Uranium: The new 'foreign oil'
Shocking report from the Department of Energy might dampen enthusiasm for the nuclear industry. The U.S. now imports close to 60% of its uranium, and prices are skyrocketing.
Photo: U.S. Department of Energy - uranium imports have risen from 5 percent to about 60 percent while domestic production has tanked.
- domestic inventories have also dropped to an all-time low.
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Comments
As other posters have stated, the cost of uranium is only a small part of the total operating costs. Suggesting the price increase is equivalent to oil rising to $200 is very misleading. Canada and Australia are the largest producers, hardly unstable or unfriendly countries. I wish the debate around nuclear power was more rational.
The cost of uranium ore is only a small fraction of the total cost of nuclear fuel. And nuclear fuel is only a small fraction of the total cost of nuclear electricity. Increasing uranium prices may eventually make the reprocessing of spent fuel for plutonium and uranium more viable along with the extraction of uranium from natural sea water. There's enough uranium in seawater to supply electricity, synfuels and industrial chemicals for the entire planet for several thousand years.
Uranium is in just about every country on Earth
However, only about 10 countries have cheap uranium
The OPEC of Uranium would include Australia, Canada Kazakstan
So some very stable friendly countries there e.g Aus has 40% of the worlds reserves
Also the U fuel is a very small cost of the energy output cost
U could triple in price and the cost of the output electricity would barely budge
Therefore this supply issue is a non-issue
If not having any storage for radioactive waste with a 500,000 year half-life isnt enough, now maybe people will fall out of love with nuclear power!
What we need in this Country is a lot less shortsighted people. We need to develop our Domestic resources for Uranium( In situ, Open pit or Underground). If we are able to balance the price and maintain at $70 to $90 then we can resolve our energy needs as well as provide jobs. Much the way Natural Gas needs to take over to reduce our dependence on Foreign Oil. Come on politician's in Washington, Use a little Common Sense and Wake up. If these ideas are developed then we won't be Dependent on.... More
The augment that we dont have enough uranium in the US to supply our reactors is completely bogus. I am a certified geologist and was a uranium exploration geologist in the 1980's. I found several million pounds of uranium reserves in Texas that is still there un mined, and there is a huge uranium deposit in Virginia unmined and millions on pounds in New Mexico, but... this is the biggie, you cannot get a mine permitted w/o extreme difficulty here in the states and Virginia signed a law.... More
Of course we are going to be reliant on foreign materials when we "dump" materials on the market, eroding price, making it unprofitable for companies to mine for profit.
On top of that, fear mongering over past practices, which operated without regard for health and safety of workers and the community, have made it near impossible to develop new projects.
Our government better get with the program, or else you will see Uranium prices sky rocket with long term prices mirroring.... More
Southern Virginia is home to the largest undeveloped uranium deposit in North America. The state is one of only four to ban uranium mining. The National Academy of Science will begin a study of uranium mining in Virginia this fall. Follow the issue at www.virginiaenergy.org.
The nuclear fuel of the future is thorium. All but inexhaustible, antiproliferative properties, non-pressurized passively safe reactor designs, low waste of short half-life, can dispose of existing waste AND weapons grade uranium and plutonium.
No energy source is perfectly safe, but thorium appears to much superior to uranium and plutonium. Look it up.
