Jan Willem Storm Van Leeuwen - Nuclear Energy Study

Nuclear Energy Study

He is best known for the paper Nuclear power the energy balance that he wrote with Philip Smith (also named Stormsmith studies), where they analyzed the energy payback from the entire nuclear power system. The energy inputs were calculated based on various assumptions and guesses about the technologies used in uranium production, rather than actually measuring them. They concluded that the major parameter determining the energy balance was the grade of the uranium ore, and ore grades lower than 180 ppm do not yield an energy gain when used in the nuclear fuel cycle.

The study was heavily criticized, such as a rebuttal by researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institute. With further criticism from Sevior and Flitney who issued the following statement:

We compared the predicted energy cost ] of Uranium mining and milling for Ranger, Olympic Dam and Rössing to the energy consumption as reported. All are significantly over predicted (5 PJ, 60 PJ and 69 PJ vs 0.8 PJ, 5 PJ and 1 PJ respectively). The energy consumption is predicted to be so large that is comparable to the energy consumption of a particular sub-section of the economy. In the case of Rössing, the over prediction is larger than the energy consumption of the entire country of Namibia.

Storm van Leeuwen noted that :

The method of Sevior and Flitney based on financial data appears to me full of hidden assumptions, bookkeeping problems, statistical pitfalls and uncertainties.

The paper has been used by anti-nuclear organizations to claim that nuclear power is not clean enough to be considered a part of a clean energy mix.