Uranium Depletion - Possible Effects and Consequences

Possible Effects and Consequences

As uranium production declines, uranium prices would be expected to increase. However, the price of uranium makes up only 9% of the cost of running a nuclear power plant, much lower than the cost of coal in a coal-fired power plant (77%), or the cost of natural gas in a gas-fired power plant (93%).

Uranium is different from conventional energy resources, such as oil and coal, in several key aspects. Those differences limit the effects of short-term uranium shortages, but most have no bearing on the eventual depletion. Some key features are:

• The uranium market is diverse, and no country has a monopoly influence on its prices.
• Thanks to the extremely high energy density of uranium, stockpiling of several years' worth of fuel is feasible.
• Significant secondary supplies of already mined uranium exist, including decommissioned nuclear weapons, depleted uranium tails suitable for reenrichment, and existing stockpiles.
• Vast amounts of uranium, roughly 800 times the known reserves of mined uranium, are contained in extremely dilute concentrations in seawater.
• Introduction of fast neutron reactors, combined with seawater uranium extraction, would make the uranium supply virtually inexhaustible. There are currently seven experimental fast neutron reactors running globally, in India, Japan, Russia and China.

Fast neutron reactors (breeder reactors) could utilize large amounts of Uranium-238 indirectly by conversion to Plutonium-239, rather than fissioning primarily just Uranium-235 (which is 0.7% of original mined uranium), for approximately a factor of 100 increase in uranium usage efficiency. Intermediate between conventional estimates of reserves and the 40 trillion tons total of uranium in Earth's crust (trace concentrations adding up over its 3 * 1019 ton mass), there are ores of lower grade than otherwise practical but of still higher concentration than the average rock. Accordingly, resource figures depend on economic and technological assumptions.