Doubts raised on nuclear industry viability
November 19, 2009 by Lin Edwards
(PhysOrg.com) -- The investment in nuclear power has been growing around the world over the last few years, being viewed as a means for countries to control their energy security, avoid the price fluctuations of other energy sources, and reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, but concerns are now being raised.
A scientist from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology predicts that supplies of uranium are running out and countries relying on imports of uranium may face shortages by 2013, while a New York Times journalist suggests new nuclear power plants are an "abysmal" investment that will never pay for itself without government financial support.
Dr Michael Dittmar, a physicist with CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), said in the fourth and final part of an essay on the world's nuclear industry published this week that civilian stockpiles of uranium could be depleted by as early as 2013.
According to Dittmar civilian and military stockpiles and re-enriched or reprocessed uranium sources contribute 25,000 of the 65,000 tons of uranium used globally each year. The rest is mined directly, but Dittmar claims nobody knows where the mining industry can find enough uranium to make up the shortfall, and disputes the Nuclear Energy Agency's estimates of reserves of Uranium.
Dittmar is unconvinced that fission breeder reactors can provide a solution, saying that their inefficiency, high construction costs and poor safety mean they are unlikely to become commercially viable alternatives. He considers nuclear fusion even less likely to provide the needed energy.
New York Times energy reporter Matthew Wald, writing in Technology Review, said new reactors would be unable to pay for themselves because of the massive cost of construction and competition from emerging alternatives that could affect the energy price. Wald compared the costs per kilowatt of capacity of nuclear ($4,000), coal ($3,000) and natural gas ($800), which makes the nuclear option a big financial gamble. The future cost of fossil fuels is unknown, and could also affect the nuclear industry's viability.
More information:
• Chapter I: Nuclear Fission Energy Today, arxiv.org/abs/0908.0627
• Chapter II: What is known about Secondary Uranium Resources? arxiv.org/abs/0908.3075
• Chapter III: How (un)reliable are the Red Book Uranium Resource Data? arxiv.org/abs/0909.1421
• Chapter IV: Energy from Breeder Reactors and from Fusion? arxiv.org/abs/0911.2628
© 2009 PhysOrg.com
2 hours ago
Really? I am not saying your wrong because I honestly don't know, but I would love to know where you got that information from. Link please?
There won't be a shortage of wind and solar in the next 30K years. Neither for fusion resources.
www DOT world-nuclear DOT org/info/inf75 DOT html
nextbigfuture dot com /2009/11/uranium-to-2020-update dot html
I have taken a close analysis of the uranium countries and companies. UxC consulting is projecting Kazakhstan will increasing their uranium production to about 40,000 tons/year. Kazakhstan will continue its growth until 2015-2017. Kazakhstan is producing about 12,500-13,000 tons in 2009 (9525 tons in the first nine months, 61% more than first nine months of 2008). In 2008, Kazakhstan produced 8521 tons. The Malawi Kayelekera began exporting uranium on Sept, 2009 It will be producing 1269 tons per year.
2009 should have 48,000+ tons of production
2010 should have 54,000+ tons of production
The world is going to over 100,000 tons of uranium per year in a business as usual mode before 2020. More from Kazakhstan than the Redbook projection and less for Canada.
Dittmar offered a bet - 2009 not higher than 45,000 tons and 2010 not higher 47,000 tons for world prod. I accept the bet. It will be more
Remove government control from all energy industries and let the best energy win.
Ask the Indians.
Huge quantities of uranium are recoverable from sea water. Extraction technologies for uranium from sea water are currently in the R&D mode.
http://static.see...nch2.jpg
Within 4 miles of where I live, five wind turbines have been installed during the past ten years, four of them are now just laying on the ground and the one that is still standing looks like it is about to fall, that is not the kind of dependability I would call "hi-tech".
cf. http://www.pbs.or...ill.html
It was designed at Argonne labs, and according to their calculations could in effect give renewable, sustainable energy for more than a hundred years at the USA's current rate, __from_surplus_uranium_and_plutonium already_above_ground_in barrels,_etc.
The things are big, puny, ugly, and they kill bats rather horribly and big seabirds especially, because big birds and sea birds didn't evolve to dodge about in the air.