Fuelling fears

A uranium shortage could derail plans to go nuclear to cut carbon emissions

THERE is an awesome amount of energy tied up in an atom of uranium. Because of that, projections of the price of nuclear power tend to focus on the cost of building the plant rather than that of fuelling it. But proponents of nuclear energy—who argue, correctly, that such plants emit little carbon dioxide—would do well to remember that, like coal and oil, uranium is a finite resource.

Some 60% of the 66,500 tonnes of uranium needed to fuel the world’s existing nuclear power plants is dug fresh from the ground each year. The remaining 40% comes from so-called secondary sources, in the form of recycled fuel or redundant nuclear warheads. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is a United Nations body, and the Nuclear Energy Agency, which was formed by the rich countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, both reckon that, at present rates, these secondary sources will be exhausted within the next decade or so.

Once every two years the two agencies publish what is considered the best estimate of global uranium stocks, “Uranium: Resources, Production and Demand”, colloquially known as the Red Book. It estimates that there is enough unmined uranium to supply today’s nuclear power stations for at least 85 years for less than $130 per kilogram. But Michael Dittmar, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, thinks they are mistaken. He has studied the uranium supply and argues, in a recent series of papers, that shortages will drive the nuclear renaissance to an untimely end.

Read more . . .

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Tags: atomic energy agency, finite resource, international atomic energy, international atomic energy agency, michael dittmar, nuclear energy agency, nuclear fuel shortage, nuclear power plants, nuclear power stations, nuclear warheads, swiss federal institute of technology, uranium resources, uranium stocks, uranium supply

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 2:38 pm and is filed under Consider This, Dire Warnings, Economist, Project Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.