A cheer for the Trump uranium plan – by Stephen Moore and Katie Tubb (Washington Times – December 15, 2019)

https://www.washingtontimes.com/

Our sources are telling us that President Trump is nearing a decision on how to revive the all-but-dormant American uranium industry. This proposed plan would create a reserve of domestically-mined uranium and stored in a “Federal Uranium Security Stockpile.” One option on the table is for the Department of Defense to purchase uranium through the 1950 Defense Production Act.

The president concluded in July that: “The United States requires domestically produced uranium to satisfy DOD requirements for maintaining effective military capabilities,” including the Navy’s nuclear fleet.

Uranium is used for America’s nuclear arsenal as well as domestic nuclear power plants. The U.S. reactor fleet purchased about 40 million pounds of uranium last year.

But American production of uranium has fallen steadily over the last 30 years and the nuclear power industry now gets 90 percent of its uranium through imports from nations like Canada, Australia, Russia and Kazakhstan. Only a few small American mines remain open.

The Trump administration’s assessment is that the risk of any shortage or uranium and the attendant disruption to security and nuclear power production would be far higher to the American economy than the cost of building a domestic reserve — which is estimated at $1 billiion to $1.5 billion over the next decade.

For the rest of this article: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/15/a-cheer-for-the-trump-uranium-plan/