Why the U.S. is Paying Billions to Russia's Nuclear Program

American companies are paying around $1 billion a year to Russia’s state-owned nuclear agency to buy the fuel that generates more than half of the United States’ emissions-free energy. The United States’ reliance on nuclear power is primed to grow as the country aims to decrease reliance on fossil fuels. But no American-owned company enriches uranium. Roughly a third of enriched uranium used in the United States is now imported from Russia, the world’s cheapest producer. The American Centrifuge Plant in Ohio will be key to producing another, more concentrated form of enriched uranium crucial to the development of smaller, safer and more efficient next-generation reactors.