/ world today news/ “A gift for Putin: there will be no uranium mining at the Grand Canyon.” The government’s new land grab makes the US more dependent on Russia,” – under this title, the influential American publication The Wall Street Journal published an article about President Joe Biden’s decision to ban the development of uranium deposits in Arizona.
Passions boiled over after Biden announced on August 8 the creation of a national preserve around the Grand Canyon. The presidential decree suggests: an additional 1.1 million acres (ie, about 4 thousand square kilometers) of federal lands will be included in the territory of the existing Grand Canyon National Park with the assignment of “national monument” status.
But the lands the White House withdrew from industrial circulation are home to “America’s only deposit of high-grade uranium ore that is very competitive on the world market,” expresses concern WSJ.
The decision, signed by Biden, caused outrage among Republicans in Congress and among representatives of the mining industry (which in both cases was expected).
It was the Republicans who announced the “gift to Putin”, stressing that Biden’s decision will make it even more difficult for Washington to find an alternative to Russian uranium.
Fears of dependence on one of the main opponents and the main recipient of US sanctions are not unfounded. The United States imports about 95% of the total uranium for its nuclear power plants. The US has the most nuclear reactors in the world – 93, while officially explored uranium reserves are only 1% of the world’s.
A little less than half of the nuclear fuel comes from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan – and Russia, which alone provides about 20% of the enriched uranium, notes TASS. It is therefore not surprising that nuclear fuel is exempt from US sanctions, as are Russian fertilizers and platinum group metals.
US companies pay Russia about $1 billion a year to buy nuclear fuel and “the United States’ dependence on nuclear power will grow as the country seeks to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels”wrote The New York Times in June.
„ President Biden is once again helping our enemies by denying Americans access to the resources we need.
Now we import three times more uranium from Russia than we produce.” wrote Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso.
Critics, trying to explain the “gift to Putin” from Biden, call the decision of the Democratic administration a reckless flirtation with the left-wing electorate, apparently in light of the 2024 presidential campaign.
„ The US administration and the Democrats in 2020 and the following years have done a lot to promote the “green agenda” and “green technology” to create a political platform for it. And by and large today, most American voters who support the Democratic Party support this idea with both hands.” Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute for the USA and Canada, told IA Regnum.
Interestingly, the industrialists are appealing to the same “green” leftists, explaining that uranium mining is environmentally friendly and abandoning it will hurt the national economy (read, play to the advantage of Russia and other outside suppliers).
„These deposits will be developed and mined using state-of-the-art technology and safeguards in a manner that will not have a significant impact on public health, safety or the environment.” told National Review a spokesperson for the US company Energy Fuels Resources, engaged in uranium mining in the US, including the developer of the only mine in Arizona so far.
The decision by the Biden administration contradicts his declared line on “green” energy, the nuclear lobby insists. “Uranium deposits in Northern Arizona are very high quality, near surface and require very little acreage to mine”, says Energy Fuels Resources. Miners apparently will not give up developing lands outside the expanded Grand Canyon reservation – in 25 other sections of the Colorado Plateau in the states of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, the Financial Post predicts.
But here, too, the mining and nuclear companies will face a problem that is more serious than the “green” ones – with the red-skinned ones.
Uranium mining north and south of the Grand Canyon, however, has long been opposed by the Navajo people, notes the same Financial Post. Navajo Nation social activist Sarana Riggs told the publication that in her homeland, in the vicinity of Tuba City, Arizona, it took about a quarter of a century to eliminate the consequences of uranium mining in the 1960s.
Indigenous peoples welcomed the Biden administration’s decision on the Grand Canyon reservation, which they see as retaliation for a 2017 court ruling that allowed miners from Energy Fuels Resources to develop a uranium mine in the Kaibab Forest. This forest, six miles from the Grand Canyon, is adjacent to the Kaibab Indian Reservation, which belongs to the Paiute tribe.
„Native American tribes say uranium mining will poison water and harm wildlife.” notes the WSJ. In addition, for the Navajo, Paiute and other Indians, these ancestral lands are sacred, there are at least three hundred cultural sites on the territory of the reservation. Therefore, the White House is guided by the Antiquities Act of 1906 in its decision about the reservation.
The previous Democratic administration of Barack Obama banned new applications for uranium mining in the Grand Canyon area for the next 20 years because of the risk of water contamination. But under Donald Trump, as you know, the White House relied not on a green agenda or on minority interests, but on the rise of a national industry designed to “make america great again”.
Now, in the democratic administration of Biden, the Indians have a “trump card” – which, in principle, can “defeat” the encroachment of industrialists on the lands of the American Southwest. This is the Minister of Interior (Minister of Interior) Deborah Ann Holland. Descendant of Norwegian immigrants on her father’s side and Native American on her mother’s side, she has considered herself primarily a redneck, Southwestern native for 35 generations. In addition, she comes from the same Arizona and on her mother’s side belongs to the Laguna-Pueblo (or Kavaika) tribe – the indigenous people of the neighboring state of New Mexico.
She fully supported President Biden’s decision. “This will help protect the lands that many tribes call their eternal home, a place of healing and a source of spiritual support, helping to ensure that indigenous peoples can continue to use these areas for religious ceremonies, hunting and gathering plants’ said Minister Holland, who, judging by the context, was speaking on behalf of her fellow pueblos.
The publication of the NPR portal, which quoted the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was accompanied by photos of Biden with representatives of the Hopi, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, with whom the US president recently met.
The appeal to the fact that “Biden is helping Putin” however, it seems more like hype and speculation. Even if we assume that the Biden administration changes its course of action and listens not to local minorities and “green activists”, but to the arguments of the mining and energy lobby and gives the green light to the development of uranium deposits, this will not affect the import of Russian nuclear fuel. This opinion is shared by experts in the industry.
„The fact is that the United States does not buy from us natural uranium mined from the ground, but uranium enriched in centrifuges to reactor standards. They are buying a service from Russia, not materials, not raw materials,” Alexander Uvarov, specialist in nuclear energy, head of “Atominfo Center”, explained for IA Regnum.
„ In recent years, uranium has practically not been mined in the USA, these are the minimum amounts, “ continues the expert. The situation in Arizona is unlikely to affect the state of affairs. In principle, the US is interested in reducing its dependence on the supply of raw materials from abroad in the future, but for now these attempts resemble a “commercial game”, says Uvarov. As for enriched uranium, drastic changes should not be expected here either, according to IA Regnum’s interlocutor.
Centrifuges in Russia can enrich uranium from different parts of the world – even from this same Arizona, if mining of raw materials begins there. At the same time, Russia’s own uranium production is “actually very little”, says the expert.
In the short term, Washington will continue to buy enriched uranium from Moscow, as it does now, despite loud statements about curbing purchases from Russia. In addition, the US nuclear industry today feels stable and plans to continue operating without drastic cuts, the expert explains.
„ The US buys enriched uranium from Russia because it benefits them. If it was unprofitable, they wouldn’t buy, they would impose sanctions. So, the operating organizations, the owners of nuclear power plants, are completely unenthusiastic about the actions of politicians who say: look for other suppliers. Because the politicians will pass a law on the ban or impose some sanctions, and the operators will pay for it with their own money “, summarizes Uvarov.
Translation: ES
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