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| Fig. 1.Front end nuclear fuel cost per kilowatt-hour of U.S. nuclear electricity in 2024. Uranium purchases contribute 0.377 cents/kWh. Reported expenditures on enrichment services contribute 0.187 cents/kWh, for a combined accounting estimate of 0.564 cents/kWh. [1,2] Because the sources do not fully explain how reported enrichment-service expenditures map onto physical enrichment effort, the enrichment component should be interpreted cautiously. (Image source: P. Flanagan.) |
Nuclear power is often discussed as an expensive source of electricity, with debate typically focused on construction cost, regulatory delay, and decommissioning liability. Far less attention is paid to the cost of the nuclear fuel itself. This omission is striking given how central fuel price volatility is to fossil-based electricity generation.
This report asks a quantitative question: what is the cost of uranium fuel, measured in dollars, per kilowatt-hour of nuclear electricity generated in the United States? The uranium component can be obtained through direct accounting by dividing the total cost of uranium purchased by U.S. nuclear utilities by the total amount of nuclear electricity those utilities generated. Reported expenditures on enrichment services are also examined to estimate a broader front-end fuel accounting cost. Because the underlying source does not fully explain how reported enrichment-service expenditures correspond to physical enrichment effort, that component is interpreted cautiously. [1,2]
All data used in this report are drawn from non-volatile U.S. government publications released in PDF form. U.S. nuclear electricity generation is taken from the Electric Power Annual, published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which reports total annual nuclear generation for the United States in terawatt-hours. [1,3]
Uranium purchase quantities and prices are taken from the Uranium Marketing Annual Report, also published by the EIA, which documents total uranium deliveries to U.S. nuclear utilities and the weighted-average price paid per pound of U₃O₈ equivalent. [2]
The calculation proceeds as follows:
Extract total U.S. nuclear electricity generation for a given year, measured in kilowatt-hours. [1]
Extract total uranium deliveries to U.S. utilities for the same year, measured in pounds of U₃O₈ equivalent, along with the weighted-average purchase price. [2]
Extract total enrichment services purchased for the same year, measured in separative work units (SWU), along with the average price paid per SWU. [2]
Compute total uranium purchase cost and total enrichment service cost from the published quantities and weighted-average prices. [2]
Divide the combined front-end fuel cost (uranium purchases plus enrichment services) by total nuclear electricity generated to obtain a fuel cost per kilowatt-hour. [1,2]
This method deliberately avoids secondary estimates or industry summaries. All quantities are published directly by the U.S. government and are independently verifiable. However, the interpretation of the enrichment-service expenditure data is less secure than the uranium purchase data because the source reports expenditures but does not fully explain their relationship to physical enrichment effort. Accordingly, the uranium result is treated as the most robust result, while the enrichment component is interpreted more cautiously. [1,2]
In 2024, U.S. nuclear generators produced 781,865 million kilowatt-hours of electricity (7.81865 × 1011 kWh). [1] In the same year, U.S. nuclear owners and operators purchased 55,921 thousand pounds of uranium deliveries. (5.5921 × 107 lb) expressed as U3O8 equivalent at a weighted-average price of $52.71 per pound. [2] The total uranium fuel purchase cost is therefore:
| Uranium purchase cost | = | 5.59 × 107 lb × $52.71 lb-1 | = | $2.95 × 109 |
Dividing by total nuclear generation gives a uranium-only cost contribution of
| Uranium cost per kWh | = | $2.95 × 109 7.82 × 1011 kWh |
= | $3.77 × 10−3 kWh-1 | = | 0.377 cents/kWh |
Because reactor fuel is enriched uranium rather than natural uranium feed, it is also useful to include the cost of enrichment services. In 2024, owners and operators purchased 15 million separative work units (SWU) of enrichment services at an average price of $97.66 per SWU. [2] This implies
| Enrichment purchase cost | = | 1.5 × 107 SWU × $97.66 SWU-1 | = | $1.46 × 109 |
| Enrichment cost per kWh | = | $1.46 × 109 7.82 × 1011 kWh |
= | $1.87 × 10-3 kWh-1 | = | 0.187 cents/kWh |
If uranium purchases and the reported enrichment-service expenditures are added together, the result is a front-end fuel accounting estimate of approximately 5.64 10−3 $/kWh, or 0.564 cents/kWh. [2] Because the source does not fully explain how the reported enrichment-service expenditures correspond to physical enrichment effort, this combined value should be interpreted cautiously.
The calculated uranium-only fuel cost contribution is small in absolute terms at about 0.377 cents/kWh in 2024. [1,2] If the reported enrichment-service expenditures are included at face value, the corresponding front-end fuel accounting estimate rises to about 0.564 cents/kWh. [1,2] Even under this broader accounting, the contribution remains less than one cent per kilowatt-hour.
This helps explain why uranium price volatility has limited direct impact on nuclear electricity prices. Unlike fossil-fuel plants, where fuel costs dominate operating expenses, nuclear plants are primarily capital- and operations-driven. Once a reactor is built and licensed, the marginal cost of uranium fuel is comparatively minor. [2]
The result places nuclear energy in a distinct category among large-scale power sources. While uranium is an energy-dense fuel, its economic contribution to electricity cost is not proportional to its physical importance in sustaining the nuclear reaction. Most of the cost of nuclear electricity lies outside the fuel itself. This front-end fuel estimate includes uranium purchases and enrichment services but does not include conversion, fuel fabrication, or long-term spent-fuel management and disposal costs, which are treated separately in nuclear accounting.[1,2]
This analysis does not argue that nuclear power is inexpensive overall, nor does it address construction risk, financing structure, or regulatory overhead. Instead, it isolates a single physical and economic component and quantifies it cleanly using primary data. [1,2]
By confronting the numbers directly, it becomes clear that uranium scarcity or uranium price fluctuations are unlikely to materially affect nuclear electricity costs in the near term. Any meaningful change in nuclear power economics must therefore arise from non-fuel factors. [2,3] This distinction is often lost in public discussions of nuclear energy. Quantitative accounting restores scale and helps separate physical constraints from institutional ones.
Using publicly available U.S. government data, the cost of uranium fuel per kilowatt-hour of nuclear electricity in the United States can be computed directly and transparently. The result is small relative to total electricity prices, highlighting the limited role fuel costs play in nuclear power economics. [1,2]
This simple calculation demonstrates the value of number-first analysis. By starting with an incisive quantitative question and allowing the data to speak, a clearer picture of nuclear energy emerges without reliance on rhetoric or assumption.
© Patrick Flanagan. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] "Electric Power Annual 2024," U.S. Energy Information Administration, October 2025.
[2] "2024 Uranium Marketing Annual Report," U.S. Energy Information Administration, September 2025.
[3] "Monthly Energy Review, November 2024," U.S. Energy Information Administration, DOE/EIA-0035(2024/11), November 2024, Section 8.