2023-04-19 04:55:08
Russian gas and oil have been the center of attention in recent months, as Western nations, supporting Ukraine in its war once morest the invader, have tried to survive the energy militarization initiated by the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
But what regarding uranium? In this dantesque showdown and these exchanges of sanctions and embargoes, he was much more discreet. And yet, uranium and, more generally, nuclear power, are powerful financial assets for Russia, an area in which it reigns supreme, a dominating power which the West has a hard time doing without – especially France. , delivered in December.
However, things may be changing. On April 11, Bloomberg reported that the market was timidly beginning to turn away from Russia to obtain enriched uranium.
A small shift that other players, such as the tricolor Orano, are trying to take advantage of, and which might be greatly accentuated: on the sidelines of the G7 environmental meeting in Sapporo (Japan), which was held from April 14 to 16, the nuclear powers of the grouping of France, Canada, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom have pledged to eject Russia from the supply chains of enriched uranium.
“This deal will serve as the basis to push Putin out of the nuclear fuel market, and to do so as quickly as possible”declared bluntly and rather offensively Grant Shapps, British Secretary of State for Energy, as reported by Bloomberg.
Atomic diplomacy
Proud words and an ambitious objective, which nevertheless runs the risk of quickly colliding with the realities of the market – at least outside the major nuclear powers of the G7: as we explained in February, Russia and its nuclear arm Rosatom continue to weave, in the world, their domination in the field of the atom.
At the heart of a very long-term Russian atom diplomacy which is not without consequences, in particular concerning the current war being waged once morest Ukraine, projects for the construction of power plants are thus underway in Egypt – the launch the first of its kind in the country was announced last July – in Turkey, Iran, China – to which Rosatom also supplies enriched uranium –, in Hungary, possibly soon in South Africa , and the list does not stop there.
As the American media notes, the Western nuclear powers have so far pretended to ignore the atomic field, for fear of not being able to do without Russian enriched uranium, without which the economic damage would undoubtedly have been even greater than ‘with the deprivation of gas or oil.
“Rosatom provides regarding one-fifth of the enriched uranium needed for the ninety-two reactors located in the United States. In Europe, power plants producing electricity for 100 million people depend on this company.wrote Jonathan Tirone in February for Bloomberg.
The irresponsible behavior of the Kremlin in the Chernobyl power plant – where employees worked continuously, without being able to go home to rest and were constantly watched by Russian soldiers –, then in Zaporizhia – where fears of an accident remain strong according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which describes a power plant “on borrowed time”–, was recalled by the representatives of the G7 nations wishing to eject Russia from the atom market.
“Russia has demonstrated that it is not a reliable supplier”affirmed the American Secretary of State for Energy, Jennifer Granholm, who expressed the wish to transform the global supply chains of nuclear and “working with companies and countries that share [les] values [occidentales]». Values are certainly one thing, but the market is another: the financial and industrial realities of the modern world might decide otherwise.
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