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.

the world’s 60 largest lenders had provided around $705bn in financing in 2023 alone.

The passage and signing of this law will ensure the U.S. will no longer be reliant on imported uranium fuel from the Russian Federation.

The legislation is designed to reduce US reliance on Russian uranium for nuclear fuel following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

US production of 82,533 pounds U3O8 (32.1 tU) in the first quarter of 2024 was the highest Q1 production since 2018 and almost 80% more than production for the whole of 2023.

Relations between Russia and Western nations have been in the deep freeze since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but Norway has been keen to keep some limited cooperation alive through the Arctic Council.

The transition would also require the electricity sector to invest between $8 – 80 trillion per year over the period in electricity storage facilities, depending on the ultimate cost of electricity storage infrastructure.