We Can't Escape Russia's Nuclear Grip
We Can't Escape Russia's Nuclear Grip
Putin still has us under his thumb, and it is only set to get worse.
In 2022, the Western world made a horrific discovery. Soon after Putin’s moronic invasion of Ukraine, Western governments moved to sanction Russia within an inch of its life. They did in every single way possible, apart from one: their nuclear exports. You see, it turns out the entire Western nuclear power industry is heavily reliant on Russian nuclear fuel, parts, and services, and as such couldn’t sanction them without obliterating our own, bearly functional as it is, nuclear industry. Since then, the West has taken enormous steps to fill in our nuclear gaps and finally rid Putin of our atomic sector. But a new report has found that we are still deeply in the Kremlin’s pocket, and this situation is only set to get worse.
Before we get into that though, we need to understand how Russia has our nuclear industry by the balls. Russia is by far the world leader in uranium refining, the process of turning mined uranium into fissionable nuclear fuel. This is a damn complex, expensive, and risky process. But Russia has a huge refining infrastructure left over from the Cold War, and has grown it since. Meanwhile, when the USSR fell, the West closed their expensive uranium refineries and simply imported cheap Russian uranium. This is a slightly over simplified version of history, but it is how Russia obtained their position as a nuclear mafia.
But, they have also expanded this mafia post just nuclear fuel. Many reactors used in the West are straight-up bought from Russia, or designed to use a form of fuel only Russia can produce. On top of that, as Russia has been the one of the few states to actively invest in its nuclear industry, many modern reactor designs used in the West relly on crucial components and services from Russia. As such, the Kremlin has fully embedded itself into our atomic industry like a mould.
Not only that, but Russia’s entire nuclear industry is state-owned. As such, all profits are funneled straight to the Kremlin, and into Russia’s war machine. As such, our nuclear industry is directly fuelling a n illegal invasion and possible genocide of Ukraine and its people.
Obviously, we haven’t just sat back and accepted it, and have taken steps to distance ourselves from Russia’s atomic racket. However, it has backfired. The US limited the import of Russian nuclear fuel, causing many other Western countries to do the same. However, this had the effect of severely restricting supply for a large portion of the nuclear fuel market, causing prices to triple! As such, Russia can now sell its nuclear fuel to non-Western governments like China or India for triple the price and make even more money than before. Meanwhile, our nuclear industry is suffering as the rising costs are squeezing them like never before.
Unsurprisingly, a new report from the World Nuclear Industry Status Report has shown that “Interdependence between Russia and its Western partners remains significant.” They even went as far as to say that “the close mutual industrial and market interdependencies between the Russian nuclear industry and its Western counterparts at least partially explain European hesitations to impose sanctions on the nuclear sector.”
The report highlighted how the EU is still reliant on Russia for 30% of its uranium enrichment and 20% of the US’ uranium enrichment, despite the imposed import limitations.
However, it is one of the first reports to thoroughly expose how dependent we are on Russia’ nuclear components and services. For example, many reactors being built in France are designed to use turbines that only Russia produces. Multiple nuclear control systems used across the Western world are also heavily reliant on Russian components and services. None of this should be that surprising, as Rosatom (Russia’s state-owned Nuclear company) are entirely responsible for all 13 nuclear-power reactor construction sites started outside China over the past five years.
This is starting to look less like a racket and more like a monopoly.
To make matters worse, the report highlighted how exorcising Russia from our atomic industry would likely significantly increase costs.
So, why does all of this matter?
Well, other than the fact it is stopping us from taking decisive action against Russia, its also a situation that is only going to get worse. You see, during COP28, 22 countries, including the UK, the US and Canada, signed a pledge to triple their nuclear capacity. This pledge is crucial to these countries reaching net zero, as these countries have made nuclear a core part of their decarbonisation plans. However, with Russia so integral to the current global nuclear industry, this is only going to make Russia’s grip over us even tighter. As such, it’s like we are blindly walking into a horrific geopolitical trap that will make Putin the most powerful man on Earth.
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Sources: Reuters, Sky, FT, Visual Capitalist, Crux Investor, Will Lockett, Will Lockett