Uranium and Supply

[Racoon]

Looking into Uranium, most current articles and periodicals deal with Iran's enrichment program, yellow-cake, blah, blah, blah...

 

But if Nuclear Power is and will be a viable option in the future, what about its Supply? you can re-use spent fuel, but the wait time is something like 40 years...

 

Won't we run out of Uranium for nuclear reactors like we'll eventually run out of fossil fuels??

Theres also some interesting info I learned in another article, if I can find it, and it stated the cost of Uranium has Quadrupled since 2003. :hihi:

 

So here are some interesting statistics about Uranium I found:

 

* The global nuclear industry requires approximately 68,000 tonnes of uranium ore a year to operate.

 

* Approximately 36,000 tonnes of uranium a year is manufactured from 'primary sources' (mining).

 

* Nearly half of all uranium supply is now provided from military sources (decommissioned weapons stocks and reserves) as well as spent fuel recycling.

 

* The European Commission estimates that there may be only 2-3 million tonnes of exploitable uranium sources globally.

 

* At current projections of nuclear capacity, uranium mining operations will need to increase output by 100% within 10-20 years to meet demand.

 

* It is estimated that global exploitable reserves of uranium will likely be depleted within 30-40 years.

 

* If all the world's existing fossil fuel based power stations were replaced by nuclear, there would only be enough uranium for 3-4 years.

[Racoon]

OK here it is, edited for brevity: :hihi:

 

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 Asia Pulse Pty Ltd MELBOURNE, May 9 Asia Pulse - Uranium demand is expected to grow further as India and China emerge as potential yellowcake buyers, an Australian uranium exploration and development company has said.

 

"The uranium market will continue to experience strong growth as the demand from existing nuclear power plants is supplemented by the emergence of India and China into the world uranium market as potentially significant buyers," said Paladin Resources Ltd.

 

Last year's global production rose by five per cent to 108.4 million pounds while total uranium requirements was greater at 168 million pounds.

 

The price of uranium has quadrupled since mid-2003, Paladin said, with many existing mines already at capacity. The US $148 million Langer Heinrich mine was on budget and on schedule for a September start up, the company said.

 

The Langer Heinrich project hosts total resources of 40 million tonnes grading 0.06 per cent uranium, for 23,800 tonnes of uranium.

[TheBigDog]

Excellent thread Racoon!

 

I saw a really great documentary several years ago about nuclear power. They had file footage from the testing that was done back in the 40's and 50's where reactors were actually run to failure to get imperical safety limits devised. One of the interesting things they showed was a type of reactor that used weapon's grade plutonium as the fuel. They had the ability to use some reclamation process (molten salt rings a bell?) that allowed them to recover over 99% of the mass of the spent plutonium and recover it to proces again. Essentially only that mass which had been converted to energy was lost. By using this process there is no waste product other than heat and radiation that needs to be controlled. And a fairly small amount of fuel could be used until it had simply disappeared. The crux was that the congress had outlawed this type of reactor because of security concerns since they didn't want private companies to have weapon's grade plutonium unless they were using it to build bombs. With options like this available, but not used simply for political reasons, it appears that the amount of energy available from atomic power is even greater than we consider at this point. I would be willing to bet that as radioactive as our spent fuel is, we could find a way to safely purify the plutonium out of it, and power such reactors for a good long time. Not forever. But long enough to allow the development of the yet undiscovered power sources.

 

I have tried researching this recently and have come up blank. Has anyone ever heard of what I am yammering about?

 

Bill

[Jay-qu]

No sorry bigdog.. I did some calcs on this earlier in the year, and yeah there is a lot there, but not enough to run the planet off for long - at best it will buy us some time to come up with re-newable sources. One improvement would be to use better reactor designs like the PBMR that will utilise the fuel better.

[InfiniteNow]

Further, if we were to rely more on nuclear, the incentive to increase efficiency would decrease. It would actually SLOW down progress on better energy sources. I am trying to paraphrase here what I heard last night on NPR on the way home from work. I might be way off...

[ronthepon]

This is a very interesting topic.

 

And very serious implications.

 

However, limit is a problem with all energy sources. (yes, all.)

[Mercedes Benzene]

I honestly do not think that the supply of Uranium is a problem...

 

Vast (and when I say vast, I mean HUGE) supplies of untapped uranium deposits exist in many places all over the earth...

particularly in: Canada, Australia, central-southern Africa, and Kazakhstan.

Also, it is one of the more common elements that exist in the Earth's crust.

[Racoon]

I honestly do not think that the supply of Uranium is a problem...

 

Vast (and when I say vast, I mean HUGE) supplies of untapped uranium deposits exist in many places all over the earth...

 

Oh?

Well it seems Russia and the United States share concern over Uranium supply and its costs. :Whistle:

Not to mention the hungry and eager consumers of India and China....

 

M2 Presswire, Jan 4, 2006 pNA

New crisis for U.S. utilities: uranium supply crunch coming.

 

SARASOTA, Fla. - Research analyst Kevin Bambrough for North America's top-ranked money management firm, Sprott Asset Management, predicts a major crisis ahead for U.S. utilities hoping to obtain fuel for their nuclear reactors, especially for those proposing new reactors. "The supply is just not there," warned Bambrough in a recently published interview appearing in StockInterview.com. "For people who want to bring on new facilities and contract for it (uranium), it's very difficult to do that." Bambrough advised utilities, "You have to go to mines that are not even there yet in order to try and contract supply."

 

Bambrough warns of a supply deficit peaking in 2015 that might hypothetically drive uranium prices to an "unsustainable" high "north of $500/pound." The U.S. EIA projects, during Bambrough's timeframe, 67% of the nuclear fuel required to power the 103 U.S. nuclear facilities has not yet been contracted.

 

AND

 

COPYRIGHT 2005 Info-Prod (Middle East) Ltd. Russian Academy of Sciences member Vasilii Velichkin told the State Duma on 17 March that Russia's explored uranium deposits could be exhausted by 2012, ITAR-TASS reported. He said that it will only be possible to meet the demands of Russia's nuclear-power industry if production is increased by 40 percent by 2010 and by 240 percent by 2020. Following Velichkin's testimony, the Duma adopted a nonbinding resolution calling on the government to "urgently examine the question of priority funding for work to develop further Russia's uranium resources."