[ RadSafe ] "Is Nuclear Energy the Solution ?"

[Dan W McCarn]

Lieber Peter:

For an editorial spewing so many "facts", there is not one single reference
to back them.  Hmmmm.  It's almost an embarrassment.

As far as the "front-end" of the nuclear fuel cycle, uranium has yet to
become a stable and predictable commodity.  From 2003-present, there was a
great deal of speculation concerning the price of uranium giving a range of
$40-$145 / lb U3O8.  However, there are two chief components driving price:
1) Availability of inventory; 2) Cost of fresh production. A third minor
component is the down-blending of HEU to LEU and MOX fuel production, but
this is only about 10% of supply and will probably not last that long.  As
long as there is low-cost, excess inventory, new sources of uranium will be
brought on-line in fits and starts depending on the contract-deliverable
price, although the uranium industry is ramping-up for new production!

For over two decades, the overabundance of inventory, mainly held by
governments, controlled price, providing about 50% of the reactor-related
demand. The uncertainty of what is left as available inventory has created
an uncertainty for the mining companies of WHEN fresh production will be
driven by the normal supply-demand economics.  

My guess has always been wrong, but I believe that the excess inventory
should be exhausted by 2015-2020 but the uncertainty fed by wildly differing
opinions and lack of government forthrightness has confused the situation
(at least for me).  But then my original prediction (McCarn, D. and
Mueller-Kahle, E. (1986): Long-Term Uranium Supply-Demand Analysis,
IAEA-TECDOC-395, 91 p., Vienna) was about the year 2000. Note that my
estimate of inventory was a pure "guess" in the above paper, although a
fairly reasonable guess at the time.  Also note that the estimate did not
include Former Soviet Union (FSU) production since the FSU at the time was
not participating in IAEA/NEA Redbook discussions or data.

I believe that a stable price of uranium for the foreseeable future will be
about $75 / lb U3O8 based on what I consider to be the overall cost of
production for a number of planned or newly-started mining facilities.
However, since the "front-end" economics are not that important in the
overall costs of nuclear, the inflationary increases for power from nuclear
will be minimal compared to fossil fuels in which about 1/2 of the
annualized costs are for fuel.

One additional item: assuming a "once-through" fuel cycle, there is enough
uranium in "discovered" conventional deposits to last for probably 50-75
years at which time additional exploration will undoubtedly bring more
"Speculative" and "Estimated Additional" (EAR) resources into the
"discovered" or "Reasonably Assured" (RAR) category.

My opinion only.

Glückauf! 

Dan ii

--
Dan W McCarn, Geologist
2867 A Fuego Sagrado
Santa Fe, NM 87505
+1-505-310-3922 (Mobile – New Mexico)
HotGreenChile at gmail.com (Private email)

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Bossew
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2010 10:28
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: [ RadSafe ] "Is Nuclear Energy the Solution ?"

Editorial, Water Air Soil Pollution, 208, 1-4, 2010
M. Saier and J. Trevors: Is Nuclear Energy the Solution ?

www.springerlink.com/content/yr0548j054320377/      (open access)


Comments ?

In particular I would be interested in (qualified !) comments on the
economic arguments.


Peter Bossew

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