The US is deficient in nearly every aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle and this “must change and it must change quickly” if the country is to end it reliance on Russian fuel for its reactors, the Senate committee on energy and natural resources was told.

The committee’s chairman, the West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin said in his opening address to a hearing on the nuclear fuel cycle that whether it is uranium mining, milling, conversion, enrichment, nuclear fuel fabrication, power generation, or nuclear waste storage and disposal, there is much work to be done, starting with conversion and enrichment.

“Simply put, Russia dominates the global market, representing nearly half of the international capacity for both processes,” he said.