Putin: There is not much time left before the end of uranium reserves. Russia is ready

Uranium reserves may run out in 35 years. However, Russia will be ready for this, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the Global Atomic Forum.

"The most important issue is the resource provision of nuclear power plants for decades to come. In order to use the peaceful atom in the long term, fundamentally new, more efficient technologies are needed, and Russia is already working on creating such solutions," the president said.

According to him, before the speech, he discussed with colleagues that, according to OECD estimates, all uranium resources in an optimistic scenario will be completely exhausted by 2090.

"That's about eight million tons. However, in fact, this may happen as early as the 2060s. That is, it's all very fast, all this can happen before our eyes," Vladimir Putin said.

In this situation, Russia will be ready for this. Already in 2030 in Tomsk region plans to launch the world's first nuclear power system with a closed fuel cycle, the president continued.

"What does that mean? This is in the full sense a revolutionary development of domestic scientists and engineers. What does this mean? This means that almost the entire volume — 95 percent of spent fuel — will be reused repeatedly in reactors. Such a mechanism will make it possible in the future to almost completely solve the problem of accumulation of radioactive waste and, what is also extremely important, to essentially remove the issue of uranium security," Vladimir Putin said.

As EADaily reported with reference to Rosatom, in December 2024, fuel assemblies with SNOOP and MOX fuel were manufactured at the Siberian Chemical Plant in Seversk. And this year it was reported that the construction of facilities for its conveyor production begins.

In April of this year, the Russian regulator issued a license for the construction of a power unit with a BN-1200M reactor at the Beloyarsk NPP. It is considered more durable, efficient and, most importantly, can use MOX fuel, which consists of waste and allows you to create a closed nuclear fuel cycle.

"MOX fuel is called the fuel of the future, because the implementation of a closed nuclear fuel cycle on an industrial scale will allow to increase the fuel base of Russia's nuclear power industry tenfold and reduce the generation of radioactive waste," said Ivan Sidorov, director of the Beloyarsk NPP.