The U.S. is paying billions to Russia’s nuclear agency. Here’s why.

The Naughton coal plant, outside Kemmerer, Wyo., on May 3, 2023, which is set to be decommissioned in 2025. American nuclear power plants rely on cheap Russian-enriched uranium, which utilities keep buying despite the war in Ukraine. An unusual factory in Ohio could fix that. (Kim Raff/The New York Times) A mural in Piketon, Ohio on May 3, 2023, celebrates Piketon's gaseous diffusion plant, long ago shuttered, and its role in the local economy. American nuclear power plants rely on cheap Russian-enriched uranium, which utilities keep buying despite the war in Ukraine. An unusual factory in Ohio could fix that. (Brian Kaiser/The New York Times) Inside the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, on May 3, 2023, where thousands more centrifuges might someday be installed. American nuclear power plants rely on cheap Russian-enriched uranium, which utilities keep buying despite the war in Ukraine. An unusual factory in Ohio could fix that. [Brian Kaiser/The New York Times]

In a cavernous, Pentagon-sized facility nestled in an Appalachian valley, thousands upon thousands of empty holes line the bare concrete floor.

A mere 16 of them house the spindly, 30-foot-tall centrifuges that enrich uranium, converting it into the key ingredient that fuels nuclear power plants. And for now, they are dormant.

But if each hole housed a working centrifuge, the facility could get the United States out of a predicament that has implications for both the war in Ukraine and for America's transition away from burning fossil fuels. Today, U.S. 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.

It is one of the most significant remaining flows of money from the United States to Russia, and it continues despite strenuous efforts...

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