On MIT's Uranium Study

Yesterday, MIT released a study that the Globe and Mail described this way:

Growing global competition for scarce enriched uranium threatens to derail a much-heralded nuclear renaissance in the United States and around the world, says an industry researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In a report released yesterday, MIT researcher Thomas Neff said there has been 20 years of under-investment in uranium production and enrichment, resulting in a tightening of supply that has driven prices up eightfold.

The shortfall leaves a gap between the potential increase in demand for nuclear energy -- which is particularly strong in Asia -- and the ability to supply fuel for it.

"There has been a nuclear-industry myopia; they didn't take a long-term view," Mr. Neff said in his report.

Others have since picked up the story. This is an issue we've looked at before, so I though I'd check in with Felix Killar, one of our internal experts on the nuclear fuel cycle.

The following graph [above] was produced by IAEA. It is based on international data which provides the ability of uranium to meet the demand between now and 2050. It assumes that the production of electricity from nuclear power plants will triple by 2050 from today. Reasonably Assured Reserves is the uranium which has already been identified as being recoverable at reasonable costs. The Inferred Reserves are quantities of uranium which the industry has good data to support its existence, however, the data is not sufficient to put the reserves in the Reasonably Assured list. Note this table was generated prior to the price the industry is experiencing today on the uranium spot market.

In short we do not have a uranium problem. The industry does have a tight uranium market because uranium mining was in the decline due to low uranium prices and inventory liquidations. This was enhanced by the lost of 8 million pounds of annual production from Cigar Lake has been deferred for a time period due to the cave in at that mine. The industry is also short about 4 million pounds of uranium from the Ranger mine due to rains which stopped production and will require time to return the mine to full production.

Don’t equate tight market conditions to an inability to have sufficient uranium to meet demand.

Thanks to Felix for answering so promptly. NIOF has more.

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog