Nuclear with Local Materials Act and discussed drafts of the Enrichment Licensing Modernization Act and the Revitalizing Energy Communities by Hosting Advanced Reactors and Generating Energy Act of 2026 or RECHARGE Act in the hearing.
When questioned by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) on the missing link to the nuclear fuel supply, Stein told the lawmaker that there are multiple ones. He said a clear, streamlined process for licensing nuclear fuel, uranium conversion and enrichment facilities, and the cost of uranium prices in the United States display issues for the domestic supply chain.
White told Lummis an immediate step that the country can take to increase its uranium enrichment capabilities is to create market conditions needed for companies to make a large investment in enrichment. White added that Congress’s ban on Russian uranium was a good step in pushing U.S. companies to produce more enriched uranium, such as high-assay low-enriched uranium – or HALEU – and creates a strong demand signal.
White said another step was to get rid of “the chicken and the egg problem” with domestically enriched uranium.
“Companies are unwilling to make investment into new nuclear uranium infrastructure, until they know there’s a demand signal and companies can’t make a contract for this fuel until they know the fuel is going to be there,” White said.
The Department of Energy’s efforts to invest in uranium enrichment companies have helped address these problems, White said. Other companies such as Centrus Energy and Global Laser Enrichment taking initiative to expand and build new enrichment facilities, are helping to remove economic barriers to this sector, he added.
In pushing for more domestic uranium enrichment, Loris said that the U.S. should still consider importing uranium from allied countries.
“We don’t need to be self-sufficient,” Loris told Lummis. “Imports in of itself are not necessarily a bad thing. They’re bad if they’re coming from Russia but if they’re coming from Canada or our allied countries, [then] we can rely on imports to some extent.”
While uranium enrichment capacity was an area of urgent concern, Lummis questioned if the U.S. having one uranium conversion facility was enough. Stein and White the sole facility is capable of handling the current reactor fleet but an additional one should be considered sooner rather than later.