- high-tech nuclear plant in Wyoming delayed; can problem be traced back to the Clintons?
Reliance on Russian fuel for nuclear reactors amid Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has led to the delay of a much-awaited high-tech nuclear energy project in Wyoming.
Backed by the U.S. Department of Energy and Bill Gates, the nuclear energy project has been delayed by at least two years, with a U.S. senator saying the United States needs to to reduce reliance on Russia for a special fuel for such reactors.
Set near the site of a coal plant slated for shutdown in 2025, the TerraPower nuclear energy project envisions a $4-billion Natrium plant in the remote Wyoming town of Kemmerer.
Citing a TerraPower spokesperson late on Tuesday, the Casper Star Tribune said the 345-megawatt plant will likely be delayed for at least two years.
In 2013, Rosatom, backed by the Russian state, acquired a Canadian uranium mining company, now called Uranium One, which has assets in the U.S.
Through the deal, Russia is able to own about 20 percent of U.S. uranium production capacity.
However, Colin Chilcoat, an energy affairs specialist who has written extensively about Russia's energy deals, said that the company only extracts about 11 percent of uranium in the U.S.
The deal also “doesn’t allow for that uranium to be exported at all,” Chilcoat told Fox News.
“It’s not like it’s leaving the U.S. or somehow finding its way to more insidious players.”
The agreement was approved by nine government agencies with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), an inter-agency group that reviews how certain foreign investments can impact national security.
The State Department under Clinton was one of those agencies, though Clinton told WMUR-TV in 2015 that she was not “personally involved” in the agreement.
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