The legacy of uranium begins with the terrible power that ended World War II and poisoned the Navajo Nation. Its future promises pollution-free, endless energy.

The development of the nuclear bombs that destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and compelled Japan to surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, began in 1939 when physicists Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning of Nazi Germany’s potential development of nuclear weapons and urging the U.S. to begin similar efforts.

The U.S. government began exploring uranium deposits in 1942 on the Colorado Plateau. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert, the U.S. successfully detonated a nuclear bomb at the Trinity site on the White Sands Missile Range about 35 miles southeast of Socorro and 120 miles south of Albuquerque.

By 1980, hundreds of mines were opened on the Navajo Nation to supply military and civilian needs for the tremendous amount of energy stored in the yellow mineral. But negligence and callous disregard for the Navajo people left a legacy of pollution, disease and death that endures to this day.

Today, the need for domestic uranium supplies to fuel the 94 operating nuclear power reactors in the U.S. and to supply the expected expansion of nuclear power to serve America’s growing clean energy needs is acute.

Russia’s war with Ukraine complicates the geopolitics of international uranium mining in Eastern Europe and threatens shipping corridors for uranium from two significant sources: Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.