The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today issued a request for proposals (RFP) to purchase low-enriched uranium (LEU) from domestic sources.

Russia is the largest supplier of low-enriched uranium in the world and about a quarter of enriched uranium used in U.S. reactors comes from Russia.

Nuclear batteries - also known as radioisotope batteries - work on the principle of utilising the energy released by the decay of nuclear isotopes and converting it into electrical energy through semiconductor converters.

"To reach our goal of net-zero by 2050, we have to at least triple our current nuclear capacity in this country. That means we’ve got to add 200 more gigawatts by 2050,"

In the end, it isn’t that complicated: If climate change is an existential risk, surging output of good, cheap Chinese EVs is a good thing.

Committee chairman Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.) and other members spoke about the grid needing to rely on fossil fuels longer than expected and attendant delays to the transition to emissions-free energy, upsetting a major part of President Biden’s climate change agenda.

The Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden earlier this month and will go into effect on 11 August. The ban runs until the end of 2040, but the DOE may waive the ban, under certain conditions, to allow the import of limited amounts of material up until 1 January 2028.

According to a 2021 McKinsey report, we’ll need more than 1.5 TW of long-duration storage by 2040 to maintain grid reliability.

Already in mid-April, August power prices for Dallas soared to $168.70 a megawatt-hour, which was the highest level in five years for this time of the year,

There are many reasons the U.S. utility grid requires an estimated $2.5t upgrade by 2035, from crumbling infrastructures to keeping up with the increased demand of electrification efforts, all balanced against increasingly volatile weather events.