The latest reopening was Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC), which announced on Aug. 13 it has resumed production at its Christensen Ranch in-situ recovery operation in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, with plans to begin shipping yellowcake—milled uranium oxide—from its nearby Irigaray Central Processing Plant by December.

Noting that 94 nuclear reactors operating in 55 power plants currently generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity, UEC president and CEO Amir Adnani said the reopened mine and processing mill is an investment in reinvigorating a domestic industry that is vital to economic stability and national security.

"U.S. production has been virtually non-existent for many years, suffering from price insensitive imports via foreign state-owned enterprises that undermined domestic mining and investment," he said, citing the bill and other actions as keys in reestablishing "the foundation of a robust nuclear fuel supply chain" in the United States.

The bill was adopted by the House in a 365–36 February vote and formally went into effect on Aug. 11. It is designed to usher in "a nuclear renaissance" with trimmed regulations, streamlined permitting timelines, and $2.7 billion in incentives and tax credits to expand domestic uranium enrichment capacity.

The Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act was followed by the creation of a federal Nuclear Power Project Management and Delivery working group in May and the adoption of The ADVANCE Act in June, which is geared to tripling domestic nuclear power production by 2050 with billions more in incentives and tax credits to promote evolving technologies such as small modular reactors.

None of this is possible without the mining and processing of uranium—an industry dominated for decades by Russia and Kazakhstan, a former Soviet Union state closely aligned with the Russian Federation.