Uranium supplies are likely to be adequate until 2020
Posted by Engineer-Poet on December 1, 2009 - 10:25am
This is a guest post by Brian Wang, known as advancednano on The Oil Drum. He is an MBA and editor of nextbigfuture.com.
Michael Dittmar recently wrote a series of posts about nuclear energy that was published on The Oil Drum. In the first post of the series, he said that uranium "civilian uranium stocks are expected to be exhausted during the next few years" and "the current uranium supply situation is unsustainable".
It seems to me that this view is much too pessimistic, especially if prices rise from current levels. In this post, I will explain why. I will also talk about a bet with Dr. Dittmar regarding future production of nuclear electricity.
In support of my view of growing uranium production, below is a graph shown on the Ux Consulting website regarding future production. Ux Consulting describes itself as "The industry's leading source of consulting, data services, and publications on the uranium, conversion, and enrichments markets."
Forecast of future uranium production by Ux Consulting
Based on this graph, Ux Consulting expects uranium production to grow rapidly between now and 2020, with especially large gains in Kazakhstan, Africa and Canada.
Michael Dittmar recently wrote a series of posts about nuclear energy that was published on The Oil Drum. In the first post of the series, he said that uranium "civilian uranium stocks are expected to be exhausted during the next few years" and "the current uranium supply situation is unsustainable".
It seems to me that this view is much too pessimistic, especially if prices rise from current levels. In this post, I will explain why. I will also talk about a bet with Dr. Dittmar regarding future production of nuclear electricity.
In support of my view of growing uranium production, below is a graph shown on the Ux Consulting website regarding future production. Ux Consulting describes itself as "The industry's leading source of consulting, data services, and publications on the uranium, conversion, and enrichments markets."
Based on this graph, Ux Consulting expects uranium production to grow rapidly between now and 2020, with especially large gains in Kazakhstan, Africa and Canada.
The following is my summary of indications suggesting that uranium production is likely to rise significantly in the near future. Please note that the Ux Consulting chart uses million pounds U3O8; most of the other numbers are in metric tons of uranium. Historical data is given is a chart at the end of this post, in metric tons. To convert from million pounds of U308 to metric tons of uranium, multiply by 384.6.
Ux Consulting is forecasting that Kazakhstan will increase its production to 40,000 tons a year by 2020--in other words to nearly as much as current world production of uranium.
There is evidence that a rapid ramp up in production in Kazakhstan is already taking place. In 2008, Kazakhstan produced 8521 tons. In the first 9 months of 2009, Kazakhstan produced 9535 tons, which is 61% more than the corresponding period for 2008. Kazakhstan is expected to continue its growth through 2017, before plateauing at 40,000 tons a year (eyeballed from Figure 1).
Canada's production does look to be back up from 2008. Cameco (which produces most of Canada's uranium) production at the end of the third quarter of 2009 was 9.3 million pounds U3O8 compared to 8.5 million pounds over the same period in 2008. We continue to expect our share of production to be 13.1 million pounds in 2009. The first 9 months are up 2700 tons of Uranium. Canada should be up 3000 tons from 2008.
Canada has had some delays because of water flooding problems at the Cigar Lake mine. Also, the Midwest mine in Saskatchewan has been shelved until uranium prices are higher. Currently uranium is at $45/pound.
Another attempt is being made to dewater the Cigar Lake mine:
The Olympic dam mine in Australia is expected to be expanded. A decision will be made by the Australian government by July 2010.
There was an accident at the Olympic dam mine, but production is expected to be fully restored by the third quarter of 2010.
In my analysis in September 2008 of expected future Uranium supplies, I showed two projects with over 1,000 tons or more of production planned for 2009. Both of these new large 2009 projects were in Africa.
One of these planned projects was Namibia's Valencia mine, expected to produce 1,000 tU/year. It is now expected to open in 2010, which is a delay from 2009. One of the issues in this and other delayed projects is the low price of uranium--now $45 ton.
The other large project listed in my September 2008 post for 2009 was the Malawi Kayelekera project. It began exporting uranium in Sept, 2009. It is expected to produce 1,269 tons per year initially. By calendar year 2012, production is expected to increase by 15%, with minimal capital investment, because it can utilize existing excess capacity.
In total (including Kayelekera previously mentioned), Paladin's production from all its African mines is expected to amount to 5.6 Mlb U3O8 (equivalent to 2,153 tons uranium) to 6.1 Mlb U3O8 (equivalent to 2,346 tons uranium) this year. It forecasts African production of 13.8 Mlb U308 (equivalent to 5,307 tons uranium) by mid 2014. This would amount to more than double current production in five years. Planned expenditures for this expansion are US$365 million.
Niger is an area of Africa that appears to be able to ramp up production. It appears to me that Niger is on a path to 10,000 tons per year of uranium production (around 2012-2014), if the price of uranium is high enough. They are finding quality uranium mines in Niger using $5 million per year in exploration spending.
In Niger, Areva is currently building a a big new mine, the Imouraren project, whose production was originally estimated as 5,000 tons. According to Bloomberg, its cost is estimated to be 1.2 billion euros ($1.8 billion), and it is scheduled to come on stream in 2012. The project is already delayed a year because of political turbulence in the country. "We will decide in 2011-2012 whether we should scale it for 2,000 tons or 5,000 tons or even 7,000 tons," Sébastien de Montessus, director of Areva's mining business unit said. The current uranium price (US$ 55 / lb U3O8) wouldn't be enough to make an investment of $500 million to $1.5 billion profitable, De Montessus said. "The market price has to go up to $70 to $80."
According to Extract Resources Limited, the new Rossing resource in Namibia appears to have great potential. An October 7 release reads:
According to a recent article by Mineweb:
More information on Trekkopje can be found in this infomine article. This 2008 Mineweb article has the following to say about Trekkopje:
Energy Resources (Rio Tinto Subsidiary) reported uranium production for the first three quarters of the year was 4,100 tons, up 11% from 2008.
Berkeley Resources is developing uranium production in Spain. According to this Mineweb article:
Jordan is another place where uranium production is likely to expand. According to this article:
Jordan already had a lot of uranium in phosphate deposits. China National Nuclear Corporation General Manager Kang Rixin expects that the first batch of uranium from Jordanian resources will be transported home in 2010; the total quantity probably will be 700 tons. (Caijing Magazine July 5, 2009). It has been expected that the uranium from Jordan phosphate would scale to 2000 tons per year.
In addition, the French giant Areva was expected to start uranium drilling in central Jordan in November to identify the locations of crude uranium, Toukan said in October. Following a feasibility study after exploring, work will begin to usher in a uranium mine with actual production expected to start in 2012 at an annual rate of 2,000 tons, he added.
On uranium in phosphates, he put the deposits at between 100,000 and 140,000 tons.
Wali Kurdi, Chairman and CEO of the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company said earlier in the year that the Jordanian phosphate used in manufacturing phosphoric acid contains about 50 to 100 parts per million (ppm) of uranium that can be extracted via modern technological methods. (Jordan Phosphate Mines Co.)
Russia is also developing new mines, including the Elkon mine and the Gornoe mine. The Elcon mine will have "up to 5,000 tons" per year capacity. Gornoe mine is expected to have 600 tons per year capacity. Construction of Gornoe is slated to begin in 2010.
My view of future production, summarized
This is my view of future production and other sources of future uranium supply:
2009 can be expected to have roughly 50,000 tons of production, compared to 43,764 tons in 2008.
2010 should have 56,000+ tons of production. This includes another 3000 tons from Kazakhstan, Valencia in Namibia, and a full year of Malawi production.
World uranium production can be expected to exceed 100,000 tons of uranium per year in a business as usual mode before 2020. A lot more uranium seems likely to produced than the IAEA/OECD projection for Kazakhstan. The IAEA/OECD forecast for Canada is probably too high until Cigar Lake gets sorted out. It also is likely to depend upon which projects proceed based on uranium prices.
Backstopping regular mining is the large supplies of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) in Russia and the US (75,000 ton surplus at the DOE). Another backstop is the depleted uranium.
Eventually prices will go up and some deferred projects like 2300/t per year Midwest mine in Saskatchwan, Canada and full scale up Imouraren in Niger will occur (smaller scale opening likely).
I also predict that Cigar Lake will be producing 4000 tons per year or more before 2020.
Africa and Kazakhstan will be where most of the new uranium production is added in the years leading to 2020. There will be increases in Canada, Australia, Russia, Jordan and other places as well.
Beyond the highly enriched uranium that Russia is supplying (downblended from decommissioned nuclear bombs or unmade bombs.) The US Department of Energy (DOE) also has 75,000 tons of uranium1. Shortfalls in uranium mining from delays can be made up for by nuclear utilities being willing to pay Russia enough or to make arrangements with the DOE. The million tons of depleted uranium can also be enriched to make several tens of thousand tons of fuel. (More about depleted uranium enrichment is detailed in an upcoming article that has been written with Engineer Poet.)
Bet with Dr. Michael Dittmar regarding future uranium production
Michael Dittmar has been getting some notice around the Internet and here at The Oil Drum about a claim that uranium supplies cannot/will not be increased from uranium mines around the world. In Part 1, Dittmar offers a bet:
I am willing to take those bets as stated. I would win and be correct if the 2009 world uranium mining production numbers come out to 45,001 tons or higher and the 2010 production numbers to 47,001 tons or higher. As indicated, I think 2009 and 2010 can be expected to show much higher production even with some delayed projects and the accident at Olympic Dam.
There is another series of bets with Dittmar already in play, based on a discussion between commenter advancednano and Dittmar in comments to Part 4 his series:
Under the terms of the bet, $20 is to be paid via Paypal to the other person, and a note is to be written and published recognizing that the other person was right in his prediction. (Note: Dittmar apparently is not willing to bet money.) Also I think if there is a near shutout (at least 8 out of 10 years), then there needs to be a public statement that the thesis of the losing side was wrong.
Each year: Loser must say: I lost to___ because _____ was more accurate in predicting nuclear power generation. The winner gets to add 200 words on why they were right that gets included with the loser statement.
The shutout or near shutout situation:
Loser must say: I lost X out of Y to ___ because _____ was more accurate in predicting nuclear power generation. The winner gets to add 1,000 words on why they were right and why they shutout or nearly shutout the loser.
The data to be used in determining this bet are the figures of the World Nuclear Association for the year, compared to the midpoint of the range. The amount of production for each year is expected to be published the following year. If the amount of the production is above the midpoint, Brian Wang is right, and advancednano is right and the winner; below the midpoint Dittmar is right and the winner for that year. The figure is the TWH level of generation of commercial nuclear fission or nuclear fusion.
The bet for 2009 will be close. France's production is down due to labor strikes and outages, plus electricity demand is down for the whole world because of the economy. UK's nuclear is up, and India's nuclear is up. Russia's could be down. Germany's could be down. Japan should be up. US should be up a little. China should be up slightly. For either one of us to win or lose 2009 has minimal larger implications relative to the overall trend. We are basically betting on the last quarter. By 2011-2013 we are starting to move out of the random noise. 2014 is the clear divergence where the actual fundamentals will matter a great deal. This is a link to a comment where advancednano summarizes his view of 2009 nuclear electricity production by country.
1) Details from http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/inventory_plan_unclassified.pdf
The sales or transfers of the Department's excess uranium inventory identified in this Plan that are currently ongoing and/or planned (items 1 and 2, below) or are under consideration or may be considered by DOE in the future (items 3, 4 and 5, below) to accomplish the Plan objectives include:
This is a summary of uranium production in metric tons. (Historical figures through 2008 based on data from the World Nuclear Association. Figures for 2009 and 2010 are the author's estimates based on reported production and capacities; most are explained above.)
Kazakhstan - Already starting to ramp up
Ux Consulting is forecasting that Kazakhstan will increase its production to 40,000 tons a year by 2020--in other words to nearly as much as current world production of uranium.
There is evidence that a rapid ramp up in production in Kazakhstan is already taking place. In 2008, Kazakhstan produced 8521 tons. In the first 9 months of 2009, Kazakhstan produced 9535 tons, which is 61% more than the corresponding period for 2008. Kazakhstan is expected to continue its growth through 2017, before plateauing at 40,000 tons a year (eyeballed from Figure 1).
Canada and Australia - Leading producers historically; Canadian delays now
Canada's production does look to be back up from 2008. Cameco (which produces most of Canada's uranium) production at the end of the third quarter of 2009 was 9.3 million pounds U3O8 compared to 8.5 million pounds over the same period in 2008. We continue to expect our share of production to be 13.1 million pounds in 2009. The first 9 months are up 2700 tons of Uranium. Canada should be up 3000 tons from 2008.
Canada has had some delays because of water flooding problems at the Cigar Lake mine. Also, the Midwest mine in Saskatchewan has been shelved until uranium prices are higher. Currently uranium is at $45/pound.
Another attempt is being made to dewater the Cigar Lake mine:
The inflow on the 420 metre level that forced suspension of dewatering on August 12, 2008 has been remediated by remotely placing an inflatable seal between the shaft and the source of the inflow and subsequently backfilling and sealing the entire development behind the seal with concrete and grout. The 420 level is not part of future mine plans.
It is currently expected to take six to 12 months to dewater and secure the mine depending on what conditions are found in the shaft and the underground workings.
The Olympic dam mine in Australia is expected to be expanded. A decision will be made by the Australian government by July 2010.
There was an accident at the Olympic dam mine, but production is expected to be fully restored by the third quarter of 2010.
Africa - Major ramp up; exploration is inexpensive
In my analysis in September 2008 of expected future Uranium supplies, I showed two projects with over 1,000 tons or more of production planned for 2009. Both of these new large 2009 projects were in Africa.
One of these planned projects was Namibia's Valencia mine, expected to produce 1,000 tU/year. It is now expected to open in 2010, which is a delay from 2009. One of the issues in this and other delayed projects is the low price of uranium--now $45 ton.
The other large project listed in my September 2008 post for 2009 was the Malawi Kayelekera project. It began exporting uranium in Sept, 2009. It is expected to produce 1,269 tons per year initially. By calendar year 2012, production is expected to increase by 15%, with minimal capital investment, because it can utilize existing excess capacity.
In total (including Kayelekera previously mentioned), Paladin's production from all its African mines is expected to amount to 5.6 Mlb U3O8 (equivalent to 2,153 tons uranium) to 6.1 Mlb U3O8 (equivalent to 2,346 tons uranium) this year. It forecasts African production of 13.8 Mlb U308 (equivalent to 5,307 tons uranium) by mid 2014. This would amount to more than double current production in five years. Planned expenditures for this expansion are US$365 million.
Niger is an area of Africa that appears to be able to ramp up production. It appears to me that Niger is on a path to 10,000 tons per year of uranium production (around 2012-2014), if the price of uranium is high enough. They are finding quality uranium mines in Niger using $5 million per year in exploration spending.
In Niger, Areva is currently building a a big new mine, the Imouraren project, whose production was originally estimated as 5,000 tons. According to Bloomberg, its cost is estimated to be 1.2 billion euros ($1.8 billion), and it is scheduled to come on stream in 2012. The project is already delayed a year because of political turbulence in the country. "We will decide in 2011-2012 whether we should scale it for 2,000 tons or 5,000 tons or even 7,000 tons," Sébastien de Montessus, director of Areva's mining business unit said. The current uranium price (US$ 55 / lb U3O8) wouldn't be enough to make an investment of $500 million to $1.5 billion profitable, De Montessus said. "The market price has to go up to $70 to $80."
According to Extract Resources Limited, the new Rossing resource in Namibia appears to have great potential. An October 7 release reads:
We believe a total resource of 500 Mlbs (192,300 tons) is achievable from targets already defined. The Company is now well advanced with the Rossing South Feasibility Study on Zones 1 and 2 and the project is shaping up to be one of the world's largest uranium mines, capable of producing 15 Mlbs of U3O8 per year. (5,769 tons uranium per year)
According to a recent article by Mineweb:
Namibia is mining friendly. Paladin commissioned Langer Heinrich in 2007 on time and on budget, and continues with the process of ramping production to what could amount to 3000 tons of uranium a year, at a cash cost of USD 25/lb, by the second half of 2010. . .
Namibia's more recent potential was startlingly highlighted by the August 2007 purchase by French transnational Areva for USD 2.5bn of Uramin. Trekkopje will be a big mine.
More information on Trekkopje can be found in this infomine article. This 2008 Mineweb article has the following to say about Trekkopje:
But the uranium project could become the biggest in the country, and No. 10 in the world. Leathley said US$920-million would be pumped into the project to bring it into production. It will also be one of the top five low cost, open pit operations in the world.
The company expects the property, which is located about 70 kilometres east of the coastal town of Swakopmund and quite close of Rössing and Langer Heinrich, to produce about 8.5-million pounds of uranium oxide (3,850 tonnes) a year.
Energy Resources (Rio Tinto Subsidiary) reported uranium production for the first three quarters of the year was 4,100 tons, up 11% from 2008.
Other Mines
Berkeley Resources is developing uranium production in Spain. According to this Mineweb article:
Berkeley has 26m pounds of 450 parts per million uranium oxide at its Spanish projects; analysts familiar with the company reckon this resource will potentially triple in 2010 as Berkeley moves onto the Toronto Stock Exchange, and into production at around 1000 tons a year by 2012.
Berkeley's Salamanca project would be the restart of an old mine, one shut down in 2000 by Spanish state company ENUSA following sustained low uranium prices. Relative to other projects with a similar deposit base, Salamanca rates as very low cost on capital expenditure, with operating expenditure likely to be around USD 30/lb.
Jordan is another place where uranium production is likely to expand. According to this article:
High grade uranium was discovered at very shallow depths, at some points no more than five feet, making future mining both cheaper and easier.
Jordan already had a lot of uranium in phosphate deposits. China National Nuclear Corporation General Manager Kang Rixin expects that the first batch of uranium from Jordanian resources will be transported home in 2010; the total quantity probably will be 700 tons. (Caijing Magazine July 5, 2009). It has been expected that the uranium from Jordan phosphate would scale to 2000 tons per year.
In addition, the French giant Areva was expected to start uranium drilling in central Jordan in November to identify the locations of crude uranium, Toukan said in October. Following a feasibility study after exploring, work will begin to usher in a uranium mine with actual production expected to start in 2012 at an annual rate of 2,000 tons, he added.
On uranium in phosphates, he put the deposits at between 100,000 and 140,000 tons.
Wali Kurdi, Chairman and CEO of the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company said earlier in the year that the Jordanian phosphate used in manufacturing phosphoric acid contains about 50 to 100 parts per million (ppm) of uranium that can be extracted via modern technological methods. (Jordan Phosphate Mines Co.)
Russia is also developing new mines, including the Elkon mine and the Gornoe mine. The Elcon mine will have "up to 5,000 tons" per year capacity. Gornoe mine is expected to have 600 tons per year capacity. Construction of Gornoe is slated to begin in 2010.
Predictions, Bets, and Why Even with Mine Delays the Power Plants Will Run All Out
My view of future production, summarized
This is my view of future production and other sources of future uranium supply:
2009 can be expected to have roughly 50,000 tons of production, compared to 43,764 tons in 2008.
2010 should have 56,000+ tons of production. This includes another 3000 tons from Kazakhstan, Valencia in Namibia, and a full year of Malawi production.
World uranium production can be expected to exceed 100,000 tons of uranium per year in a business as usual mode before 2020. A lot more uranium seems likely to produced than the IAEA/OECD projection for Kazakhstan. The IAEA/OECD forecast for Canada is probably too high until Cigar Lake gets sorted out. It also is likely to depend upon which projects proceed based on uranium prices.
Backstopping regular mining is the large supplies of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) in Russia and the US (75,000 ton surplus at the DOE). Another backstop is the depleted uranium.
Eventually prices will go up and some deferred projects like 2300/t per year Midwest mine in Saskatchwan, Canada and full scale up Imouraren in Niger will occur (smaller scale opening likely).
I also predict that Cigar Lake will be producing 4000 tons per year or more before 2020.
Africa and Kazakhstan will be where most of the new uranium production is added in the years leading to 2020. There will be increases in Canada, Australia, Russia, Jordan and other places as well.
Beyond the highly enriched uranium that Russia is supplying (downblended from decommissioned nuclear bombs or unmade bombs.) The US Department of Energy (DOE) also has 75,000 tons of uranium1. Shortfalls in uranium mining from delays can be made up for by nuclear utilities being willing to pay Russia enough or to make arrangements with the DOE. The million tons of depleted uranium can also be enriched to make several tens of thousand tons of fuel. (More about depleted uranium enrichment is detailed in an upcoming article that has been written with Engineer Poet.)
Bet with Dr. Michael Dittmar regarding future uranium production
Michael Dittmar has been getting some notice around the Internet and here at The Oil Drum about a claim that uranium supplies cannot/will not be increased from uranium mines around the world. In Part 1, Dittmar offers a bet:
For those interested, I am offering a bet that the 2009 and 2010 numbers will not be higher than 45,000 tons and 47,000 tons, respectively.
I am willing to take those bets as stated. I would win and be correct if the 2009 world uranium mining production numbers come out to 45,001 tons or higher and the 2010 production numbers to 47,001 tons or higher. As indicated, I think 2009 and 2010 can be expected to show much higher production even with some delayed projects and the accident at Olympic Dam.
There is another series of bets with Dittmar already in play, based on a discussion between commenter advancednano and Dittmar in comments to Part 4 his series:
Under the terms of the bet, $20 is to be paid via Paypal to the other person, and a note is to be written and published recognizing that the other person was right in his prediction. (Note: Dittmar apparently is not willing to bet money.) Also I think if there is a near shutout (at least 8 out of 10 years), then there needs to be a public statement that the thesis of the losing side was wrong.
Each year: Loser must say: I lost to___ because _____ was more accurate in predicting nuclear power generation. The winner gets to add 200 words on why they were right that gets included with the loser statement.
The shutout or near shutout situation:
Loser must say: I lost X out of Y to ___ because _____ was more accurate in predicting nuclear power generation. The winner gets to add 1,000 words on why they were right and why they shutout or nearly shutout the loser.
The data to be used in determining this bet are the figures of the World Nuclear Association for the year, compared to the midpoint of the range. The amount of production for each year is expected to be published the following year. If the amount of the production is above the midpoint, Brian Wang is right, and advancednano is right and the winner; below the midpoint Dittmar is right and the winner for that year. The figure is the TWH level of generation of commercial nuclear fission or nuclear fusion.
The bet for 2009 will be close. France's production is down due to labor strikes and outages, plus electricity demand is down for the whole world because of the economy. UK's nuclear is up, and India's nuclear is up. Russia's could be down. Germany's could be down. Japan should be up. US should be up a little. China should be up slightly. For either one of us to win or lose 2009 has minimal larger implications relative to the overall trend. We are basically betting on the last quarter. By 2011-2013 we are starting to move out of the random noise. 2014 is the clear divergence where the actual fundamentals will matter a great deal. This is a link to a comment where advancednano summarizes his view of 2009 nuclear electricity production by country.
Endnotes
1) Details from http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/inventory_plan_unclassified.pdf
The sales or transfers of the Department's excess uranium inventory identified in this Plan that are currently ongoing and/or planned (items 1 and 2, below) or are under consideration or may be considered by DOE in the future (items 3, 4 and 5, below) to accomplish the Plan objectives include:
- Down-blend 12.1 metric tons of uranium (MTU) of unallocated highly enriched uranium (HEU) to about 220 MTU of LEU of which about 170 MTU could be used for a general or special-purpose DOE LEU inventory.
- Make available for sale up to 4,461 MTU of uranium of various enrichment levels that are stored at the Portsmouth, Ohio, Gaseous Diffusion Plant. This uranium is not within commercial specification (off-spec) or in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6).
- Make available for sale up to 7,700 MTU of natural uranium (NU) (equivalent to 20 million pounds U3O8). This NU could be sold to licensed U.S. nuclear reactor operators for use in initial cores for new reactor build projects over a period of several years starting in 2010.
- Make available as much as 4,647 MTU of NU to be enriched to approximately 500 MTU of LEU (at an enrichment of 4.95% 235U). This LEU could be included in a DOE LEU inventory.
- DOE anticipates that it will engage in the sale of high-assay DUF6 or enter into a contract to re-enrich the DUF6 to natural uranium or LEU to realize the best value for the Government. DOE anticipates that it will also make available for sale any remaining NU. The sale of this material could reduce storage and security costs
Appendix: Historical Uranium Production
This is a summary of uranium production in metric tons. (Historical figures through 2008 based on data from the World Nuclear Association. Figures for 2009 and 2010 are the author's estimates based on reported production and capacities; most are explained above.)
| Country | 2010e | 2009e | 2009 Q1-Q3 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |
| Australia | 9200 | 8,527 | 6,996 | 8430 | 8611 | 7593 | 9516 | 8982 |
| Brazil | 330 | 330 | 248 | 330 | 299 | 190 | 110 | 300 |
| Canada | 11000 | 10,800 | 8,100 | 9000 | 9476 | 9862 | 11628 | 11597 |
| China | 769 | 769 | 577 | 769 | 712 | 750 | 750 | 750 |
| Czech Rep | 263 | 263 | 197 | 263 | 306 | 359 | 408 | 412 |
| France | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 7 |
| Germany | 0 | 0 | 0 | 41 | 65 | 94 | 77 | |
| India | 271 | 271 | 203 | 271 | 270 | 230 | 230 | 230 |
| Jordan | ||||||||
| Kazakhstan | 15800 | 12,713 | 9,535 | 8521 | 6637 | 5279 | 4357 | 3719 |
| Malawi | 1200 | 400 | 100 | |||||
| Namibia | 5600 | 4,400 | 3,275 | 4366 | 2879 | 3077 | 3147 | 3038 |
| Niger | 3300 | 3,032 | 2,274 | 3032 | 3135 | 3434 | 3093 | 3282 |
| Pakistan | 45 | 45 | 34 | 45 | 45 | 45 | 45 | 45 |
| Romania | 77 | 77 | 58 | 77 | 77 | 90 | 90 | 90 |
| Russia | 4000 | 3,521 | 2,641 | 3521 | 3413 | 3400 | 3431 | 3200 |
| Ukraine | 800 | 800 | 600 | 800 | 846 | 800 | 800 | 800 |
| USA | 1600 | 1,430 | 1,073 | 1430 | 1654 | 1692 | 1039 | 878 |
| Uzbekistan | 2600 | 2,338 | 1,754 | 2338 | 2320 | 2270 | 2300 | 2016 |
| TOTAL | 56,860 | 49,722 | 37,666 | 43198 | 40725 | 39136 | 41045 | 39423 |
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What strikes me as important is what a big role price plays in the ability for uranium production to ramp up--and how parallel this is to what is happening with natural gas, and wind, and biofuels, and even oil and coal. If the price is high enough, it seems likely that a lot of things can be available.
The problem as I see it is that the credit unwind affects demand of all kind. It also make obtaining funds for new investment much more difficult. So it becomes harder to follow through on plans for new production.
The forecasts shown I expect are mostly numbers "if prices are high enough". If prices stay where they are, or drop further, production will likely be much lower.
We might add: "If there are sufficient diesel supplies"
Look at the Olympic Dam mine expansion in Australia (uranium, copper). Their diesel requirements will go up 16-fold (in words: SIXTEEN) because they have to remove over-burden for 5 years.
I have summed up some stuff previously shown and discussed on the oildrum, including fmagyar's excellent link to that Dubai tower at night, in my 1st silly season article entitled:
Peak oil in 1001 nights
http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/?p=690
403 million liters/a is 106 million gallons/year, or about 6900 barrels per day. This is less than 0.01% of world consumption.
Of all the demand we can expect to be destroyed by rising prices, that's going to be among the last to go. That is, unless it can be replaced by electricity. If Australia gets a clue, installs a CANDU and electrifies the mine machinery, most of that consumption can just go ~poof~!
Engineer-Poet:
There is no prospect of Australia getting nuclear power any time before 2020 - and by then, the finite nature of the world's uranium reserves will be clear for all to see. Given the ramp-up of nuclear power plant construction now under way, any nuclear power plants built after 2020 won't have time to amortise effectively due to the increasing scarcity of uranium in the latter half of their design lives.
On the other hand, there is a highly prospective geo-thermal power scheme planned for not far away from the Olympic Dam mine. If it gets off the ground, the first stage is planned to be used to supply power to the mine - and I believe it has the support of BHP Billiton, the mine's owner. The irony of this, for advocates of sustainable energy, has been noted.
Finally, while the uranium deposit at Olympic Dam is huge, it is also extremely low grade &, at anywhere near current prices, is only viable because the uranium is a by-product of a much larger copper production. It would be interesting to see an analysis of Olympic Dam (and, in particular, the planned expansion) done on an EROEI basis.
You forget that LWRs can operate on thorium, and Lightbridge is commercializing it.
I agree that light-water reactors are a technology with a limited useful life. However, the actinides in spent LEU fuel can provide the starting fuel charge for fast-spectrum reactors cooled by liquid metal, and the U-233 in spent thorium fuel can do the same for LFTRs. This has the welcome side-effect of turning "nuclear waste" into energy, and the radiotoxicity of the fission products can drop below the raw ore in less than 1000 years. Isolating something for 1000 years is easy; we have books that are older.
All right Engineer!!!!....Thorium!!!!.........Lots and lots and lots and lots of that substance!!!!...Right here on this finite planet!!!...Seeeeeeee Doomers?...We ACTUALLY have a way to make enough electricity for....oh I don't know....Long enough for your children's children's children to grow up....
But here come the wails....We can't build them without OIL!!!....Yes, we can...plenty of methane hydrates and...(if we REALLY want to)...Transportation fuel from algae....(Yes it will be more expensive than oil from Spindletop)...But we can afford the $100/bbl...Gad, I know you guys hate humans and want our population to drop by 97%...but it ain't gonna...(sustainability, ya know).......LOLOL
I've given this thought in the past, and I'm not sure there is a supportable way to untangle the uranium EROEI at Olympic, as the other two metals mined (copper and gold) are purely a $ROEI play. One might examine the energy per ton of copper or gold only mines and subtract that from the Olympic figures, but all things not being equal it would only be a rough approximation.
Still, I'd bet that approximation would show a significant EROEI, but as you say, possibly a loss in the $RO$I at today's uranium prices.
Checking out figures, 100 million gallons/year of diesel is roughly the energy capacity of 2 ethanol plants. In Australia, conversion of bagasse to pyrolysis oil could supply more than enough fuel for the mine. Australia's bagasse availability is 15 million metric tons/year, so at 70% conversion to bio-oil and a density of 1.15 that is about 9 billion liters or the equivalent of about 4.5 billion liters of diesel.
Another side effect of the credit debt unwinding is that China is outbidding on a lot of strategic resources. These might show up in the figures of total world production, but that uranium production won't be available for the rest of the world (the products that they fabricate with the energy do, ofcourse).
Unless the Chinese forcast an impending shortage -or major price spike they have no incentive to hoard. I can see them doing that with strategic resources, such as oil and rare earths, but U fuel is more of a commodity, and it is known that if the price became high enough we could still extract it from seawater.
The incentive is very real and it is to get rid of as much foreign currency reserves as possible , dollars in particular, as they can get rid of without crashing the currency markets.When the inflation hits the price of every commodity will go up even though real estate may continue down.
And if you believe there will not be serious inflation, then you must also believe that Uncle Sam's and the rest of the first world govt's finances are sound.
In which case I got this toll bridge and I'm in a bind for some cash.....;)
Well, *known* is nothing more then a guess, *high enough* means that other energy sources will outcompete nuclear and *seawater* does *poof* to your EROI.
Well, that one would be good news. Hardly a reason to complain around here. But it is still a guess, and that is bad.
With regard the our future energy use and mix it is mostly a guess anyway. If you have certainty about this then I suggest you join the bet. I'm not.
If prices stay where they are, or drop further, production will likely be much lower.
Our primitive pre Model T steroidal submarine reactors need 59 pounds of uranium in order to split 5.4 ounces into fission products thereby producing a lifetime supply [1500 watts for 80 years, 1,000,000 kWh] of electricity. The uranium cost per kWh would be as shown below.
Uranium $/lb__ Cents/kWh
50___________0.28
100__________0.56
200__________1.12
At a sustained price of $200/lb sea water uranium is practical, making the uranium supply effectively unlimited for the foreseeable future.
So the questions are;
If the uranium supply becomes tight why would the price stay the same or drop?
How high would the price have to go to convince utilities to cancel plans for new plants and shutdown existing plants?
What are the well proven technologies that can supply a large fraction of electric power consumption without fossil fuel and at a lower cost than fission? Examples please.
Reactors with a breeding ratio of 1or higher reduce the lifetime uranium requirement to 0.34 pounds or less, reducing the uranium cost/kWh by a factor of more than 100:1. They increase the uranium supply by a factor much greater than 100 because they make much lower ore grades practical, even average rocks are more energetic than coal.
Another parallel that strikes me is that the major consulting organization (Ux Consulting) is putting out very favorable forecasts for the industry as a whole, not unlike CERA for oil and gas. But when you read Ux Consulting's Uranium Market Outlook, you see some serious concerns arising:
One difference between the two outfits is that CERA, AFAIK, has never supported its projections with details as to where all of the new oil will be coming from. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that CERA's optimistic forecasts are grounded in little more than blind faith that "new technology" will allow higher recovery from existing fields.
Of course, Ux consulting could also be blowing smoke about the new mines and mine expansions on which its projections are based. There's still a difference, though, in that the known elemental abundance of uranium implies that we are still very early in the exploration and development cycle for uranium resources, while a century of intense E&D has gone into oil.
There's no evidence that there are vast new oil fields waiting to be found, and 30 years of largely fruitless exploration to suggest that there aren't. OTOH, it would be highly anomolous, based on observed elemental abundance and known geochemical processes for ore concentration, if there weren't substantial undiscovered uranium resources on all continents.
Almost all(97%) the 2009 increase over 2008 is due to Canada 1800mtu, Malawi 400mtu?, and Kazakhstan 4132mtu.
Kazakhstan is consciously aiming to replace Canada as the world's biggest producer this year. Kazakhstan has a 817000 mtu(RAR +IR) at $60 per pound reserve mainly low grade ores, <.5% or 375000 mtu (RAR)at $60 per pound.
World Nuclear says Kazakhstan is predicting 15000mtu for 2010 and 30000mtu in 2018. The reason is it looks like the Japanese and Russians are stockpiling ore and corruption in the Kazakh government.
ANALYSIS: Kazatomprom corruption probe engulfs head, Canada’s Uranium One
http://silkroadintelligencer.com/2009/06/01/kazatomprom-corruption-probe...
Canada and Australian mines are both having production problems at their biggest mines. Cameco expects(fingers crossed) the nuclear building boom (in Asia) will turn boost prices.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2009/11/03/powerful-production-at-...
The price of uranium oxide is low at ~$45 per pound yellow cake off a high of $110 per pound in 2007.
Advanced,
Great demonstration of cherry-picking and hyper-optimism--based on a rise of production in one country despite low prices you predict a world wide increase of 14%.
Funny.
Kazakhstan is where the current growth is coming from. It is like the rise of Russia in oil many years back. It is not cherry picking if that is where the growth is coming from.
I surveyed all of the major producing countries and companies to get the 9 month reports and the projections from the sources for 2010 (and beyond if they had longer range plans).
Major countries: Kazakhstan, Canada, Australia, Namibia, Niger, Russia
A lot of Uranium can come from each of six countries.
Plus there are the years of supply at the DOE and Russia.
Some moderate new sources coming: Jordan, Mongolia
I have also looked at Russia's stated plans and have estimates going further into the future. As Russia was the last of the major current uranium countries.
I think the big mines will happen. The uranium is there and it is just a question of when it is yanked out of the ground based on price and other above ground factors. The uranium mines do not seem to have the depletion rate pattern of oil mines. A lot of mines have gold and/or copper or other metals that help to justify the projects moving ahead.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/nuclear-roundup-russian-uranium.html
Mining of the Elkon uranium deposit in Yakutia is to start in 2010, according to Techsnabexport director general Vladimir Smirnov. Five years later, full production of 5000 t/a is to be attained. Exploration of the deposit is completed, he said. Reserves are sufficient for a 70 year lifetime of the mine. Total resources are estimated at 600,000 t uranium. (RIA Novosti Dec. 13, 2006)
China's Uranium plan - buy uranium mine and uranium mining company interests
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/11/guangdong-nuclear-power-plans-for-more....
There are only about 10-15 countries, 20-30 major or potential major companies, 30-60 major mines, 15-40 major prospects that have to be analyzed to get a very solid understanding of what is and will happen with traditional uranium mining. so it is easy to do the equivalent of the the wikipedia oil megaprojects analysis.
uranium mining summary up to 2008
Top uranium companies in 2008
The largest-producing uranium mines in 2008 were:
Top 10 companies (87%), Top 25 mines (about 85%)
Only about 6-12 major expansions or new mines per year.
Australian companies currently mining uranium
BHP Billiton Ltd — Owners of the world's largest Uranium deposit, and operatores of the world's largest uranium mine at Olympic Dam
Energy Resources Of Australia Ltd — Operators of the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory
Rio Tinto Ltd — Owns 64% of Energy Resources of Australia
Heathgate Resources Pty Ltd — Operators of the Beverley Mine in South Australia
Australian companies with significant uranium potential
Summit Resources Limited - In a joint venture with Valhalla Uranium/Resolute Mining on the Valhalla Deposit
Valhalla Uranium Ltd — Has the Valhalla Uranium project near Mt Isa, with 36 million lbs of uranium oxide
Resolute Mining Ltd - Owns 83.33% of Valhalla Uranium Ltd
EXCO Resources — Copper/Uranium projects near Cloncurry, Queensland
wheeler River - new discovery in Canada. McArthur river mineralization and size 100,000 tons at 20% concentration
Uzbekistan, uranium prospection and/or exploration is being performed by Areva, Navoi Mining and Milling Complex, Uran Ltd , Korea Resources Corporation , Mitsui & Co, Ltd.
Uzbekistan plans to develop seven new uranium deposits to achieve 50% production increase by 2012
I'm glad you have a backup stash of uranium in Yakutia(coldest place in the Northern Hemisphere).
Google says Elkon has a resource of 200000 mt of high cost, low grade uranium .1 to .15%. If prices remain low how will you manage to extract 18000 tons per year?
http://tiny.cc/MR31x
Prices will not remain low. I expect prices to head up 2011-2014. Elkon has gold and other metals. they will mine out more than just the uranium.
15 page pdf on Elkon, development plan from 2013-2025 (see page 4), 319,000 tons of Uranium
http://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/meetings/PDFplus/2009/cn175/URAM2009/Sessio...
Russia's state uranium miner plans to invest 203.6 billion roubles ($7.4 billion) by 2015 to fund a massive expansion plan as demand from the nuclear power sector grows.
the reference has the geology and other detailed info.
If prices are low, it means that other suppliers have under-bid Elkon (both for uranium and the other products) and there is no shortage. If supplies get tight, prices will not remain low.
You have drunk the Dittmar Kool-aid, assuming two contradictory things at the same time to get to your preordained conclusion. This leads to one conclusion: you are not using reason.
Nicely put, maj. Cherry picking and hyper-optimism by an MBA--why am I not surprised. It will take about 10 years for any new proposed nuke plants to go from planning to full operation, and that is when even this rosy scenario implies that supplies could become problematic.
Hmmmm.
The supplies will not be problematic in 10 years because new discoveries will be made and developed. New reactors will be coming online over the next 10 years. New reactors firing up in china, India and Russia and other places.
If you say that I cherry picked then show the non-cherry picked data. It should be easy, if I was so obvious.
New Reactors will be starting up in the USA as well in 2013 and onwards. 5-9 reactors before 2020.
If I have been over-optimistic then show the "real data". I have given country numbers and have provided references to mines and companies. So check it and tell me where I am wrong. Maj, Dohboi or any others. Not willing to do any work ? Just some internet searches. Find the real truth. Show me. so far you have no substance. There has been no substantive challenges to my article. to those who disagree - then bring it - show the data, make the predictions. I see nothing so far. I see some doubts, some factless implications and denials but no numbers, no research, no reports.
If you agree with Dittmar then join the bet for the 2009 and 2010 production. I am willing to put up money that Dittmar is wrong. How about it, put your money where your mouth is.
OT and FYI -- Kazakhstan is the 9th geographical largest country in the world while having a very low population to area ratio. We visited a friend in Almaty two summers ago. There is a large area that has been made problematic due to the Soviet Semipalatinsk nuclear test site starting in 1949. They also have rather serious fresh water problems. We did take two ski lifts to the top of the alpine skiing site to be used in the 2011 Asian Winter Games ... saw two other countries from the peak .... another folly IMHO. ... but hey, that's BAU. I liked the people and their non-judgemental acceptance of others and their differing cultures. Horse meat sold next to camel and mutton and pig in the markets. Alcohol in every store and restaurant. Helped in our case that tourists are still viewed as oddities :-)
I see this article as one looking at the world in a business as usual way and I wonder if that is justified...
Consider a commercial entity that want's to buy a new nuclear power plant. Without the help of the government this entity would have to borrow about 5 billion to get it built. The build will take 5 to 10 years (after about 10 years of procedures before building can start). To earn the capital investment back the plant has to operate for at least 40 years (and America shows that saving capital for decommission forces another 20 operating years extra). Will banks have the guts to lend that capital? From what I hear in the US, even with subsidies that are higher than the total expected build cost, the entities are unable to acquire that capital. With wind and solar becoming cheaper every year, it could be that banks and capital investors won't risk such an adventure. Maybe this leads to the situation in which nuclear energy can only grow considerably in government controlled markets and/or only with tax payers money?
Recently there have been a few interesting posts on TOD about the good Dr. Hubbert and his famous curve, which seems to miraculously affect every mined resource. Nuclear enthusiasts often say that uranium only needs to have the right price to get seemingly unlimited amounts of it. This seems to contradict the theory as depletion will accelerate with higher prices. The oil and gas industry show that you will not get everything out of your mine which is said to be available, is uranium mining different in that aspect?
It is likely that the EROI will go into a downward spiral when the most rich fields are depleting. What is the assumed EROI of a nuclear plant currently and what would it be when the resources get diluted by, say, a factor 10?
So in short my questions/wonderings are:
- Will there be enough capital flowing into the nuclear industry to let it grow significantly?
- Will the uranium RAR see any significant growth due to prospecting (in light of Hubbert's curve)?
- How long will the conventional nuclear energy have a significant EROI?
Uranium costs $1/boe and it takes 0.1% of the energy released in its fission to extract even the lowest grades currently mined. How can anyone familiar with oil depletion (and I assume that's everyone here) even dream that this smells like peak uranium?
Let's turn the question around:
Given that there's trillions of tonnes of uranium in the crust and we could never fission even a small fraction before the sun goes nova, uranium supply is essentially limited by price and the energy costs of extraction.
At what price ($/boe) and at what ore grade would uranium extraction no longer be feasible?
How close are we to this point?
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, not to mention that it is abundantly available in water that covers most of the earth. With enough energy and the right price, we could have limitless supplies. So we should plunge ahead into the wonders of a hydrogen powered future, right?
dohboi,
Sarcasm is easily misinterpreted. ;)
A specious analogy that ignores the obvious difference between hydrogen and uranium: namely that the former is (at best) an energy vector, while the latter is an energy source. Where are we mining uranium at an energy loss? Where are we producing hydrogen at a 1000:1 energy profit?
Your claim that my analogy is specious is specious! ;-P
From your earlier post: "Given that there's trillions of tonnes of uranium in the crust"
Such an irrelevant factoids are as silly as my points about hydrogen.
Perhaps you missed this article in the last Oil Drum:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427364.500-nuclear-fuel-are-we-h...
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, not to mention that it is abundantly available in water... So we should plunge ahead into the wonders of a hydrogen powered future, right?
If you are referring to fusion, yes we should pursue the R&D, but I do not think that was your point.
Where are the massive deposits of elemental hydrogen? From an energy point of view, hydrogen atoms attached to oxygen atoms in the form of water are no more valuable than carbon atoms attached to oxygen atoms, CO2, so what is your point?
Bill, you'll have to forgive dohboi for accidentally setting the font color of his sarcasm tags to white ;-)
He seems to be missing some nonsense tags. If it was really sarcasm, he should attack the stated 1000 times EROEI, not the stated abundance.
We need to remember that all uranium that is mined and turned into LWR spent fuel "waste" will become new fuel for fast-spectrum reactors that can effectively burn transuranics and make more from fertile material (depleted U and Th). Note I didn't use the word BREEDER as we don't need to breed more fuel than we are using. With breeding gain of 0, all this waste will be re-used for centuries as there's about 2 orders of magnitude of more energy still left over and all you need is a start charge to prime the process. Besides, a slightly negative gain factor is probably a desirable design feature if you want to make sure a reactor isn't a net Pu producer!
The question should be how do we properly plan and engineer a smooth transition from LWR, once-through fuel cycles to GenIV transuranic burners (e.g. IFR / PRISM) and thermal Th/U233 converters such as the Thorium Molten Salt Reator (aka LFTR). Once this transition is complete the entire issue of supply of mine-able fissile material will disappear. Factory mass-produced small modular reactors, intrinsically safe and with high-burnup, will be the way to rapidly scale up and all this LWR "waste" will be a key resource for powering these reactors.
Yes, I've read those arguments about breeding solving all our energy problems. It's a nice thought...for over at least 20 years.
The point is: in the mean while almost every new plant under construction today and scheduled to be built is not a breeding but a once-through design. If nuclear is to solve partly the peakoil situation and leave room for energy consumption growth (and solve the CO2 problem fwiw) then a massive building spree needs to start now, not in 20 years. These once-through plants will also need fuel for approx 50-60 years, otherwise they won't pay off their investments and have capital saved-up for decommission. Even if all the big energy companies start procedures to build multiple nuclear plants today then those plants won't produce any significant amount of electricity for the next 10 years or so.
To me it seems there is a huge gap between what has to happen and when it will be possible to do so using nuclear.
The first reactors proved fuel breeding in the 1950s, for heaven's sake. The U.S. Navy went nuclear in the 50s, designing reactors from scratch in only a few years after sustainable fission was first demonstrated! We now have 60 years of knowledge acquired since then. All this hand-wringing about how we can't do this or that, can't build a reactor inside a decade, is crazy given the approaching peak oil and climate change CRISES.
Producing more fuel than is consumed is not necessary to extend the lifetime of cheap nuclear fuel resources out by centuries. Science and technology for closed fuel cycles have been demonstrated. With regard to *implementing* efficient fuel cycles in the past, it has been pure politics standing in the way. I would argue politics *designed* to stop nuclear power from taking market share away from fossil fuels. Deep burn with closed fuel cycles in intrinsically safe reactors takes away just about all the arguments against N-power. Can't have that, now can we! Things like banning recycling in the U.S. (Carter), and the cancellation the Integral Fast Reactor (Clinton) just as it was about ready for prime time are deeply political. FWIW, Clinton's energy secretary was Hazel O'Leary. From here:
Nuclear power is the biggest threat to fossil fuels, especially fossil fuels used in power generation (coal and gas), we should never gloss over that point when reflecting on the political dimension of the history of nuclear power.
Large reactor plants have been built on time and on budget in Asia in recent years. The modular design concept of the AP-1000 increases build efficiencies. The NRC approval queue costs 10s of millions and the wait 5 years before a shovel can hit the dirt. This is ALL POLITICAL in origin. Nuclear can scale and scale fast if we got serious about it as a society and change the political impediments to advanced nuclear power.
I fail to see the connection between Hazel O'Leary working in the power sector and her opposition to nuclear power.
Power companies need to buy natural gas and sell into regulated electricity markets. One would think they would be the one's most likely to want to explore other energy sources. Sure, she did a stretch as the head of the gas division, but the parent company owns and operates nuclear plants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcel_Energy#Nuclear_Power
True, but there's adequate fuel even under Dittmar's scenario to run them all for 60 years.
After the current crop is finished we have to worry about uranium, but Lightbridge (formerly Thorium Power) is going to be bringing thorium fuel elements to market around 2021 (they're testing in Russian reactors). That multiplies the amount of LWR fuel by a factor of at least 4. That's enough to keep a large LWR fleet running while the new builds switch to fast-spectrum converters (to burn the actinides in spent LWR and CANDU fuel and make use of the remaining U-238) and LFTRs (which can take their initial fuel loads from spent thorium fuel from LWRs, full of U-233).
Even if all the big energy companies start procedures to build multiple nuclear plants today then those plants won't produce any significant amount of electricity for the next 10 years or so. To me it seems there is a huge gap between what has to happen and when it will be possible to do so using nuclear.
Your implication is that there is some other technology available, proven on a large scale, that can eliminate coal oil and gas consumption in 10 years at an affordable cost. What is that?
Under BAU, in ten years the world will be consuming fossil fuel faster than it is now. If there is a massive depression, nuclear will be producing a higher percentage of the world’s electricity than it is now because uranium cost/kWh will still be cheap and transportation requirements are low.
We should start building conventional reactors now and we should be developing technology for the production of small factory mass produced reactors that can be built cheaply in vast numbers.
Reactors are inherently simple machines. They can be built with fewer moving parts than a steam locomotive. If the world ever decides that this is a major emergency, and gives it the priority that weapons production had in WWII, we could curtail the use of fossil fuel rapidly.
Solar panels are even simpler then reactors as they have no moving parts at all, but you also know that the amount of precision built moving parts is not what this is about. Pressure vessels, piping, ultra-high quality welding, precision turbines, terrorism proof housing, the list goes on. Nuclear is anything but simple.
Yes, maybe the one thing that can 'save' nuclear energy is the scenario you describe: an state-controlled energy sector and reduced democracy.
Unfortunately (?) we don't live in an totalitarian communist world but in a capitalist one. Or are you an advocate for more government control (and taxes)? That would not be very a republican nor liberal notion...
If you start a nuclear and solar project now, by the time the nuclear team has decided what to build, solar will have put the first MWh's on the grid already. The longer you wait the higher the capital cost get and the smaller the final reactor design must be given a fixed project price.
It would be interesting to calculate this through. The document that Majorian gave describing reactor economics gives alternatives the economic advantage. They even will if the numbers would be halved.
the one thing that can 'save' nuclear energy is the scenario you describe: an state-controlled energy sector and reduced democracy… Unfortunately (?) we don't live in an totalitarian communist world
Now you are just making things up. My recommendation is
1...Implement a $100 billion / year R&D budget that pushes all technologies as hard and fast as possible. $100 billion / year is not much to solve the two biggest problems faced by 6.5 billion people, energy and climate change. The economic return for getting it right will be many orders of magnitude larger.
2...Build demonstration plants of every technology as it becomes possible. If the first one fails, build improved models until the technology is proven to be useful or not.
3...Publish all the data.
4...Eliminate all subsidies. Note that R&D and subsidies are two completely different things. With R&D there is always the potential for a dramatic breakthrough that will change everything. Not so with subsidies.
5...Include all external costs for all technologies.
6...Allow the cost of energy to rise or fall to its real value on a totally level field.
7...Allow a well informed private sector of individuals and corporations to select the best technology for mass production.
This process will produce the best possible solution in the shortest time.
Well, I do think that is what you mean because how are you going to implement a 100 billion/year research program if it's not the government doing it? The industry will never do it by themselves.
The beauty of the German feed-in tariffs system is:
a) you, as an electricity producer, only get paid if you deliver. More efficient and lower cost will mean more profit -> strong market pressure.
b) yearly regression forces constant efficiency improvements because otherwise products won't be sold next year.
c) you, as an electricity consumer, pay less if you consume less because the feed-in tariffs are paid by the electricity consumers, not tax payer. Negawatts are very powerful and very very cheap!
d) anyone can be an energy producer instead of depending on monopolies.
So you get heavy competition which pushes innovation hard which is proven to work well. Having the industry doing this under market pressure is much more efficient then massive government programs. The built-in regressions also mean that the feed-in tariffs will stop at some point: there is no open-end. So 'subsidies' will be for a fixed period of time and with limited amount of money.
Imho, your recommendation is to pump a lot of public money around through heavy, slow institutes and monopolies with large overhead without actually producing any electricity for a long time, without incentives to make anything commercially viable and it has no real targets at all (well, publishing all the data). The institutions that feed of this money will lobby hard to keep the system going and the public will have to pay for a long time to come.
Having the people pay well ahead for something that they, if all goes well, might get later (and then have to pay for it again) is something that is not new in the nuclear business and doesn't have a good track record.
because how are you going to implement a 100 billion/year research program if it's not the government doing it? The industry will never do it by themselves.The beauty of the German feed-in tariffs system is:
Fascinating logic. $100 billion is a tiny fraction of U.S. gdp, but you think big government is needed to do it. In reality it is very simple.
1… Identify the best project manager in the world. Someone like Leslie Groves. He managed construction of the Pentagon in 16 months and the development of nuclear weapons in three years starting from a very small information base.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Groves
2… Give that person a checkbook on the U.S. treasury and stand back.
Personally I would agree to a 2 cent/kWh fee on nuclear kWh's if all the money went into building demonstration reactors using advanced technology.
My point seven is “Allow a well informed private sector of individuals and corporations to select the best technology for mass production.” You think that is too heavy handed but you like German feed in mandates and tariffs. That is strange logic.
you, as an electricity consumer, pay less if you consume less because the feed-in tariffs are paid by the electricity consumers, not tax payer. Negawatts are very powerful and very very cheap!
I see you have bought Lovins Snake Oil, and we see how well that works in Denmark. After 35 years of a huge government mandated push in windpower they use half as many kWh's per person as the U.S. but pay four times as much for each kWh and have high carbon emissions. No Thanks.
Well giving someone a checkbook on the U.S. Treasury would mean a government operation doesn't it? And 100 billion/year might not be very much in GDP but there aren't many companies that have such a big turnover. Yeah, in my logic that means: a large government operation, no matter who runs it. German feed-in tariff is not paid from any government budget.
Yes, I've bought Lovins ideas, it works well for me: use less energy without losing comfort and cycle more. But please explain: what have Lovins's negawatts to do with Denmarks push to wind?
Your e-price might be lower but they are lower then pretty much anywhere in the EU anyway, even France probably.
I'll give some numbers considering:
France has 80% nuclear
Denmark has 25% wind
Netherlands has 2.5% wind, 50% gas
Belgium has 40% nuclear, 10% hydro.
The carbon emissions per capita:
- US: 19.1
- Netherlands: 11.2
- Belgium: 10.8
- Denmark: 9.2
- France: 5.8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissio...
Carbon emissions in France and Denmark are lowest, France is 37% lower then Denmark. Belgium is higher then Denmark, not much lower then NL.
==
Oil usage per 1000 (barrel):
US: 68.672
Netherlands: 59.394
Belgium: 60.478
Denmark: 34.857
France: 32.839
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con_percap-energy-oil-consumpt...
Again France and Denmark are lowest, but very close despite the difference in 'carbon free emission' electricity production. Oil usage in Belgium is equal to the Netherlands.
==
Electricity prices without taxes:
US: 0.1163 Dollar (including taxes)
Netherlands: 0.1440 Euro
Belgium: 0.1431
Denmark: 0.1239 Euro
France: 0.0959 Euro
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/graphToolClosed.do?tab=graph&init=1...
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_b.html
So France's electricity is 23% cheaper per kWh but the power companies are state-owned so I'm not sure how prices are determined. Belgium's 40% nuclear share doesn't translate in a low e-price and is about the same as expensive Dutch gas power. Denmark's price is at European average.
==
Electricity usage per capita (kWh):
US: 99622
Netherlands: 72934
Belgium: 76134
Denmark: 48484
France: 54785
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/eedrb/data/FR-encc.html
==
GDP per capita ($):
US: 40100
Netherlands: 29500
Belgium: 30600
Denmark: 32200
France: 28700
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/eedrb/data/US-gdpc.html#c1
Despite apparent wasteful investing's in windpower and high energy bills (including taxes), the Danish are quite wealthy for European standards, 11% more then the French.
==
Denmark's carbon emissions are low and raw e-price is at European average. Also, France's 60 year massive government mandate push in nuclear, which was much bigger then Denmark's wind push, haven't given them a big edge on any account. Corrected to income electricity production in France is just 12% cheaper then in Denmark. And because the Danish use less electricity their raw electricity bill is pretty much equal to that of France per capita.
Denmark is wealthy and uses litte energy per capita. These two apparently don't have to contradict. I don't see a clear signal to justify a Manhattan project * 5 every year (the Manhattan project cost was about 2 billion, ~22 billion in today's currency).
Denmark has 25% wind
Not true. Denmark makes a quantity of wind energy that equals 20% of what they use. They export half of that because they cannot use it all when wind is good.
The reality is that Denmark is part of the European grid, and wind provides about 3% of the total grid power.
Denmark is a tiny country in a unique situation. It is not an example that is applicable in general.
German feed-in tariff is not paid from any government budget.
So you write a big check to the utility instead of the government. It is still money you do not have for other things.
The carbon emissions per capita:
- US: 19.1
- Netherlands: 11.2
- Belgium: 10.8
- Denmark: 9.2
- France: 5.8
What about Sweden, 5.1 50% hydro and 50% nuclear, almost no carbon emissions related to electricity. As transportation converts to electricity they will see the biggest improvement.
Electricity prices without taxes:
If an American moves to Denmark and reduces his electricity consumption by half his electric bill will double.
I don't see a clear signal to justify a Manhattan project
What is your recommendation and why is it better than pushing every technology and picking the best whatever it is.
Bill, I'd argue with you on one point: R&D alone won't cut it, what we need is to get stuff into production. The USA spent $1 billion or so on PNGV R&D and didn't get a single vehicle into a showroom. A relatively minor amount of R&D (at breakneck speed) will get several important technologies into pre-production scale plants but then you must have some way to get the materials and labor to translate it into major deployments.
Bill, I'd argue with you on one point: R&D alone won't cut it, what we need is to get stuff into production.
I agree. I see it as two parallel tracks. I would like to see conventional plants built and two or three facilities built to mass produce floating nuclear plants using Gen III technology. The level playing field would help a lot. If coal paid for the harm its emissions do that would make nuclear much more attractive.
A relatively minor amount of R&D (at breakneck speed) will get several important technologies into pre-production scale plants but then you must have some way to get the materials and labor to translate it into major deployments.
I think the first full size examples of any new technology should be the final step in the Development process. That is why D is the expensive part of R&D, the part we have not been doing.
Coercive international treaty’s mandating expensive intermittent energy systems will not solve the problem. Developing energy systems that are reliable, safe, mass producible and cheaper than fossil fuel should be our main goal.
Ok, fair point, Denmark isn't consuming all of their homebrew wind directly. What is left goes to fill up Norwegian and Swedish hydro or displace German electricity which is for a large part (brown) coal, maybe even some gas in the Netherlands. This means that the windpower is not lost and they get a large part back when there's not enough wind. Imho this equals to France that uses Switzerland for storing it's surplus nuclear power and peakshaving as does Sweden within it's own borders. There's not much wrong with that, is it? I think it comes down to that wind or nuclear in combination with hydro will behave quite the same and that borders should not be a limiting factor.
Might be, but you brought Denmark into the discussion. France is in a unique situation as well, with the Alps next door. Besides, countries get better interconnects all the time. Brittain could be a major windpower producer/exporter someday as well with interconnects to Norway, the Netherlands and France. They sure have enough wind.
This big check is not so big: on average 30 Euro per household per year. Use less = pay less, contribute renewable energy=profit. The 100 billion/year scheme would mean 950 Dollar/year per 105,480,101 households in the US (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html). The 30 Euro per year is based on real production, the 950 Dollar per year is based on a future promise.
Oh c'mon, that is including taxes. I did not compare raw prices without reason: the US doesn't have accessible healthcare for everyone or any of the other socialist things do they? Prices including taxes are not comparable because of the different laws.
Btw, you'd probably be able to reduce your e-use more then half and the e-price including taxes is only a bit more then double so your e-bill would be about the same, not double.
You can guess this one from my previous posts: I don't believe that massive government programs are really effective. My experience with recent large government programs are not positive. I also think that 'pushing every technology' would translate to 'pushing every nuclear technology' when it comes to it, because solar for instance is not to the likings of most big power companies. There will always be politics at play.
I think that a decentralized grid where everyone can be an energy producer is good (e.g. because awareness will lower your e-use). The German EEG law is quite simple and proven to be the most effective incentive yet developed to get renewable energy into rapid development.
I think it comes down to that wind or nuclear in combination with hydro will behave quite the same
Consider a Europe in which all countries have 80% wind. What happens when a 100 year heat wave settles over Europe with average wind output less than 5%.
100% photovoltaic backup you say? OK, you have 8 hours to collect 24 hours of energy. 2/3 of that must go through storage with 25% loss, so you must generate 122% of consumption (0.333+0.666/0.75).
A huge winter storm settles over Europe. Icing conditions shutdown the windmills. No sun for solar. 100% fossil backup, right? Now let’s say the storm is eccentric. Half of Europe is ok. How much transmission line capacity is required to support the other half, hundreds of GW?
Now add up the cost to build and maintain all of these power plants, wind farms, storage facilities, fossil fuel supplies and transmission lines. How much time to acquire land and permits for all this construction?
Consider a Europe in which all countries have 80% nuclear power with enough interconnection to handle the imbalance of a few unexpected plant outages. Refueling and maintenance outages are scheduled for spring and fall when demand is low. That compensates for seasonal variation.
Realistic cost and time estimates of the renewable grid with backup will be several times that of the nuclear grid, and the nuclear grid will have lower emissions. But that comparison is never made.
on average 30 Euro per household per year.
That is 2.5 Eu /month, 8.33kwh/month at 30 cents/kWh, 12 watts per household. Try again.
The $100 billion is about 10% of the U.S. annual energy bill. When the solutions are in place the savings will be much more than 10%. Especially considering the impact of rising fossil fuel cost without new technology. When the solutions are applied globally the direct savings will be many times that, and the indirect savings, like eliminating the health effects of burning coal, will be orders of magnitude greater than the direct savings.
It would be the greatest gift the U.S. could give the world.
I don't believe that massive government programs are really effective.
So you do not see government mandated renewable energy requirements and feed in tariffs that cost people billions of dollars in increased cost as government programs, interesting. So if the government set up a private corporation, like a utility, and called it the Defense Department, and ordered every citizen to send it a check for $2,000 each year, that would not be a massive government program?
The enormous taxes on electricity distort the economics resulting in more conservation of electricity in Europe. You take advantage of that fact in part of your analysis where it supports your position and then dismiss it in the part that contradicts your position.
Economic distortions influence decisions in a way that usually results in adverse results in a large scale analysis, in spite of apparent good results at a micro level. For example, high electricity costs, due to high taxes or mandates for expensive impractical technology, push a homebuilder towards natural gas heat instead of a heat pump.
“What about Sweden, 5.1, 50% hydro and 50% nuclear, almost no carbon emissions related to electricity. As transportation converts to electricity they will see the biggest percentage improvement.”
Consider a Europe in which all countries have 80% wind.
I think that's a bit high. I don't think anyone's proposing more than 50%, even without nuclear. The rest would be solar, hydro, geothermal, biomass, wave, etc. Given that a 100% renewable grid won't happen any sooner than 50 years from now (and nuclear will certainly be around for at least that long), I think it's reasonable to expect some innovation in electrical generation. If you include nuclear, then clearly wind isn't going to be more than 50%.
What happens when a 100 year heat wave settles over Europe
What do you mean by Europe? Does that include the UK, Eastern Europe, and Spain? If so, then you really need to show evidence that's possible.
with average wind output less than 5%
Is that 5% of nameplate, or average? I suspect you mean nameplate. If not, that's being unrealistic. If so, at a European capacity factor of 20%, that's only about a 75% reduction from the average. If wind is 50%, that's only a 37.5% reduction , which isn't that big a deal.
There are many solutions to wind & solar intermittency, each of which is very expensive if taken to an extreme, including pumped storage, CAES, or a planet girdling HVDC system. If you combine the best of each, you're likely to get a much lower cost system.
More importantly, Demand Side Management is very, very cheap, and extremely effective. It's overlooked because it's not "incented" by utility rate regulation.
220M plug-in's and EV's could provide all of the demand buffering that wind could every want. Add V2G (see here for a UK-oriented discussion), which is a bit more expensive but very practical, and you get all of the capacity you need for handling system variance on an hourly or daily basis.
All you'd need is to retain large fossil fuel plants for the 5-10% of the time when wind was calm for a week or more.
The obstacles to a renewable grid aren't technical, they're social: up to 20% of the workforce would be made obsolete. They have an enormous incentive to fight change.
Do you have references for this?
Here's a discussion by Amory Lovins's RMI: http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Transportation/RMIPHEV_decouple_AESP.pdf.
OTOH, it's very easy to analyze - no experts or peer-reviewed papers are needed.
Take 220M vehicles, with 25KWH effective capacity battery (3x that of the Volt), for a total of 5.5 Terawatt hours. Charging them using 220 volt, 30 amp connections will take about 4 hours, but create peak demand of more than the grid's current capacity, so vehicle charging would be spread out over several days, giving lots of leeway for dynamic scheduling.
If you want, say, 50% of KWH from wind then you need an average of 225 gigawatts from wind. At 30% capacity factor (for the US), that's about 750GW of nameplate capacity. An individual wind turbine can hit 100% of capacity, but a windfarm rarely goes above 85%, and a nationwide network would very rarely go above 50%, just based on the laws of large numbers (variance rises more slowly than the mean), and the fact that many windfarms would be negatively correlated to each other (one part of the country is windy, and another is calm).
That means peak wind generation might be 375GW. Night time demand might be 200GW, so we need to soak up 175GW. Our 5.5Twhr plug-in/EV fleet could draw that for 10 hours, using less than 1/3 of it's capacity.
Similar calculations apply for V2G.
Solar appears to have more short-term intermittency, which suggests that PHEV/EV buffering, with it's very fast response time, would be especially valuable for solar.
Take 220M vehicles, with 25KWH effective capacity battery (3x that of the Volt), for a total of 5.5 Terawatt hours. Charging them using 220 volt, 30 amp connections will take about 4 hours, but create peak demand of more than the grid's current capacity, so vehicle charging would be spread out over several days, giving lots of leeway for dynamic scheduling.
220M vehicles times $30,000/car = $6,600 billion.
So, when severe weather is forecast, a week in advance, everybody parks their electric car and charges up the batteries with 230 GW days of energy. The weather report is always accurate and nobody waits till the last day to plug in. They leave the cars parked during the weather event, and wait another week for enough excess energy to recharge the batteries. People are without their cars three weeks for each severe weather event.
How do you know there will be 230 GW days, {33 1GW nuclear plant equivalents}, of excess power available in the week before every severe weather event?
Your battery is loosing its capacity to store energy. You take it to the dealer to be checked. The manager says, ‘Our analysis shows that the battery has been cycled numerous times while parked. That is not covered under warranty. A new battery costs $8,000 dollars.’
What will the utility have to pay per kWh stored to convince the vast majority of EV owners to put up with this level of cost and inconvenience?
What will the total system cost with all transmission lines, primary and backup plants included?
What will the kWh's cost?
Compare cost and emissions /kWh of your system with an 80% nuclear grid with your; “Demand Side Management is very, very cheap”.
Most vehicles are parked 20 hours/day or more. Simply having them plugged in when parked would suffice to cover the ones on the road.
The bigger issue is bulk of available storage. The batteries in PHEVs are going to have to be at full charge every morning or the expected fuel savings will not be there. This means that whatever generation is shifted, it can't be shifted even as much as a day. EVs with more battery capacity offer greater buffering capability, but only on the order of days.
Short charge/discharge cycles do not appear to affect life of batteries much. When AC Propulsion did a V2G test, they found that the capacity of their lead-acid test pack (which had been used in a car already) was increased. Dynamic charging to shape load curves to available generation shouldn't affect battery life at all.
Cost of vehicles is not an issue. The US consumer was paying on the order of $30,000 average for what, 17 million vehicles per year? That's half a trillion dollars a year. Even if you scale this back to 12 million it would only take 10 years to replace half the vehicle fleet, and the replacements will account for the bulk of the VMT both because new vehicles get heavier use and the cheaper operating costs will push the heaviest users to get them first.
Related to R&D budgets, the IEA estimates that it could take $1.15 trillion in investment to meet carbon targets. Nuclear is cheap on that scale.
Eliminate all subsidies.
If the US were to eliminate Price-Anderson liability caps, would any nuclear be built in the US?
P-A was absolutely necessary in the 1950's: if you believe it's not necessary now, do you have any references from the insurance industry confirming that it's willing to provide liability coverage?
I'm not hung up on eliminating P-A: I think that if we, as a society, decide that nuclear is a good idea, that socializing the very small risk of a very large accident (too large for insurance companies to handle) probably makes sense. Still, I think it's a good idea to clarify that eliminating all "subsidies" might be unrealistic.
'totally level playing field' 'pure free market economy' 'absolute zero'
all theorectical but physically unachieveble ideal states. The general gist of what Bill is proposing seems sensible, just as long as it is realized the ideal states proposed are merely a reference construct, don't exist in nature and won't be created by man.
And then there is the 'old dog new trick' and emotional response factors. Anecdottaly I manage to 'control click' my replies here maybe one in three times on average since EP suggested the strategy to me the rest of the time I rush right in 'click' and erase all my 'new' flags ?-( I've only been clicking reply buttons here for a year, but that learned activity is very closely related to clicking any other button on the screen and I have been doing that for about twenty years. I'm sure that fits into this line of thought somehow, but mostly I typed this to try and retrain me ?-)
If the US were to eliminate Price-Anderson liability caps, would any nuclear be built in the US?
Let’s turn the question around. Would we have more or fewer skyscrapers, jumbo jets, chemical, and drug companies if we required them to carry insurance for the worst possible accident?
Imagine that the terrorist attack on 9-11 never took place. Instead, suppose that on a busy weekday morning at about 11 AM, a design defect in the floor attach fittings of a World Trade Center building caused a mid level floor to collapse on to the floor below it. That started a chain reaction collapse that brought the building down. The upper floors tipped into the other WTC tower, triggering the same defect and bringing it down. There is no evacuation because there is no warning, and 40,000 people die in 30 seconds.
A Boeing 747 takes off with a full load of fuel on a long international flight. One minute after takeoff it flies through the wake of another jumbo jet. The turbulence causes an undetected crack in the vertical fin to propagate, and the fin snaps off. The 747 yaws sideways, rolls onto its back and dives down through the roof of a large sports arena holding the national championship basketball game. 200,000 pounds of fuel atomizes on impact with the floor and erupt in an enormous fireball inside the building, consuming all the oxygen and incinerating 40,000 people on live HD worldwide television. The EPA, in its analysis, puts a value of $7.4 million on the loss of a human life.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eed.nsf/webpages/MortalityRiskValuation.html
The loss in each case would be $296 billion for human life, plus the property loss. The WTC did not carry this level of insurance. Should they have been prevented from constructing those buildings without adequate insurance? The airlines do not carry this level of insurance, should the airlines be grounded for lack of adequate insurance coverage?
Suppose that a biogenetics scientist in a major pharmaceutical industry accidentally develops a virus that is more contagious than the common cold and more deadly than the HIV virus. He contaminates himself and his family, the virus spreads around the world and kills half the population. That would be a twenty four thousand trillion dollar loss. All the money in the world would not come close to covering that loss. Should we shut down the entire drug industry and go back to life without medicine because it is not insured for all possible accidents?
Dam failures have killed 8000 people in the U.S.
http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/damfailure/pdf/fema-94-inflow-design-fl...
In 1975 a single dam failure in China killed about 30,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
Dams in the U.S. are not insured for the maximum imaginable loss. Should we tear down all dams and give up our hydroelectric power. Coal plants are killing over 20,000 Americans each year. That is a $148 billion loss each year that the coal plants are not paying for, a virtual subsidy.
You are holding a wedding reception for 150 people in your home. An F5 tornado sucks your home and its contents up to 1,000 feet, grinds it into small pieces, and deposits the mess in a field 2 miles away, killing everybody. The tornado loss is $1.11 billion plus the property loss. Are you carrying that much liability insurance on your house? If not, should you be denied the privilege of owning a home?
If we required every corporation and individual to obtain insurance coverage for the worst possible event no matter how unlikely, we would have no civilization at all.
The Price Anderson Act requires that the utilities provide $10 billion in cover without cost to the public or government and without fault needing to be proven. It covers power reactors, research reactors, and all other nuclear facilities. It was renewed for 20 years in mid 2005, with strong bipartisan support, and requires individual operators to be responsible for two layers of insurance cover. The first layer is where each nuclear site is required to purchase US$ 300 million liability cover which is provided by two private insurance pools. This is financial liability, not legal liability as in European liability conventions.
The second layer is jointly provided by all US reactor operators. It is funded through retrospective payments if required of up to $112 million per reactor per accident collected in annual installments of $17.5 million (and adjusted with inflation). Combined, the total provision comes to over $10 billion paid for by the utilities. (The Department of Energy also provides $10 billion for its nuclear activities.) Beyond this cover and irrespective of fault, Congress, as insurer of last resort, must decide how compensation is provided in the event of a major accident.
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf67.html
American Nuclear Insurers is a pool comprised of investor-owned stock insurance companies. About half the pool’s total liability capacity comes from foreign sources such as Lloyd’s of London. The average annual premium for a single-unit reactor site is $400,000. I cannot think of any industry that is insured as fully as nuclear power.
Price-Anderson contributes to the illusion that nuclear power is extraordinarily dangerous and needs special insurance coverage. That illusion is partly responsible for our continued dependence on coal which kills 20,000+ Americans each year, perhaps over a million worldwide, and contributes to the potential climate disaster we face. The fee for Price Anderson is independent of reactor size, reducing the attractiveness of small mass produced reactors.
We do not require Honda to cover the risk of BMW. We do not require United Air Lines to cover the risk of Northwest airlines. We do not put drug companies at risk for the mistakes of other drug companies. The Union Carbide accident killed 8,000 people in three days. We do not require all chemical companies to cover that loss because they had no control over how the plant was designed or operated? It is not fair to require companies to assume risk of other companies for which they have no control.
Price-Anderson is not a nuclear power subsidy; it is a handicap, a burden that no other industry bears, and it does more harm than good. I support the repeal of Price-Anderson and treating nuclear power like other industries.
Would we have more or fewer skyscrapers, jumbo jets, chemical, and drug companies if we required them to carry insurance for the worst possible accident?
This: The Price Anderson Act ... was renewed for 20 years in mid 2005, with strong bipartisan support
Seems to conflict with this: I support the repeal of Price-Anderson and treating nuclear power like other industries.
Does the nuclear industry agree with you? Remember, the penalty for a catastrophic accident is bankruptcy - the corporate death penalty.
I repeat: If the US were to eliminate Price-Anderson liability caps, would any nuclear be built in the US?
P-A was absolutely necessary in the 1950's: if you believe it's not necessary now, do you have any references from the insurance industry confirming that it's willing to provide liability coverage? If not, is the industry willing to build without it? Can you provide evidence for that??
Seems to conflict with this: I support the repeal of Price-Anderson and treating nuclear power like other industries.
Do you support everything the government does? I do not.
Does the nuclear industry agree with you?
I have never seen industry leaders comment, I think they know it is not going to change, it is just part of the cost of doing business.
Remember, the penalty for a catastrophic accident is bankruptcy - the corporate death penalty.
Nuclear plants are owned by large utilities that own many power plants and grid facilities. At worst the stock holders will be wiped out, but anybody who has more than a few percent of his assets in one utility has a fool for an advisor.
Customers will still need power. The other plants will continue running. The responsible employees will be sacked, as they would with or without insurance, but most people will still have a job, as with Union Carbide.
I repeat: If the US were to eliminate Price-Anderson liability caps, would any nuclear be built in the US?
Why not, Boeing builds jumbo jets, high rise buildings go up, chemical and biological facilities continue to be built without coverage for the worst possible accident, why not nuclear power plants?
P-A was absolutely necessary in the 1950's:
Not really. Few industries if any are fully insured.
do you have any references from the insurance industry confirming that it's willing to provide liability coverage?
It already does.
“each nuclear site is required to purchase US$ 300 million liability cover which is provided by two private insurance pools.”
How many bio-engineering labs have this much insurance. They might do far more damage than a nuclear plant.
Nuclear plants are owned by large utilities that own many power plants and grid facilities. At worst the stock holders will be wiped out
Stockholders aren't going to be excited about this approach to the problem.
P-A was absolutely necessary in the 1950's: - Not really. Few industries if any are fully insured.
Are you really saying that the nuclear power industry would have developed without P-A?
I've already said that I'm sympathetic to the idea that liability isn't a crucial problem. I think Congress has said the same thing by passing P-A and socializing the risk.
references from the insurance industry confirming that it's willing to provide liability coverage? - It already does...US$ 300 million liability cover
We're talking about levels of insurance much, much higher than that. You know that.
I repeat: if you believe that P-A is not necessary now, do you have any evidence from the nuclear, utility, insurance and/or investor communities confirming that they're willing to build without it??
I repeat: if you believe that P-A is not necessary now, do you have any evidence from the nuclear, utility, insurance and/or investor communities confirming that they're willing to build without it??
Nick, you wrote “P-A was absolutely necessary in the 1950's:” Let’s put that to the test. How many countries built nuclear plants under PA? One. How many built plants without PA? All the rest. If you are right the answer would be zero. They ranged from full democracies to communist. They each had their own approach to insurance. Your premise is false.
Investors would be much better off without PA. Let’s say you invest 10% of your assets in nuclear power. You put 1% in each of 10 nuclear utilities. With PA you could loose all 10% in one accident, assuming a huge accident is possible with conventional reactors, an assumption I believe is invalid, but without it your maximum loss is 1%. And which industries have a lower accident rate/kWh than nuclear?
You ask questions, how about answering some?
1… Would we have more or fewer skyscrapers, jumbo jets, chemical, and drug companies if we required them to carry insurance for the worst possible accident?
2… The WTC did not carry this level of insurance. Should they have been prevented from constructing those buildings without adequate insurance?
3… The airlines do not carry this level of insurance, should the airlines be grounded for lack of adequate insurance coverage?
4… Should we shut down the entire drug industry and go back to life without medicine because it is not insured for all possible accidents?
5… The tornado loss is $1.11 billion plus the property loss. Are you carrying that much liability insurance on your house? If not, should you be denied the privilege of owning a home?
6… Do you think all companies should be forced to cover the risk of their competitors over which they have no control, or just nuclear? Why?
7… And which industries have a lower accident rate/kWh than nuclear?
Your premise is false.
Well, the US Supreme Court (according to Wikipedia) found in 1978 that:
"The record supports the need for the imposition of a statutory limit on liability to encourage private industry participation and hence bears a rational relationship to Congress' concern for stimulating private industry's involvement in the production of nuclear electric energy."
IOW, P-A is necessary. I didn't say it, the Supreme Court did. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but extremely fine...
They ranged from full democracies to communist. They each had their own approach to insurance.
My understanding is that in one way or another they socialized the risk. For instance, France has a state-run nuclear industry.
With PA you could loose all 10% in one accident
I'm not following you there. I thought the worst that could happen would be a $10B claim, which would be spread over all utilities with nuclear plants, and could be paid off over time.
You ask questions, how about answering some?
I'll say again, for the 3rd or 4th time: I'm sympathetic to the idea that liability isn't a crucial problem.
OTOH, you've glossed over the part where a company or individual without adequate insurance has to go bankrupt in the case of a catastrophe. Utilities could go without P-A, just like any other industry - obviously, utilities aren't excited about this approach.
I repeat: if you believe that P-A is not necessary now, do you have any evidence from the nuclear, utility, insurance and/or investor communities confirming that they're willing to build without it??
Well, the US Supreme Court
Is not infallible. I do not agree with everything they say, do you?
My understanding is that in one way or another they socialized the risk.
Obviously. After 9-11 congress appointed a Special Master to determine damages and pay out of the U.S. Treasury. Personally, I think they should have sent the bill to Saudi Arabia.
When Union Carbide killed 8,000 people nobody sued the other unrelated chemical companies.
I think the risk of nuclear power should be socialized in the same way that other industries are.
I thought the worst that could happen would be a $10B claim, which would be spread over all
“Congress, as insurer of last resort, must decide how compensation is provided in the event of a major accident.”
PA establishes the unique idea that nuclear power companies are responsible for the mistakes of others. In the era of huge deficits congress would be temped to dump the full cost on other utilities hobbling the entire industry. I oppose that principle universally, what is your position on that point?
You ask questions, how about answering some? I'll say again, for the 3rd or 4th time: I'm sympathetic to the idea that liability isn't a crucial problem.
I read that the first, second… time. That does not tell me what your answers are. I want to know what your answers are and what logic you used to arrive at those answers.
you've glossed over the part where a company or individual without adequate insurance has to go bankrupt in the case of a catastrophe.
A totally nonsensical statement. I pointed out that it would be foolish to invest heavily in one utility and that you could lose it all. I pointed out that the utility would continue providing service through a bankruptcy and that most employees would still have a job, what more do you want?
Utilities could go without P-A, just like any other industry - obviously, utilities aren't excited about this approach.
What is your evidence of that?
I repeat: if you believe that P-A is not necessary now, do you have any evidence from the nuclear, utility, insurance and/or investor communities confirming that they're willing to build without it??
Suppose I said that everyone should stick a garlic bud up their nose because it prevents cancer. You would likely ask for proof and, following your example, I would demand that you prove I am wrong.
You claim that PA was essential in the 50s and may still be essential while providing no evidence to support that. So I went ahead and provided evidence.
1… No other industry has coverage for the worst case accident.
2… No other companies are required to cover the risk of their competitors.
3… Most nuclear plants were and are being built without PA.
4… Your own statement, “one way or another they socialized the risk.”
This seems to be a very one-way conversation. You ask questions and demand answers. I provide answers and logic which you ignore and restate the questions. I ask questions and you provide no answers or logic.
I am not learning anything from you and you are not learning anything from me, so if you do not provide substantive answers it is time to move on.
The questions are;
1… Would we have more or fewer skyscrapers, jumbo jets, chemical, and drug companies if we required them to carry insurance for the worst possible accident?
2… The WTC did not carry this level of insurance. Should they have been prevented from constructing those buildings without adequate insurance?
3… The airlines do not carry this level of insurance, should the airlines be grounded for lack of adequate insurance coverage?
4… Should we shut down the entire drug industry and go back to life without medicine because it is not insured for all possible accidents?
5… The tornado loss is $1.11 billion plus the property loss. Are you carrying that much liability insurance on your house? If not, should you be denied the privilege of owning a home?
6… Do you think all companies should be forced to cover the risk of their competitors over which they have no control, or just nuclear? Why?
7… And which industries have a lower accident rate/kWh than nuclear?
8… In the era of huge deficits Congress would be temped to dump the full cost on other utilities hobbling the entire industry. I oppose that principle universally, what is your position on that point?
9… Explain the details of a utility bankruptcy I left out and explain how PA impacts that.
Well, the US Supreme Court - Is not infallible.
No, but it's a strong authority. It's finding on a matter of fact (not a matter of public policy or law) is a strong piece of evidence. You can't say I didn't provide evidence. The burden of proof is on you to provide counter-evidence.
In the era of huge deficits congress would be temped to dump the full cost on other utilities hobbling the entire industry. I oppose that principle universally
There's no sign of that in P-A. I agree, it wouldn't seem to make sense.
I want to know what your answers are and what logic you used to arrive at those answers.
It's a simple statistical calculation: the chance of the risk, times the cost of the risk. If there's a 1 in 200,000 chance of a catastrophy for each reactor-year, and a trillion dollar price tag for a catastrophic incident, and 104 reactors, then the annual average cost is $520M. But, the important thing is that a trillion dollar cost is uninsurable.
I pointed out that it would be foolish to invest heavily in one utility and that you could lose it all. I pointed out that the utility would continue providing service through a bankruptcy and that most employees would still have a job, what more do you want?
It's not what I want, it's what utility shareholders want. Utilities could have chosen to go ahead without P-A, but they didn't want to.
No other companies are required to cover the risk of their competitors.
That's the essence of insurance - it spreads cost around. Some forms do it more than others: no-fault car insurance; employer-provided health and life insurance; physician malpractice insurance. Think about the current plan to eliminate pre-existing illness exclusion clauses in health insurance.
3… Most nuclear plants were and are being built without PA.
4… Your own statement, “one way or another they socialized the risk.”
Statement #4 was a reply to statement #3. My point: other countries found their own ways to socialize risk - not identical to P-A, but having the same effect. For instance, the government of France would be responsible for a nuclear plant accident.
Would we have more or fewer skyscrapers, jumbo jets, chemical, and drug companies if we required them to carry insurance for the worst possible accident?
"We" don't require it. The nuclear industry demanded P-A.
I've seen projects that got canceled for lack of insurance. OTOH, lots of industries and individuals go ahead with projects and investments taking a risk that they'll be sued and go bankrupt (Google "Dalkon shield", or asbestos). Again, the nuclear industry chose not to.
there is no trillion dollar event.
The highest cost is for a reactor that is right by new york city but most of the reactors are distant from meaningful population and absolutely nothing could happen that would be that expensive because even if everything with 10 miles was hosed it would not be worth that much.
The entire asset value of the USA could not be taken out by 104 reactor accidents. $104 trillion.
there is no trillion dollar event.
Yes, those numbers were just for illustration, as requested by Bill. I don't know what the number is, but it doesn't really matter. What matters is that both the nuclear industry and insurance industries consider the potential liability to be too high, and therefore the nuclear industry considers P-A essential for continued investment in the industry.
This conversation started with the suggestion that all subsidies be eliminated for all forms of energy. I thought it was worth noting that this would paralyze the nuclear industry.
It's also worth noting (though it's beside the original point) that there is a value to the liability cap that is being provided by the taxpayer, that can be expressed in dollar terms. That dollar amount quantifies the amount of the indirect subsidy.
You and Bill apparently disagree with the nuclear industry on the main point. If you can show some evidence that the industry is seriously listening to such views...that might advance the discussion. If you have evidence that contradicts the notion that the cap can be quantified, that too would be interesting.
If you described the TMI scenario to Ralph Nadar a week before the accident, he would have cited old NRC reports predicting a large release with many fatalities. In fact he probably still would today. Improvements are being made.
The State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses (SOARCA) project involves the reanalysis of severe accident consequences to develop a body of knowledge regarding the realistic outcomes of severe reactor accidents. In addition to incorporating the results of more than 25 years of research, the objective of this updated plant analysis is to include the significant plant safety improvements and updates, which have been made by plant owners but were not reflected in earlier assessments by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In particular, these plant safety improvements include system enhancements, training and emergency procedures, and offsite emergency response. In addition, these improvements include the recent enhancements in connection with security-related events.
http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/research/soar.html
It's incredible that despite all the problems we face through the growth in population and the attendant growth in the consumption of all sorts of resources, with potentially catastrophic climate change breathing down our necks, many people still cling to the hope of business as usual.
No, we shouldn't be starting to build conventional reactors now and developing technology for mass produced reactors; we should be reining back consumption, we should be trying to figure out how to live sustainably on the annual resource budget conferred by the sun and the earth. Anything else is sheer madness and akin to burying one's head in the sand.
No, we shouldn't be starting to build conventional reactors now and developing technology for mass produced reactors; we should be reining back consumption, we should be trying to figure out how to live sustainably on the annual resource budget conferred by the sun and the earth.
Ah, it is always nuclear power driving business as usual vs. wind and solar with conservation and efficiency.
How do you eliminate most fossil fuel consumption with wind and solar?
What does it cost?
Describe the average standard of living.
Why not nuclear with conservation and efficiency?
So, you are saying that 400 TWhe is needed to recover $5 billion, and another 200 TWhe is needed to recover decommissioning costs?
And that you need a total of 15-20 years lead time to construct a reactor?
Are you for real?
No big problem, but why would resources dilute that much? Reserves grow about 300-fold under such a dilution, but we don't need that much extra reserves, so dilution should be less.
I'm not virtual last time I checked, thank you for your concern. You can attack me all you want, but the business in the USA shows that nuke operators have to ask for lifetime extension because they don't have the money for decommissioning. Why not if they are so such a financial success? NRC is giving them the extension because otherwise the operator would go bankrupt and the public has to pay.
This is an issue to me. As an operator has to keep looking after a reactor for another 50-150 years after decommissioning before the site has been cleaned up, who can guarantee that the operator has not gone bankrupt before that? And who will have to pay for cleanup if they do go bankrupt (or disappear in some juridical construction)?
So, just like consumers in Europe have to pay a decommissioning fee on purchase of an item, operators should also need to put enough money aside to make sure that the cleanup can be paid for after that much time. Unlike consumers they don't have to do that up front, but regulations should make sure that they do while operating the plant. History is showing that they won't if the market regulator is not forcing those rules hard enough.
Then there is the question about how much this amount should be, again, history shows that such costs are generally much higher then originally anticipated. The operators will always try to downplay this number ofcourse. It seems realistic to assume decommissioning will cost at least 1 billion for a large commercial plant today.
Even if we allow operators to do their business without setting aside the capital needed for decommissioning and a probably hypothetical case of 100 years decommissioning time and 50 years operating time, you'll permanently have 2 sites in decommissioning state for every site producing power after 100 years. This is not a healthy situation, but I'm sure it will be downplayed.
Regarding construction time: The operators in the Netherlands wishing a nuke have stated themselves that they expect to need at least 10 years before construction can begin and another 10 years for construction.
I question your assertion. The capacity factor of US nuclear plants continues to rise despite their increasing age, which is not what would happen if they were wearing out and breaking down frequently. Your claim about the basis for the license extensions cannot be true.
If it takes the Netherlands 20 years to build a nuclear plant that China can build in 5, it says something about the Netherlands, not the nuclear plant.
Yes it says something about the Netherlands, but it also says something about nuclear reality -not the theoretical possibilities- in a western country. Isn't that what really counts in the discussion about nuclear renaissance?
Western countries can obviously do better than China if there is a real sense of urgency.
So, I take it you don't fully agree with WNAs text about nuclear decommissioning costs:
"Decommissioning costs are about 9-15% of the initial capital cost of a nuclear power plant. But when discounted, they contribute only a few percent to the investment cost and even less to the generation cost. In the USA they account for 0.1-0.2 cent/kWh, which is no more than 5% of the cost of the electricity produced."
I'm sceptical about your claims that NRC is giving plants extensions because of bancrupcy threats. Link?
Why would two sites in decommissioning for every running plant be "unhealthy"? Footprint is not really one of nuclear's weak points.
Regarding construction time: If Netherlands has a lot of red tape and little experience, this will affect the lead time, but these things can obviously be improved if we feel a ramp-up is urgent. Reactors are designed for three years construction time.
"I'm sceptical about your claims that NRC is giving plants extensions because of bancrupcy threats. Link?"
http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2009/06/funds_to_shut_nuclear_power_pl...
and
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/17/nuclear-plant-operators-_n_2169...
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning
If an EPR is to cost 3.5 billion in the future and decommissioning it costs 1 billion then the costs are about 30% of it's initial capital cost. You are not very skeptical towards nuclear energy and you believe everything the WNA says as the absolute truth?
"Why would two sites in decommissioning for every running plant be "unhealthy""
I said that in conjunction with a possible situation where operators did not have to save capital for decommission during it's lifetime. The 2 x 1 billion has to come from the income from the then operating plant and takes a hit on profits for the period of decommissioning. One can expect that management will attempt to minimize those costs or delay them as much as possible. You can see this behavior already: the Safestor program for currently decommissioning plants, they are not cleaned up but saved for future generations to solve. I'm sure they will be grateful for our heritage.
The Netherlands have 3 reactors, 1 for medical isotopes, 1 producing electricity commercially and one mothballed.
The red tape, now you bring that puppy up, is justified as just last month we heard -from the former operator director- that the isotopes plant in Petten had experienced a near meltdown twice in 2001 because of even the simplest safety mechanisms were not working when a blackout occurred. To make matters worse, workers shutdown emergency cooling as they couldn't see what they were doing. The meltdown was finally prevented because the external power was returned quickly enough. If it had taken them a bit longer we would have had our own three-mile-island. There wasn't even proper emergency lighting in the control room for heavens sake.
These events were subsequently covered-up by the operator and industry safety organization.
This is one example of something that seems typical in the nuclear industry: safety norms are not held at standard, human error making matters worse, downplaying events/risks and cover-up by management and government officials. Look at the down-played uranium spills, unaccounted amounts of plutonium in a cleanup site and high-ranking EDF officials sounding the alarm bell about safety standards in France, the attempted cover-up of the sodium leak in the Japanese Monji reactor, the neglected near rusted through vessel head of Davis-Besse, etc. And now a revival should be wholeheartedly supported?
I read the first of your links and have read the third before, and they do not support your statement about NRC.
Current nuclear designs are simpler and should be easier to decommission. However, decommissioning can be made arbitrarily expensive with increased regulation. That being said, I don't think even your exaggeration of $1 billion to decommission a reactor (the current estimate is half that) is a big problem. When you have been able to sell 500 billion kWhrs, you should be able to pay $1 billion 50 years later, right? (Discount is a curse for building costs and a blessing for decommissioning costs.)
Regarding near-meltdowns and such - these incidents are always exaggerated by media - they thrive when you get upset. Also, why would regulation improve things? Often it does the opposite. And finally, TMI was a show of strength for western reactors. No one was killed then and current designs are orders of magnitude safer. And if some people do die in nuclear accidents, so what - you have to do a cost-benefit analysis and coal is worse however you do the math. And traffic deaths globally stands around a million, but no one demands abolishing traffic.
in the USA shows that nuke operators have to ask for lifetime extension because they don't have the money for decommissioning… NRC is giving them the extension because otherwise the operator would go bankrupt and the public has to pay.
Say you own a 1GW plant that makes power for 2 cents/kWh and sells it for 7 cents/kWh. The plants profit is $1.2 million/day, $394 million/year. You want to tear it down but the NRC forces you to run it another 20 years. Right.
I'm not saying that NRC is forcing them, that's what you make of it. Read the links I gave:
And howcome? Because they think they can pay for the decommissioning costs by speculation on the stock marktet:
This is reality today, who says that business as usual will return with 6% long term stock profits in the future now that cheap oil is gone?
If the plant operators make almost 300 percent profit, why is there a need for government incentives to have them built? Regular businesses are lucky to make 10 to 20% profit and they don't get incentives to build new production capacity.
Construction is expensive. To keep running is cheap. If construction costs have been written off and loans have been repaid, the profit margin thereafter could very well be 300%. But it won't be 300% average over a plants life.
If the plant operators make almost 300 percent profit, why is there a need for government incentives to have them built?
There is no need for incentives on a level playing field, but with feed in tariffs and renewable mandates for cherry picked technologies and expensive regulatory hurdles, the field is hardly level.
Are you kidding? So nuclear energy and fossil fuels are around for 50 and 150 years respectively and have been supported by massive government programs and special laws mandates today and in the past. They've had plenty of time to become highly competitive ages ago. Wind, solar and geothermal electricity are relatively new in this market but you want them to compete straight out of the box on your beloved level playing field? This sounds like something those two old men in the Muppet show would come up with. Booo!
So nuclear energy and fossil fuels are around for 50 and 150 years respectively and have been supported by massive government programs and special laws mandates today and in the past.
What is the subsidy for each technology in cents per kWh, reference please?
Windmills have been around about 300 years. The problem than and the problem now is that intermittent energy is far less valuable than reliable, dependable, controllable, dispatchable energy. When you add up the cost of backup power, storage, seasonal variation, voltage and frequency regulation, making intermittent energy reliable is very expensive.
I call for open competition on a level field. Why are you so opposed to that?
Besides that interconnected wind farms provide baseload and reduce peak generation:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/aj07_jamc.pdf
and firming up the grid is inexpensive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47909
Seven German nuclear plants have failed to generate any electricity this month due to technical breakdowns.
I’m curious to know why you keep bringing this up as I have answered before.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5950#comment-561181
“ Early this month, three plants shut down automatically due to failures in their transformers. The other four have been out of service for months, and are undergoing expensive repairs.”
So four plants were down for scheduled maintenance and three had transformer problems. Any source of energy can have transformer problems.
U.S. reactors operated at a capacity factor around 50% in the early days and are now up to 90%. If one utility has reliability problems it does not prove that reliable operation is impossible, but if one utility has good reliable performance, it proves that good performance is possible.
75% of nuclear reactors are expected to be built outside of the OECD. China, India mainly.
China and South Korea are building reactors in about 4-5 years. The prep time and approval procedures are far more streamlined there.
$5 million/year was the amount of money spent on prospecting in Niger to find recent mines.
Uranium exploration spending for australia and the world
http://www.ga.gov.au/ausgeonews/ausgeonews200903/mineral.jsp
World uranium exploration budgets in 2008 totalled US$1.2 billion, about 8% of total world mineral exploration budgets and a 23% increase over 2007. Canada and Australia accounted for 38% and 23% of uranium exploration budgets, respectively.
http://www.metalseconomics.com/pdf/PDAC%202009%20World%20Exploration%20T...
So if companies and countries are spending say 200-700 billion on new reactor build over the next ten years and then another $800 billion to $2 trillion from 2020-2030 then it would seem to be worthwhile to ensure that more than $12 billion is spent on exploration each decade if needed to insure fuel supplies.
==========
Wheeler River about 100,000 ton resource discovered in about 2008 (although it was a prospect from 2004-2007)
Denison has a 60% interest in the Wheeler River joint venture and is operator. The other partners are Cameco Corp. (30%) and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company, Limited (10%). The Wheeler project is favourably located along strike from the McArthur River deposit and is underlain by many of the same geological features as are present on that producing property. A prime target from 2004 to 2007 has been the quartzite ridge, where significant mineralization has been intercepted at a depth of 300 metres on two separate locations along this ridge separated by 600 metres. Work during 2008 was successful in discovering a new zone, the Phoenix discovery, of unconformity hosted mineralization associated with the hanging wall of the quartzite ridge. Located over eight kilometres northeast in an untested area from the previous work, this mineralization represents the most significant new discovery in the Athabasca Basin in many years, as it has many geological similarities to the McArthur River mineralization, but is at a shallower depth.
http://www.denisonmines.com/SiteResources/ViewContent.asp?DocID=103&v1ID...
The timeline for the generation of plants being built in the USA is about 5 years from permit application to breaking ground, 5 years from breaking ground to going critical. China has compressed this to 5 years, and the USA could too if required.
Energy return on energy invested
http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/08/comparison-energy-returned-on-energy.html
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf11.html
enrichment is a big factor in how much energy is needed for operations and fuel.
Laser enrichment being commercialized by GE (2012 target) will increase energy efficiency by 3-10 times
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/06/gas-centrifuge-versus-laser-uranium.html
Other ways that EROI will go up. Using the waste heat. Currently the lower (by industrial standards) waste heat is usually not used. (rarely for desalination and district heating.)
It appears that there will be more uses for waste heat by using it for large biofeul projects.
Better systems for capturing waste heat.
New high temperature pebble bed reactors would be more suited to having heat used for other purposes. Also the higher temperature means more efficiency conversion of heat to electricity.
mining is a small part of the energy lifecycle so even if that part went up 10 or 100 times the overall energy picture still looks great.
Uranium contains 5 million times the energy by weight versus coal.
From what I hear in the US, even with subsidies that are higher than the total expected build cost,
Evidence please.
Maybe this leads to the situation in which nuclear energy can only grow considerably in government controlled markets and/or only with tax payers money?
I think you have nuclear mixed up with wind and solar. Without mandates and feed in tariffs their construction would be stopped cold.
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/search?q=wind+subsidy
Existing U.S. plants have been paid off for a long time and make some of our cheapest low emission electricity, 2 cents/kWh vs 3.9 cents for coal and 6.2 cents for gas.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat8p2.html
New nuclear plants will make cheap power for 40 years after they have been paid off, whereas windmills will be scrapped after 20 years.
"evidence please"
You mean my source for that statement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcX78kDEoZ0&feature=channel
Notice the nuclear guy not denying that.
"I think you have nuclear mixed up with wind and solar. Without mandates and feed in tariffs their construction would be stopped cold."
Even if that is true now that solar has gone under 1Eur/Wp, this is not the case for nuclear? Didn't the USA under Bush get massive subsidies for nuclear? Aren't almost every other country with a growing nuclear industry under government energy control? Didn't get nuclear energy research get about 90% of new energy research subsidies in the last decades?
"New nuclear plants will make cheap power for 40 years after they have been paid off"
Well, lets see how those new plants fare without subsidies. Until now the average age of a nuclear plant before decommissioning is, what, 25 years?
How about a transcript for that video? Video cannot be put into search engines to verify cites.
Mostly, it got a streamlined licensing system which eliminated the ability of anti-nukes to block operation after construction.
Most US plants were ordered in the 60's or 70's. A 25-year lifespan would put us back to 1984, much later than the completion dates of most US plants. Lots of US plants are coming up to their 40th birthday and are applying for license extensions.
Your "evidence" for a nonsense statement is somewhere in a 1h40m video where a "nuclear guy" does not deny it? Wow!
That is marginal production costs for the panels? That is irrelevant - PV installations is still several times more expensive than wind, which in turn is twice as expensive as nuclear.
Not really.
I should hope so. Not more surprising than modern medicine getting more research funding than old herbal remedies.
That's mostly small old 10-200 MW reactors that were prototype, research or partly military, but was used for commercial grid generation anyway. And the odd political lunacy, such as the shut-down of Swedens Barseback.
"Your "evidence" for a nonsense statement is somewhere in a 1h40m video where a "nuclear guy" does not deny it? Wow!"
I watched it, did you? Warning: it might hurt your nuclear feelings.
"That is marginal production costs for the panels? That is irrelevant - PV installations is still several times more expensive than wind, which in turn is twice as expensive as nuclear."
With "this is not the case for nuclear?" I mean the subsidy bit.
You are still thinking big centralized power plants operated by near monopolies. I'm thinking of PV lying on every suitable roof. You'd be surprised how competitive PV is behind the meter. Well, maybe not in Sweden.
"Not really."
Yeah, really. E.g.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price-Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity...
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Power_2010_Program
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Law_85-804
Of course I didn't watch it. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I want solid facts and proofs presented with precision, preferably in text form. I don't like to search 2h propaganda shows for a "nuclear guy" who "don't deny" stuff.
Yes, a bit, but not nearly in the same ball-park. Solar and wind are typically extremely subsidised when built, if they aren't built on the PR budget of some company.
Extremely inefficient and will generate fall accidents on a scale that will make Chernobyl pale.
It is not competitive at all.
These subsidies are not "massive".
"Extremely inefficient and will generate fall accidents on a scale that will make Chernobyl pale."
Bollocks.
Impressive argument. Well, real world installation costs and roof-worker statistics support my statement.
For instance, take a look at this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219152130.htm
"Systems completed in 2006 or 2007 that were less than two kilowatts in size averaged $9.00 per watt, while systems larger than 750 kilowatts averaged $6.80 per watt."
Let's be clear: Wind power is installed for $2 per watt, and has a higher capacity factor than PV. Solar PV installations, especially small-scale domestic, is purely luxury items for rich show-offs.
I was refering to your argument comparing people falling off roofs to Chernobyl - which could have been far worse and was bad enough as it was. I should have missed out the "Extremely inefficient"
Though I would disagree with this as well on reflection as, even at the latitude I live at, Manchester UK. A 3kw system would generate about 2000kilowatt hours per year costing about £12k to install in the UK. This would cover several years supply at today's prices for electric about £0.1 per kilowatt hour but it would also act as an insurance policy against grid blackouts and possibly steeply rising prices in the near future. The UK government has said this is likely so probably will happen.
Small wind would be an even better insurance policy. Without any subsidies, I reckon that £25,000 investment for a 5kw turbine should give about 6000kwh of electric a year £600 worth which is a return of 2.4% with no subsidy at all and no allowance for the fact that electric is likely to go up in the future or go missing altogether. I know this does not include maintenance but it is also an insurance policy. You have likely spent on insurance and not got anything for it.
And the other thing about small wind and solar is they are inherently safer than nuclear and without the toxic waste.
Inverters are required to shutdown in case of an blackout to prevent islanding and electrocuting the grid maintenance engineers. You'll have to use an manual or automatic transfer switch to move from grid to island configuration and probably need some batteries and sine-inverters to simulate a working grid before the solar inverters will switch back on.
There are special solar inverters who have this functionality included.
Don't be fooled by the promises of small urban wind manufacturers. Long term tests in the Netherlands have proven that most designs are ineffective or way too expensive: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/04/small-windmills-test-results.html
Unless you live in the countryside you'd probably be much cheaper off with solar. Much less maintenance too. You'd probably won't need permits to put solar on your roof as opposed to a windturbine.
Well, roofing is the 6th most dangerous job. Roofers had a fatality rate in 2002 of 37 per 100,000 workers, so it easily adds up to be worse than Chernobyl if hundreds of millions of homes should install. But of course, the increased costs is a much bigger killer. The trillions of dollars extra that solar PV would cost if widely adopted will of course worsen the economy and thus impact health and so on.
So you'd pay £12k to save £200 per year? That's a return on investment of 1.7% - a clear no-go if there ever was one.
2.4% is better than 1.7%, but it is still a no-go. And please note that's competing with the grid price. It's even more insane when compared to the production cost of large-scale alternatives.
Perhaps, but that safety is simply not worth it. The extra money would be infinitely better used for traffic safety, for instance.
Science daily is ill informed. Lowest retail prices are about 1.30 Euro/Wp for crystalline panels. If you buy smart, complete installation with inverter and materials is currently about 2.50 Euro/Wp for small rooftop installations.
If you have money loosing value on the bank and are willing to do some work yourself then this is already below grid-parity over here. This is not a luxury item for rich show offs. Let's be clear: Grid-parity means it makes economic sense.
http://www.solarbuzz.com/Moduleprices.htm
€2.50/Wp is still insane. If it really generates at grid-parity, then the grid price is too high for some reason.
It may make economic sense to reach grid parity, but if the true cost (effort expended) on the home built stuff is twice as high, the society as a whole has lost the extra work done.
If you want to bring farming into the picture, yes, through history, bullock accidents probably make Chernobyl look like a piker too. People don't realize how easy it is to get hurt around large animals.
Talking of Chernobyl:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/12/farmers-restricted-che...
And that's just one tiny corner of the UK that is still affected by this disaster.
and (not energy) but same nuclear:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/17/iraq-falluja-birth-defect-ch...
According to EIA: Wind cost is at $55.80 per MWh, coal at $53.10/MWh and natural gas at $52.50 (2006). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
Russia-Turkey Nuclear Plant Deal:
Even 15.35 euro cents/kWh for the Russian nuclear power plant electricity is still: $ 231.6 / MWh or approximately 4 times the costs of wind power.
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/67392/politics-key-to-russia-turkey-nu...
But at least still less costly than a new Canadian reactor:
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/665644
And nuclear at about the same cost. The fact that everything costs the same in that EIA estimate is quite suspicious to me.
Such a price is insane, but says little about generation costs. (My guess is that a lot of stuff besides the raw electricity is included, implicitly or explicitly, in this bid.) Countries can choose the cost of nuclear (and of other generation techniques) by choosing the amount of regulation, taxes and subsidies they put in place. Fundamentally, sans excessive red tape and safety measurements, and with some economies of scale, nuclear is cheap.
You are catapulting propaganda. That $26 Billion is the 60 year levelized cost (cost for everything: construction, maintenance, fuel for SIXTY YEARS, decommissioning, "balance of plant", etc), NOT the reactor construction cost. From source:
The costs are certainly in the same ballpark as new plants in Florida:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89169837
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Florida_Power_And_Light_Welcomes_Initi...
This could be reason why 70 GW of new renewables were added while only 0 GW of new nuclear was added last year:
http://www.ren21.net/pdf/RE_GSR_2009_Update.pdf
China alone also added 14 GWth of solar hot water capacity last year alone (it's apparently cheaper to heat water on ones roof directly, than to build new power plants to power electric heaters).
http://www.ren21.net/pdf/RE_GSR_2009_Update.pdf
From January 2009 to August 2009, US primary energy consumption fell by 5.7 percent compared to the same time period in 2008. For the first eight months of 2009:
* petroleum provided 31.7% of US energy consumption
* natural gas provided 24.6% of US energy consumption,
* coal provided 21.0%
* nuclear 9.0%
* biomass 4.1%
* hydro 2.9%
* wind 0.7%
* geothermal 0.4%
* and solar 0.1% (EIA’s Monthly Energy Review).
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/contents.html
Energy Production by source Quad BTU
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/mer/pdf/pages/sec1_5.pdf
Renewable breakdown 2008
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb1001.html
Trillion BTU
Solar/PV 91
Wind 514
Biomass 3884 (wood, waste, biofuel)
geothermal 358
hydro 2452
Total renewable 7300
It is really, really strange that US utilities are governed by commie laws, and that yanks get upset when those commie laws are relaxed a bit. In non-commie contries (Sweden, for example), it's a given that private companies can profit from their operations and use their profits for investments.
I do hope not all US states are communist!
If I read anyone's post correctly the companies will be able to charge for services they are planning to provide in the future, by billing for the consctruction costs as they occur. Whether that would cost the ratepayers more or less than the cost of issuing, servicing and redeeming bonds seems to be the issue here, not profits from actual operations.
That's just playing with words. Companies should be able charge whatever they like, and then consumers choose whether to buy or not from that particular company. Something is wrong if laws have to be changed to allow this.
Disallowing IKEA to charge extra if their intent is to expand is nuts.
At least with products such as furniture, consumers are always free to buy their furniture from another company.
Since there are no parallel grids and the grid of a particular region is often owned by one company, people are unfortunately mostly not free to choose grid nor power provider.
Well, if you regulate the grid commie style b/c of a natural monopoly, that's one thing. But utilities? Why? That's like commie regulation of trucking b/c roads are natural monopolies. Doesn't make sense.
but public subsidy of trucking by building the and maintaining the roads (trucking fuel taxes don't near keep up with the wear trucks cause) isn't socialist? All those roads need to be private toll roads, on private land, stop every few feet and pay, that worked so well in the colonies, that will fix it.
As to regulating utilities, until the grid gets so effecient that you can choose your source of supplier--not likely to ever happen especially in more poorly served markets--defacto monopoly exists. People who banter around the word commie are just trying to incite high feelings that cloud judgement, does that make sense?
In Sweden, we consumers get to choose among lots of suppliers of electricity. Why can't you yanks - what "efficiency" do you lack? (The grid is a monopoly and has a separate fee.)
You only have one grid? I am afraid the little one I am on is only about 500 miles long with several skinny several hundred mile long tentacles and doesn't leave this state, which is almost four times as large as Sweden. A state I vacation in has a several grids, one on each island. There are forty eight other states, each with their own tax/reg structure, it get complicated here. Then of course each utility has a myriad of rate structures for different sized users, and the grid between the other forty eight states has huge thin spots in it that don't let much juice get transferred between regions. If the local untility in South Dakota can really only get power from a few regional plants what is charged in Florida will have little effect on what is charged for the power it actually has access to. I'm guessing your kingdom is a little more homogenous and a heck of a lot smaller. You get a choice and we get outfits like Enron.
Aren't almost every other country with a growing nuclear industry under government energy control?
So what? Which countries have growing wind and solar industries without mandates and feed in tariffs?
Didn't nuclear energy research get about 90% of new energy research subsidies in the last decades?
Combining nuclear fusion and nuclear fission R&D dollars into one basket is as accurate as combining solar thermal and geo thermal. There are many ways to split thorium and uranium atoms still untested. How many experimental demonstration reactors have been built in the last 40 years?
The R&D dollars spent on fission is a tiny fraction of the tax and fee dollars collected FROM the nuclear power industry.
Well, lets see how those new plants fare without subsidies.
I call for a level playing field and a massive R&D effort on all sources of energy.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5144#comment-476522
Do you support this recommendation? It is the most anti nuclear position that is practical.
the no subsidies type level playing field just won't happen too many, too deep and too entwined to disentangle them all but the massive R & D on all energy fronts would certainly give us a better shot at making good choices. It would take luck & enlightenned oversight to keep the most vested from strangling the most promising which appeared to threaten those vested interests even in the R & D effort. It is worth taking the shot though.
Nuclear and fusion 90% and solar, wind, geothermo and bio 10%? And why is that not a fair comparison?
Yes, I would recommend a level playingfield. Unfortunately you cannot undo past incentives for FF, nuclear and renewables. If we could, my bet would be on FF and solar, because FF were cheap and solar would win because it's relatively low-tech and it's basically a spinoff from it's commercial chip industry sister.
Nuclear would not have existed in the 1950's and 60s and possibly not even today was it not for it's military birth.
So it's nothing more then fair to give renewables the incentives now that the other established players have had in the past. Or should funding for fusion research be canceled too?
Nuclear and fusion 90% and solar, wind, geothermo and bio 10%? And why is that not a fair comparison?
You need to look at the big picture. The amount of money spent on energy R&D is insignificant compared to the amount of money all humans spend on energy. That is why we are dependent on old fossil technology. How that tiny token was divided up is irrelevant, water long over the dam. Start looking forward instead of backward.
My recommendation is to build prototypes of everything up to commercial sized models. This is the expensive part of R&D. how many experimental reactors have been built in the last 30 years? Very few countries have been doing any nuclear Development in the last 30 years. The U.S. is the biggest offender; we have given up our technological lead in this field, and many others. This is why we have little to sell to the rest of the world.
When full size demo plants are built their performance will speak for them. If they offer significant improvements over the competition they will be adopted.
So it's nothing more then fair to give renewables the incentives now that the other established players have had in the past.
I support developing demonstration plants to their maximum potential. If they offer better performance than other options they will be adopted. Building huge numbers of uneconomical systems is a waste of money that could be better spent.
1) Can you point to a URL on how long it will take to pay off a new plant?
2) Various parts of a windmill have varying life. (Just like nuclear.) Obviously the moving parts require ongoing maintenance, and the blades and generator will need to be replaced. 20 years is not unreasonable estimate for those parts. However, a significant cost of a windmill is in the foundation and tower (More concrete per KWh than nuclear, it and the tower are about 40% of the installed cost, IIRC). It's not as if 20 years later you need to come out, dismantle the tower and jackhammer out all that concrete, just to pour a new foundation 30 feet away. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect an 80 year+ life from the foundation and tower, especially inland, as we have bridges that old on both coasts which are also exposed to salt spray.
Sounds like how CERA would describe themselves regarding to oil...
Exactly! The parallels are amazing. A major consulting firm, telling all of its clients and the world that things are rosy. In the case of Ux Consulting, its rosy uranium forecasts probably were relied on by quite a few in the last few years, when deciding whether to plan for new reactors. If these rosy uranium forecasts were not available, one wonders how many new plants would be in planning stages. And remember--the new power plants will need fuel long after 2020.
Do you stockpile all of the gasoline for your car for the ten to fifteen year life of your car at the same time as you buy the car ? Or do you not buy a car if the oil companies do not have assured supplies ? How about natural gas for heat for the thirty-forty year life of a building ?
Have you gotten an assured stockpile of money before having a new baby. Pre-loaded funds for college, private grade school, medical care etc... College might only be 18 years away and the school and other major expenses would start hitting sooner.
Oh. People do not behave that way and are pretty sure that these steps can be taken as the needs approach.
More directly how about the natural gas supplies for a natural gas plant or coal supplies for a coal plant ?
Then why would you think it makes sense for the utilities to have those kinds of pre-build fuel supply checklists for a nuclear plant.
I have stockpiled a major part of my energy needs, it's virtually guaranteed to be available for the next 4 billion years. The equipment for harvesting this fuel runs for about 30 years with only marginal maintenance...The equipment is simple to use, gets cheaper and more efficient every year, so if my needs change I can add more of it easily. It appears that more and more people are discovering this mysterious source of energy.
If you build a very expensive power plant that runs on only one kind of fuel, you sure would like to know if you can keep it running before it's economic life time has been reached. Gas powered plants are different from nuclear plants in that they are cheap to build but expensive to run. The capital risk for a gas plant is therefore much lower. Also, gas plants are being built constantly meaning there is no risk for unexpected high costs in construction. The same goes for coal.
So different price risks but price risks just the same. Many places that are building the plants allow pass through of the costs to the consumer for construction of new plants or have government backing like in China. But you might say that would mean increases in the per kwh energy prices for consumers. Yet the per kwh energy prices spike up when natural gas or coal or oil prices increase. So in the end the consumers pay. Therefore, it does not matter that the government and the utilities which are often tightly aligned to the government pass it off to the consumer or the citizen. Because if people pay with higher taxes or higher bills in the end it comes from the ultimate revenue source which is the people.
So if you can grasp that the bottom line is that people have to pay for their power then you can make your best long term plans.
Solar power is what 1/10 of 1% now ? There is a supply chain for the factories and for your maintenance. You are depending upon the market and business as usual too. Or can you make new solar cells or wires ?
The fact that individuals can have solar power is not the point it is what is the sustainability and scalability of the whole industry and the ability to meet signicant parts of energy demand.
For scaling up their are material issues. The availability of silicon and other materials.
Here is a look at scaling up to terawatt levels for solar. (Because the supply/demand issues for nuclear become an issue as nuclear is being scaled to 4000+ Terawatt hours/year.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/03/materials-to-scale-solar-power-to.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/10/status-and-potentil-of-pyrite-solar.html
This is the kind of analysis to start talking about the same kind of energy problem for comparing solar and nuclear. It is what would utilities and countries do to get 200 terawatt hours/year. What is the energy mix.
The fact that you are willing to pave your driveway with gold would not translate into a viable material solution for national highway and roads with material demands for 100,000 miles and in competition with other countries looking to build millions of miles of new road.
Advancenano, Do I read your chart correctly that there is more tin mined than iron? More lead and aluminum also? What am i missing here?
It is not my chart.
Follow the link.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/es8019534
Materials Availability Expands the Opportunity for Large-Scale Photovoltaics Deployment
Wadia†‡, A. Paul Alivisatos‡§ and Daniel M. Kammen*†#
Energy and Resources Group, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-3050, Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-3050, and Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-3050
Environ. Sci. Technol., 2009, 43 (6), pp 2072–2077
18 page pdf supporting info
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/es8019534/suppl_file/es8019534_si_...
Sn (tin production) worldwide is about 280,000 tons, so that table number looks right. USGS and other sources can be used to crosscheck the values. The point is though that there are material limits on solar cells.
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/tin/tin__mcs06.pdf
It looks like the chart from the paper has an error for Fe (Iron) The 1600 value is for millions of tons not for thousands
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/iron_ore/340303.pdf
the million value is consistent with the analysis of the paper which is saying to develop and use FeS2 (pyrite) for solar cells
sulfur 68 million tons per year produced worldwide
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/sulfur/mcs-2009-sulfu.pdf
Reserves of sulfur: Resources of elemental sulfur in evaporite and volcanic deposits and sulfur associated with natural gas, petroleum, tar sands, and metal sulfides amount to about 5 billion tons. The sulfur in gypsum and anhydrite is almost limitless, and some 600 billion tons of sulfur is contained in coal, oil shale, and shale rich in organic matter, but low-cost methods have not been developed to recover sulfur from these sources. The domestic sulfur resource is about one-fifth of the world total.
Oh, I'm all with you with regard to cadmium telluride and selenium indium type of solar cells as well as (mono)crystaline designs. They are now cost effective and the materials used are still widely available and boost growth of the sector, but they will probably not make out the bulk of solar in the future. Thinfilm, roll-to-roll inkjet type of production, plastic carriers and probably organic semiconductors will become the major players. These require orders of magnitude less material for cell production and installation. Also silicon, copper and aluminum are a very abundant materials. Perhaps iron pyrite will be the future, but you are looking at the subject from a centralized view: few big power stations which have to heavilly compete at market prices. Solar has the possibility to be used in a mostly decentralized way behind the meter. As long as governments demand taxing on electricity every power generating system behind the meter will have a huge price benefit.
Given a lifetime of 30 years with an inverter replacement once midway it is easy to calculate the cost per kWh up front. For me solar is already lower then buying electricity from the net which is also increasing with about 7% per year on average. Industry pays less per kWh, but it won't take long for solar to become cheaper then industrial prices as well. There is already a growing number of companies putting PV on their roofs and -depending on the energy intensity of their products- sell excess back to the network operator. Solar is more and more on an industrial scale mass produced as are inverters, market laws say: price will continue to go down.
This is hardly paving the roads with gold, decentralized PV just makes economic sense for consumers (industrial following soon). As prices plummet so will it's use increase.
For scaling up their are material issues. The availability of silicon and other materials.
Brian, this suggests to me that you're not really thinking deeply enough about material availability.
There's more than enough sand for silicon...
What is the annual production rate of solar cell grade silicon ?
That is not the same as sand. Just as the Uranium in the ground is not the same as uranium fuel rods.
Yes, solar cell silicon can be scaled up but it will take a lot of time and a lot of factories.
the issues are the same. R & D to lower costs and to process more of the abundant resources
Yes, solar cell silicon can be scaled up but it will take a lot of time
There used to be a supply problem, but that's in the past. Solar cell silicon has been growing at better than 50% per year lately, and has exceeded demand.
The Denison mine presentation on wheeler river has another couple of UxC Consulting graphs. on pages 21, 22 out of 23 pages. There is not any significant supply demand gap potential until about 2018-2020 so there is 8 years for time for a lot more ramp up actions to occur. Plus as supplies tighten the deferred projects get spun up and delayed expansions occur.
http://www.denisonmines.com/SiteResources/data/MediaArchive/pdfs/investo...
One thing to remember about nuclear plants is that they have 12-18 month or longer operating cycles. So if I am a utility and have the current fuel rods in my reactor and the next set ready and waiting then and another couple contracted with a supply company.
I have a assured supply for 19-36 months and secure supply for 55-72 months. (18 month operating cycle)
13-24 months and 37-48 months on the 12 month cycle
The IAEA and Russia are looking to setup a fuel reserve
The IAEA has theorised that political problems could unfairly leave a country without reliable access to nuclear fuel, despite honest and peaceful use of nuclear energy.
The IAEA noted that "good operation of the market already provides assurances of supply." It continued that the reserve would be "a back-up solution only" which should avoid interfering with the existing market.
A couple of people who work at Olympic Dam or the adjoining township of Roxby Downs tell me they doubt the expansion will be approved. The reasons seem to be NIMBYism, the left leaning State government and reluctance to spend big in a downturn.
A reverse osmosis desalination plant and pipeline is ready to be built on the coast nearly 300km away. Local conservationists want it moved because it is a breeding ground for giant cuttlefish. The site near the top of a landlocked gulf already has elevated salinity and poor circulation. The expansion project itself will need an extra 690 MW of power possibly from a new gas fired power station at Roxby Downs. That will require a pipeline from a dwindling gas basin 400km away.
Some have suggested that both the water and electricity be supplied by a combined nuclear power station and desalination plant on a stretch of more open coastline. This does not wash with green politicians despite the fact that mining is already part of the nuclear fuel cycle. However public opinion polls show 80% support for local nuclear power. Using electric than than diesel machinery would also answer criticism of indirect CO2 emissions.
Therefore I expect the July 2010 decision to contain so many conditions it is effectively a copout. Since the current uranium grade is lower than before I expect Olympic Dam yellowcake production to decline somewhat based on current ore tonnages. In the long run the mine owner BHP Billiton could make good profits without expanding the mine because the U3O8 price will be higher.
As a sidenote there are attempts to get small amounts of geothermal power by drilling steam holes into uranium bearing granites. So far these projects have run into problems but the green lobby has high hopes they will work out, a double standard I suggest.
BHP Billton will lose if they don't expand production, because they'll just expand the market for companies like Lightbridge and promote a technology shift away from uranium.
Australia would be well-advised to buy a bunch of CANDUs and set them up to run the mines and desalinate the water, then start replacing coal in the cities. A country which produces so much yellowcake (U3O8) could very easily convert it to UO2 pellets and have all the CANDU fuel they could use. That would be carbon-free baseload power and put Oz on track to become one of the leaders in Copenhagen (not that a policy reversal of that magnitude could happen in time).
One of the insitu leaching companies wants to go straight to UF6 I believe. The Silex laser enrichment process was conceived in Australia but will operate in the US. I thought the problem with the CANDU design is the $11 a watt capital cost vs $5 or so for designs like the AP 1000. Some nuclear advocates in Australia propose that Gen IV plants (IFR specifically) should eventually sit next to Gen III plants (none built so far) and initially feed off their waste.
It's strange the political party that is blocking the Australian cap and trade legislation is pro-nuclear but the government party sponsoring the bill is anti-nuclear. Power that is not mining.
Initially? The burnup in current SNF reaches perhaps 5%. The U+actinides in SNF generated by a 1 GW LWR over its 60-year lifetime would run a 1 GW IFR for over 1000 years; the spent fuel in dry-cask storage is many times a lifetime fuel supply.
It might be reasonable to make an IFR design to go into gutted LWR containment buildings, re-using the buildings, the site and the electrical transmission corridor. The power density of an IFR is very high and there is no need to protect against e.g. steam explosions with a metal coolant, so several reactors could be installed in one containment building. They would reprocess the SNF, hold the actinides as fuel and convert the uranium into metal. The uranium in excess of lifetime fuel requirements could be shipped elsewhere (e.g. 1% LEU sold for CANDU fuel).
Fission of 1 atom of U or actinide yields about 200 MeV, so 1 ton of U-238 would produce about 22 billion kWh thermal (roughly 10 billion kWh electrical at 45% thermal efficiency). That's about 1.15 GW-yr/ton. The 120 tons of fuel in an LWR at any one time is a lifetime fuel supply for 1 or 2 IFRs.
The Howard government is leftism? Wow, because of their reluctance towards nuclear they have become leftish, green treehuggers? From what I grasp in the press they are as conservative as possible.
Peak Oil, Peak Warming, Peak Coal, Peak Gold, Peak Uranium.
Has anyone studied Peak Water? or Peak Oxygen?
You seem to be desperate for bad news... ;)
Since you asked for it:
Youtube video, with an introduction to the term "peak water" (with Peter Gleick)
I wouldn't know about peak oxygen, I presume that such a scenario would only occur when all our other life support systems would not be able to sustain any of us anyway.
In order to not detract from the original topic I would have a question regarding nuclear power:
Since availability of fossil water (and clean/drinkable water) seems to be in question, I wonder how much water are
we willing to sacrifice for our energy needs. I mean the table posted by "matt" earlier suggests that we use a ton of water just for extraction.
Of course I don't believe that for the extraction potable water is used but maybe there's still a certain requirement in quality (brackish/clean or desalinated) in order for it to be
be usable with the equipment (I presume pumps or nozzles but it would be nice if someone could enlighten me about this).
I think little stuff like these are unidentified costs since they're not measurable by monetary means and thus I remain very skeptical about any "positive" outlooks regarding uranium or any other kind of supply.
I hope you people forgive me for this kind of non-optimistic and simply stated view of mine
Cheers
I'd say. We have enough loaded into weapons and relatively grid-independent to have a big "party" and even if that does not happen, the dieoff may be well underway by 2020 and the supply will far outstrip the need of a much-reduced and lower-tech population.
Before I start, just for the record I am **not** anti nuclear. I have no problem with it, none whatsoever. I also have no major hang-ups about nuclear weapons either. Prefer they didn't exist and certainly hope the Royal Navy will never be ordered to loose off a few (although if that knob in Iran doesn't give us back our yachtsmen then I might make an exception).
That said, speaking as a Briton, if any of my countrymen believe that nuclear will ever be more than a useful sideshow in our energy mix then I would suggest that they think again. Currenty 16% of all sparks are produced by nuclear - what the % is of all energy I don't know; a lot less. To generate this 16% requires a heck of an infrastructure, de-facto government subsidies and a big wedge of compliance and goodwill from the public.
There is no doubt that nuclear should - and will - play a walk-on part in providing me with a hot bath, heating and power for my laptop. But whether there is enough Uranium or not, to think nuclear is the panacea for all our problems is just wishful thinking.
Nuclear is a sideshow, if we allow ourselves to be too distracted by it we will find ourselves in no better a position than we are now.. Which is staring into the energy abyss.
Nuclear could quite easily supply the world with all its electricity needs forever. Perhaps we'll one day find something even better to replace coal, but if we don't, I think the world will be overwhelmingly nuclear powered within my lifetime.
Liquid fuel is similar - nuclear energy seems the best bet for non-fossil large-scale production, but here too we may conceivably stumble upon something even better.
"...quite easily.."
no, it is not easy.
"...forever..."
that is a long, long, time. Are you sure?
Your blanket uber-optimism is touching, but fanciful.
Give over.
Here we are at a site intent on teaching people about and facing resource limits, and we get "Quite Easily, Forever". Yikes..
It reminds me of WestTexas' amazement at those who can accept the depletion of individual fields, but don't accept that the aggregate of all of them can also run down..
That depends on the definition of easy. Breeder reactors can, if needed, generate electricity at a price that is low enough not to hamper human civilisation and progress in any way.
When I state "forever", I don't mean literally forever - just millions of years. I don't think we need to plan ahead more than 100-200 years anyway, so millions of years worth of assured energy supplies feels comfortable enough.
It took about 180 years to complete building the cathedral of Notre Dame back in an age when humans were illiterate, you think we can do a little better planning for the future with our current understanding of reality.
I'm not sure you can possibly be serious about that statement.
I don't really get your Notre Dame analogy. Useless monuments can be built at whatever pace you like, but production facilities cannot. Technology is progressing fast - planning more than 200 years ahead is a complete waste of time and will probably make us focus too little on imminent challenges. We may be fusion-powered gods or hunter-gatherers in 200 years from now.
Why wouldn't I be serious about the millions of years of energy supplies? Have you done the math regarding breeders?
The world has cumulatively produced about 2.3 million tonnes of uranium, of which about a fifth has been partly burnt in ordinary reactors. This means we should have about 1.8 million tonnes of depleted uranium laying around. How much energy does this represent? 1 kg gives around 24 TJ in a fast breeder reactor, so the total energy contents would be 24*1.8e9 TJ = 43 ZJ. This alone is 100 times the total yearly global energy consumption.
Then we have the extreme improvement in EROEI using breeders, the currently known and unknown uranium reserves, the proportionally much higher reserves at lower ore grades, the thorium and so on.
The world has cumulatively produced about 2.3 million tonnes of uranium, of which about a fifth has been partly burnt in ordinary reactors.
Right. Only about 1% has been fissioned. 85-90% never got into a reactor and sits at the enrichment plant waiting for breeder reactors to be built, so even if we bury spent fuel, there is plenty of uranium for Gen IV reactors.
Nuclear is a sideshow, if we allow ourselves to be too distracted by it we will find ourselves in no better a position than we are now.. Which is staring into the energy abyss.
So what is on center stage? What does it cost? How long will it take to build?
Nano, I would like to look at this issue from a different angle. From my non-expert understanding the following conditions apply:
(1) As one goes down the ore quality scale, there is plenty available. The question is what does the reserves, versus cost of production curve look like?
(2) The main issue as I see it are system lags in supply/demand elasticity. Obviously short term demand is very price insensitive, even at $500 pound, if you have a reactor you will just pay the going price rather than shutdown. And baring a sudden rash of plant accidents, demand should be pretty predicatble several years in advance. So that largely leaves it up to supply elasticity. If a shortage ocurrs and prices spike, how quickly can supply expand? I had read it takes many years to get a new mine up and running. So that leaves a potential risk of a transient shortage, if the market is unable to anticipate it in time. Of course buffers can mitigate this risk. So how long would it take for supplies to correct for an unexpected shortfall? I can imagine several scenarios that might generate one. One would be inattention, assuming the current price predicts future cost, and not reacted until the price spikes. Another might be biased forcasts, with say major players overstating their future production in order to raise their stock price and/or scare off the competition. A third would be a major mine accident, say the flooding of a major producing mine.
On the basis of the above market dynamics you can see that the current low price is probably a transient response to the (positive) supply shock from coldwar era military stockpiles, and the widely predicted (until this report) supply cruch a transient response to the ending of the miltary stockpile supply.
I spent 15 years with Cameco until 2008 and was a working group member with the IAEA concerning uranium supply. We published a document called "Fissile Material Management Strategies for Sustainable Nuclear Energy." I'd post the link to the pdf on the IAEA site but their publications page is currently down. Essentially there is plenty of uranium to go around for a good 25 years or so. One of the key issues is that there is low cost uranium and high cost uranium and not much in between. This tends to play havoc with the supply situation since the high cost producers only come on line if there is an state entity picking up the bills. Kazakstan will no doubt shape the supply picture for a number of years since they have well over 3,000,000,000 pounds in the ground that they can extract for about $10/lb.
I think Olympic Dam will eventually muddle their way into production but then after that surge there are few lower cost sources available.
I think the Canadian supply picture will continue to worsen since the good stuff has been mined out, including McArthur River, and only the tough ore to extract remains.
South Rossing is a bright spot and I would not be suprised to see Extract Resources form a JV of sorts with someone other than Rio Tinto who are close by. I travelled to numerous places to have a look at many uranium deposits and plenty of them are garbage. South Rossing of Extracts is probably one of the brighter spots.
But for anyone to suggest that the supply of U is running out is nonsense.
Wow Ex U Miner You really are a newby Less than one hour. Cool. Welcome aboard. Have you lurked for long?
I stumbled across this site on the weekend when I was researching the Bakken play here in the province. Learned a few things already no doubt. Not an oilman but a mining engineer currently in potash. I know uranium like the back of my hand.
"High cost" is relative. How much U is available at $200/lb, do you think? (That's the price bandied about to extract it from seawater, which cannot be depleted on century or perhaps even millenium timescales and is thus "infinite" for our planning horizons.)
No,silly Techno-Cornucopian.
Alvin Weinberg back in 1975 said studies of seawater uranium estimated the cost between $500 and $1000/ kg which in today's money is $900-$1800 per pound.
So you're off by a factor of 5-10 assuming the incredibly low EROI doesn't get you.
Weinberg cited a study that uranium ore below 20 ppm would have an EROI of 1 unless there was recycling(reprocessing) which would lower it to 12 ppm for an EROI of 1 and seawater is .003 ppm.
Alvin Weinberg back in 1975 said studies of seawater uranium estimated the cost between $500 and $1000/ kg which in today's money is $900-$1800 per pound.
1975? Majorian, are you still wearing your bell bottoms? We have made some progress since then.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5060/473058
It is below $200/lb now.
Not on seawater uranium and not much otherwise.
The price of uranium yellowcake in 1975 was about $12 a pound the current price which is $36 in today's dollars but today the price is $41 a pound for milled yellowcake.
Uranium is getting more expensive because the average yield of ore is declining from less than 0.15% of ore by 5% per year. By 2016 when there will be 68 new nuclear power plants(71 GW) in the world according to world-nuclear, it will be below 0.1% of ore. If 50% more ore needs to be mined than costs will rise about 50%.
The BTU value of coal is also falling but by less than 1% per year.
Due to new asian demand(almost all LWRs) will increase from 50000 MTU to 60000 MTU.
Demand in Asia will rise, costs of uranium will rise, costs of construction for LWRs are already ridiculous--$4 per W and net gen will be $7 per W.
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009...
Nuclear power is already expensive; the French nominal rate for (nuke)electricity is 16 US cents per kwh.
Too cheap to meter?
Now that is a sobering view on the nuclear future. And confirms remarkably many of the concerns already listed in this topic.
Since you are hung up on EROI and not able to calculate figures yourself, I'll do them for you. Let's assume that uranium is extracted from seawater at $440/kg and the entire cost is due to buying electricity at 10¢/kWh. The energy input would be 4400 kWh/kg (4.4 MWh/kg).
The current energy output from uranium in an LWR is about 40 megawatt-days (thermal) per kilogram. Assuming a thermal efficiency of 30% and 15% yield of LEU from NU (a figure which would be increased if U was so expensive), the 4.4 MWh input would yield about 43.2 MWh of electricity. That's an EROI of about 10:1, or about what oil is today.
That's the worst it can get. Reactors with higher thermal efficiency, reactors with higher burnup (already on the way), and fast-spectrum reactors which can burn all the uranium will only improve matters.
Any thoughts about the Bakken play you might want to share?
I'm intrigued by the old estimate of 400B bbls of oil in there somewhere, even though the current USGS estimate of recoverable oil is less than 1% of that.
Production seems to be rising pretty quickly in ND - how long do you think it can grow? Any applications of newer unconventional NG drilling methods?
I see these estimates of supplies of this resource or that resource, over the course of the next few decades and I wonder if the implicit assumption for all these estimates is a stable society and an economy that is not lurching from recession to recession. If so, how do these estimates break down if the assumption breaks down? That goes for estimates of oil production decline rates, also.
Sofistek,
That's an interesting and probably useful question to ask. I do have some thoughts. Before I get to them, however, I want to note that it's a shift of topic.
Michael Dittmar's original thesis to which Brian was responding in this article was that uranium supplies would be a constraining factor in deployment of nuclear power. I.e., that we couldn't significantly expand -- or maybe even maintain -- nuclear's share of world energy supply because there wasn't enough accessable uranium to allow it. I think that that thesis has been pretty well demolished.
What you're asking about now is a different question: in effect, whether a progressive deterioration of economic conditions might not be a constraining factor, even if uranium supplies are not. It's plausible to think that they might, because we're seeing signs of something like that already.
There's a classical doomer argument going back to Jay Hansen's 'dieoff' website (I think) that because oil is our predominant energy resource, the cost of alternatives is ultimately rooted in the cost of oil. No matter how costly oil might become on the down side of PO, alternatives will become even more so. So we will all end up following the oil depletion curve down to a new stone age.
I always dismisssed that argument as nonsense. Lately I've had second thoughts. It's not the cost of alternatives that's the issue, however, it's the demand. The hypothesis would be that once the cost of oil reaches a certain level, its triggers a global economic contraction that reduces demand at a rate exceeding the natural decline rate. So there will always be "surplus" capacity that will make it impossible to justify investments in alternative resources. That's a really scary thought. It means that the old 'dieoff' scenario of following the oil depletion curve down to a new "Olduvai gorge" would be essentially correct.
I don't think that's actually how things will go. The difference between that scenario and what is physically possible and socially desireable is just too great. It's hard to believe that we will just accept the progressive collapse economic conditions and won't find a way to break out. In any case the US is not the world, and China, at least, seems to be serious about non-fossil energy resources -- including nuclear. But collapses that were unnecessary and stupid, in terms of what was physically possible, have certainly happened in the past. There's no reason I can think of for confidence that we will break away from the trajectory that we appear to be on.
There's no reason I can think of for confidence that we will break away from the trajectory that we appear to be on.
Tom Freedman’s most famous contribution to the world is probably his saying that ‘the world is flat’. That flattening is enabled by technology, of which energy is a cornerstone.
It stands to reason that if we ride down the oil depletion curve the world will wrinkle up again. Many places with limited resources will suffer massive die-off. A few locations will do well.
For example, Russia is a vast territory with abundant natural resources and a small population. It could do well.
How is Russia's agriculture doing these days? I haven't heard much about it, which was never the case back in the day where it seemed every five year plan was a bust (so US media said anyhow). I really am curious but much to lazy to check it out myself.
Yes, I think a lot depends on how subsequent limits on oil production affect society and the economy. If substitutes can be brought on quickly enough then some of the periods of strain can be masked. The optimistic forecasts all assume that disruptions aren't too drastic. Life is rarely so accommodating.
As you say, surplus capacity will reduce the urgency for alternatives, even as that is exactly the right time for alternative infrastructures - when there is surplus energy. Societies and economies will be depressed at that time, however, and there won't be much appetite for projects that are seen as unneeded, even if finance could be obtained for them, which is doubtful.
I think that once decline sets in, if it hasn't already, the decline rate will be much higher than most formats, or will soon get to be much higher.
That's questionable. Segments of the economy which reduce their reliance on oil will not have so much pressure to contract during oil price spikes. They will become a bigger part of the whole. Wind power and nuclear will have essentially zero pressure to contract, and will get increased demand as electricity becomes relatively cheaper than oil.
The US economy has a lot of capacity which can be diverted from consumption to investment. For instance, the glass fiber and resin going to the recreational boat industry could make wind-turbine blades instead.
Hmmm, maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I'm not sure we're talking about the same issue. The kind of contraction I was talking about would not be sector-specific, and it isn't directly in response to high oil prices. It's a general contraction -- reduction in overall economic activity -- resulting from unemployment and vacancy rates. Real energy efficiency is not relevant, because the issue is across-the-board aggregate demand.
Call it the "pile driver" model for slow economic collapse. An oil price spike is the blow that drives the pile (economy) down a bit into the mud. But in between blows, the pressure from high oil prices is relieved, and there's no immediate incentive to invest in alternative energy resources. "Yes, a while back we had a terrible problem with oil prices and it really damaged the economy. But we've adjusted and now there's more than enough supply. Prices are down to something we can live with, and we can't afford to be spending on projects we don't need while we're struggling to pull ourselves back out of the mud we've sunk into."
We're seeing that response now, to an extent. The question is, will it be strong enough to forestall the needed infrastructure investments. And will it repeat after the next hammer blow? My expectation is that we're smart enough to realize that we have to make the investments needed to avoid future hammer blows, but I'm not at all sure of that.
The question is, what's the evidence for investment in alternatives, or lack thereof?
Germany and France seem to be moving pretty aggressively in that direction.
The US is a bit slower, but the recent increase in the CAFE standard is encouraging. Hybrid sales are staying steady in absolute terms, and gaining market share. Look at the Chevy Volt: GM is building the company around it. Also, US wind investment is holding pretty steady.
World solar investment is still growing.
I'm told that during the great depression, investment levels in new tech remained quite high - for many companies, it was their path to survival.
I don't really see evidence for the "pile driver" model.
I don't know Nick, "the raise money from, then pay back contributing lobbies with policy that favors the old way that created the lobbies' power" pressure does seem to encourage the 'pile driver' along with the standard out of power response to anything the in power majority proposes. The dems totally pooh poohing the nuke expansion proposals made by the Cheney bunch pops into mind as do many responses the repubs are giving now. They all seem to have the 'we are past that now (because the immediate pressure has been relieved) lets leave that alone and spend our money elsewhere' theme. It is, at the very least, a strong force that must be reckoned with.
as an aside--How much auto co. stock do you have ?-)
contributing lobbies ...does seem to encourage the 'pile driver'
Yes, there is great resistance to change in the US. Employees and investors in legacy industries fear change as a threat to their careers and investments. Still, look at the evidence of change I gave.
How much auto co. stock do you have ?
None. I'm just looking at the evidence...
Sure, a price shock in any major input will suck purchasing power out of the whole economy. But think about how this occurs: goods and activities which require the high-priced input become more expensive, and people try to use less of them. They can do this in 3 basic ways:
Naturally, most people would rather avoid option #1. Some parts of the economy will be more efficient than others and some will have substituted already; their prices will have to go up less or not at all, and business will flow to them during the shock.
As an example of substitution, suppose that rail operators resume deliveries to local sidings and start using electric trucks for short-haul deliveries of containers and piggy-backed trailers. In a price shock their activities would be affected far less than diesel trucking; electrified sections wouldn't be affected by petroleum prices at all. The rail system would enjoy higher profits as demand went up while the competition had to deal with a severe profit squeeze and maybe capacity problems. The rail sector would probably not contract while trucking would take a big hit, leaving the economy less dependent upon oil afterward.
Repeat this a few times and think about investment patterns in between, and you've got a "balloon" model for economic change: the pile driver will hammer down the petroleum-dependent portions, but parts of that will squeeze out elsewhere. What we really need is policy which pushes that trend and has it well under way before we are faced with a crisis (too late already?), and continues it in between crises when people might otherwise be tempted to backslide.
But that's precisely the rub when the commodity is oil: people don't (immediately) use much less of it. Instead they cut back on whatever else they can more easily manage to forego -- eating out, new clothes, new gizmos, whatever. That's where the general contraction comes in. Only later, after layoffs and closings, does oil consumption drop enough to make a substantial difference. Folks who have lost their jobs can't afford to do much driving, and boarded up shops and foreclosed homes don't use power or heat. So prices retreat, and bye bye incentive.
Systems with delayed feedback loops of this sort are very prone to oscillation. If the system lacks adequate damping, you can build a simulation and watch it hammer itself into the ground. But that's only a crude simulation. It's hard to know if it's saying anything about the real economy.
people don't (immediately) use much less of it.
First, we need to define "people". E-P is talking about industrial/commercial "people", who respond differently.
2nd, there's a big difference between short-term and long term responses ("elasticity of demand"). People don't cut back on gas consumption if they think it's a short-term problem. In the longer-term, people and governments respond - that's what happened in the early 80's.
3rd, let's be clear that there are plenty of ways to reduce oil consumption without harming the economy. Carpooling, telecommuting, staycations, near vacations, online shopping, slower driving, etc (and that's just for personal transportation). Heck, carpooling alone could reduce US oil consumption by 35% with all commuters still getting to work.
True. I didn't mean to ignore the second part of E-P's comment. Tried to ammend it later, but got a "permission denied".
Businesses that take measures to reduce their exposure to high oil prices -- such as the electrificatin that E-P describes -- will certainly be less impacted and relatively advantaged during those episodes when oil and related commodity prices go through the roof. What I hadn't really appreciated is the fact that it is only episodes that we'll be facing. Once an episode has worked its economic damage, prices will return to moderate levels. They will tend to remain there until either the economy begins to recover, raising demand, or until further production declines and / or rising consumption elsewhere trigger a new episode. That could conceivably even put businesses that had invested in alternative resources at a disadvantage relative to those that conserved their capital.
In any case the bottom line is that unemployment among individuals, bankruptcies among businesses, and foreclosures on residential and commercial real estate are far more immediate and effective "conservation" measures than any positive measures individuals or businesses can take to improve energy efficiency. Those are the default means by which oil and resources shortages will be addressed. It will take applied intelligence to prevent them from being the only means.
Once an episode has worked its economic damage, prices will return to moderate levels.
But they haven't. Oil prices are very high in historical terms. They may not be as high as we'd like, but they're high enough to keep momentum. Let me repeat myself:
Germany and France seem to be moving pretty aggressively to reduce oil consumption.
The US is a bit slower, but the recent increase in the CAFE standard is encouraging. Hybrid sales are staying steady in absolute terms, and gaining market share. Look at the Chevy Volt: GM is building the company around it. Also, US wind investment is holding pretty steady.
World solar investment is still growing.
I'm told that during the great depression, investment levels in new tech remained quite high - for many companies, it was their path to survival.
unemployment among individuals, bankruptcies among businesses, and foreclosures on residential and commercial real estate are far more immediate and effective "conservation" measures than any positive measures individuals or businesses can take to improve energy efficiency.
Carpooling takes a few days, and reduces fuel consumption by 50 to 80%. Telecommuting gives 100% reduction. What's more immediate and effective than that?
Those are the default means by which oil and resources shortages will be addressed.
That's not what happened in the early 80's.
It will take applied intelligence to prevent them from being the only means.
I strongly agree that we need to apply our collective and individual intelligence in order to miminize those. OTOH, I really think you need to get your thinking out of the "oil is directly proportional to economic activity" myth that is so prevalent on TOD.
As noted above, that isn't happening. Supply contractions will keep prices up because lack of capital will affect oil production as much as everything else. That's going on now.
True. Intelligence has been applied by one camp (resulting in e.g. PNGV) and countered by another camp. The opposition camp is weakening rapidly and another oil price spike will collapse it.
I see that Bloomberg is now reporting that the World Nuclear Association is expecting a shortfall in enriched uranium by 2017.
Since Liebig's law of the minimum holds, it would be hard to see forecast growth levels in nuclear power actually occurring after 2017, if WNA is right.
Where do you see they are expecting a shortfall? The graph only states that more uranium production facilities than currently planned seems to be needed. This is quite expected - if you look far enough into the future in any growth industry, current plans are typically not enough to sustain the envisioned growth. But the fact that growth is envisioned means more plans are expected to be put in place. If shortfalls were expected, there wouldn't be the projected demand growth.
8 years timeline to build new enrichment facilties. It takes about 3-5 years to build them.
Are all of the solar cell manufacturing factories that will be in operation for 2017 built ?
Is all of the oil infrastructure for 2017 built ? Pipelines, refineries.
Oh no, they are not all built yet. Obviously no one could actually start a new project and build them.
Likely candidates are for China, India, Russia and Kazakhstan to build a lot of enrichment facilities.
http://www.wise-uranium.org/eproj.html#CN
Kazakhstan intends to be more actively engaged in export of the enriched uranium. The report of the USA National Coordination Office for Information Technology Research and Development of the US Bureau of Investigation informs, Kazakhstan Today agency reports citing information portal NEWSru. According to NEWSru, the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, informed of the plans to export uranium and to sell a more expensive fuel to the neighboring countries, not ore. "Now, Russia helps Kazakhstan to enrich its uranium. However, Astana may soon decide to buy uranium enrichment technologies. Kazakhstan will likely to establish cooperation with Iran, which has been involved in uranium for a long time." (Kazakhstan Today 19 Oct 2009)
Canada and Kazakhstan have concluded negotiations on the text of a nuclear cooperation agreement, ministers from the two countries have announced. Jerry Grandey, CEO of Canadian uranium producer Cameco, welcomed the agreement, saying it would allow his company to expand its role and presence in Kazakhstan "and develop partnerships that will allow Cameco and Kazatomprom to work together on opportunities to convert uranium." (WNN 25 September 2009)
On Nov. 3, 2008, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) formalized an advanced nuclear fuel development agreement with China's Third Qinshan Nuclear Power Co. (TQNPC), China North Nuclear Fuel Corporation and Nuclear Power Institute of China. The agreement is to jointly develop the technology for the use of uranium recovered from the spent fuel of light water reactors in China, and to be used in the CANDU reactors in China, located southwest of Shanghai. The planned development program will involve scientists and engineers from Canada and China but would not be implemented in Canada.
On May 23, 2008, Chinese and Russian officials signed a $1 billion deal to have Moscow build a nuclear fuel enrichment plant in China and supply uranium. The deal calls for Russia to build a $500 million nuclear fuel enrichment plant and supply semi-enriched uranium worth at least $500 million. (AP May 23, 2008)
Russia signed an agreement with China to set up another gas centrifuge enrichment facility in China with an annual capacity of 500,000 separative work units (SWU), a Tenex spokesman said.
Under a 1992 deal, Russia helped China set up two centrifuge facilities with an annual capacity of 200,000 and 300,000 SWU respectively in Hanzhong, a city about 900 km southwest of Beijing. (Gulf Times Nov. 7, 2007)
Russia and South Africa have studied the possibility of a cooperation in conversion and enrichment of uranium at the Angarsk enrichment plant. (RIA Novosti Jan. 23, 2009)
TVEL aims to sell nuclear fuel in the US market by 2014
Russia's TVEL aims to sell fuel in the US market by 2014 in cooperation with General Electric, TVEL President Yuri Olenin told a press conference, according to the Nuclear.ru Internet news agency. Olenin was quoted as saying agreements would be signed in January-February 2008 to qualify TVEL's TVS-kvadrat fuel assembly with General Electric, as well as with an unnamed European company for deployment in the western European market. The TVS-kvadrat fuel would be fabricated in the US under license, he said. The TVS-kvadrat is a square fuel assembly design, developed for Western reactors from the traditional hexagonal assembly used in Russian-design reactors. Olenin predicted that TVEL's share of the world nuclear fuel market would rise from the current 17% to 30% in 2010. (Platts Dec. 20, 2007)
Look at the graph. It has two blatant errors:
SWU is a policy issue, not a resource issue. Companies like Urenco are building separation capacity like crazy; Urenco alone expects to have some 18 million kgSWU/a in the next few years, compared to the Paducah GD plant of 11.3 million kgSWU. The GD capacity is slated for closure because it is so power-hungry, but if we had a true shortage we could continue to run it for a while.
18 million is 72% of 25 million. I can't see one company, Urenco, having nearly 3/4 of the enrichment capacity of the world; among other things, the Russians want a big part of that market too. The graph is wrong.
Maybe you can find where this supposedly came from on the World Nuclear Association site. I looked briefly, and couldn't find what the Bloomberg article was supposed to be reporting on.
Hi,
I don't have much time these days, sorry.
But let me start with the observation that the discussion so far does not
touch very much the content of the reply to my first chapter
``Uranium supplies are likely to be adequate until 2020"
Instead it seems that the nuclear believers are content with the title
and did not care much about its content.
Now, lets try to look at the message and what it says.
It starts with:
As far as I can see, not much was said in reply to my calculation about ``the civilian stocks"
which agrees with what the WNA and the IAEA/Red Book as well as Uxc and others in this area
are saying. It also doesn't touch the problem about the ending date of the Russian military
delivery of 10000 tons of natural uranium equivalent to the US by 2013.
Now, lets look more into the saying that my "or Dittmar's view" is much too pessimistic.
(The adding "especially if prices rise from current levels" is interesting. Brian, do you want to say that
at current price levels, which are after all still a factor of at least 4 higher than 10 years ago,
that problems might exist?)
Now, as my analysis gave the numbers from the Red Book about current and near future
uranium capacity from existing and new mines which is in agreement with Brian's 2008
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/09/uranium-mining-forecast-to-2020.html
For those interested in estimates and comparison with real results
it might be interesting to compare the numbers from Brian (or from my chapter I)
which are the ones from the Red Book for 2007 (or may be 2005?).
and it was between 54300 tons and 56855 tons.
the real result is now well known 41282 tons.
thus far below the maximum possible values. Critical readers of these numbers
would start to investigate the reasons. Brian did not in his 2008 post and still does not
do such a critical analysis. Why not? Would it perhaps the view that everything is fine?
Uncritical readers ignore this discrepancy and just look forward and assume that from now on
everything will work according to plans and "don't worry be happy".
In my chapter I article I analyzed the discrepancy in detail. backed it up with references
from the WNA and the IAEA articles. I also concluded, in agreement with the supposed
experts from mining companies, talks at the WNA conferences as well as the analysis from
speculators that it might be reasonable to assume that some of the new mines will be realized in time.
That older mines become less productive and that other failures will always happen.
Ok having said this, lets have a look at the explanations why Brian thinks that my estimates are too pessimistic.
Brian gives a list of new mines supposed to come productive during the coming years.
A nice list and Brian accurate enough to mention the problems with these mines which came up
during the last months. When people would please have a look at Brian's list
they would notice that not too much goes according to plan.
In agreement with what everybody can see and read in my chapter I
Kazakhstan is the main hope to avoid shortages.
Prior to the 2006 flooding of the canadian Cigar Lake mine (7000 tons/year)
it was this mine which was supposed to change the coming up shortage.
Now, it is this former Soviet Republic (or perhaps one could call it colony)
which should increase with a couple of new mines by large numbers 8000 tons in 2008 to 15000 tons in 2010.
So far, the "official" numbers from this country for 2009 (more than during the entire 2008 year are already
extracted in the first 3/4 of 2009)
look indeed impressive and the 12000 tons
could become true. However, is it true? The corruption affair about selling the countries
valuable uranium resources for too little to foreign companies does not look too convincing.
Lets see, we had scandals with Enron for example and similar in the past. But perhaps the number for 2009
are correct and my estimate for Kazakhstan that the increase of 3000-4000 tons in 2009 could be wrong.
As a result my provocative guess that no more than 45000 tons will be extracted in 2009 worldwide
from July /early August might be wrong. I have no problem with that and with accepting that
I was wrong with Kazakhstan perhaps. Lets see
I offered the bet at that time but Brian and others did not want it at that time.
But in case, lets go for the average between 45000 and 50000 tons
thus 47000-47500 tons for 2009. If the overall number will be above 47500 tons
I accept that I was too pessimistic. If it is below 47000 tons Brian and others accept
that they were too optimistic and offer something to the oildrum editors (like myself).
Lets compare the numbers for
Canada and Australia carefully. The 1/2 of 2009 results from Cameco about Canada looked
bad for the company and the third quarter results were surprisingly high and compensated
for more than the bad first half year result. Lets see what the last quarter brings.
Anyway Brian's list of mining problems indicates that Murphy is not sleeping.
Now a careful analysis, not a copy and paste of new projects from the WNA country numbers
updated with some recent "mining" news at best (Brian's paper) would have compared the current list
with the list which has been presented in the Red Book 2005 and 2007 for example.
One would easily find that many new projects have been delayed and delayed.
Thus a real analysis would have noticed that what is not hidden in the WNA document
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf22.html
(the figure at the very end. I do not know how to put it directly here perhaps someone could help)
anyway the WNA plot makes gives a different less rosy picture:
and more realistic people in this area accept that less than full capacity will be achieved
in the existing and future mines. Now are the guessed efficiencies too optimistic?
According to similar estimates from the past few years ..
yes, the WNA numbers just make it but they have failed in the past already
(as I have documented in my paper(s)).
Thus, Brian does not analyze the capacity with a realistic eye using the information from
the past few years but more a blind believer in promises from people/companies who
have not even hold to their promises before the financial crisis started.
He also failed to explain what was wrong with my approach.
But, as I observed in the beginning of my reply the "title" of his paper
was sufficient for the hopeful believers in a bright future of nuclear energy
and they did not even start to look at the list of new mines.
There is much more about that.
Now concerning the number of TWhe to be produced in 2009.
We are close to the end of this year and we will know soon.
Just for what it matters the 2009 numbers up to August can be found at the IEA website
and they are down by 1.2% compared to the same period 2008.
The situation in France is still very critical and since october France has to import roughly 5 GW power
during the day. For the last days it was even 10 GWe. Why because a large number of nuclear
power plants are not functioning right now (roughly 10 GWe missing these days).
But it is not even could right now!
Thus lets see how load shedding will be done during colder days in France.
michael
more tomorrow perhaps
thanks for putting the plot!
now lets see how the ``great experts for the future" who never seem to care about reality
look at this!
michael
You claim to "care about reality", but you won't take Brian's bet.
In other words, you don't believe what you're saying.
Dear EP,
I did take the bet! not the stupid money exchange part of it.
In contrast to you my friend, Brian Wang does (and so did some others)
in the discussions we had.
You didn't even bother to write down your guesstimate
about how the number of THWe from nuclear will evolve during the next few years
nor the how the uranium mining will evolve.
You are still invited to write it down! Now might be a good moment to do so!
michael
ps.. and you are still afraid to put your identity up together with your "writing".
as you write:
``In other words, you don't believe what you're saying." yes well said about yourself!
Not only that! You are not even quantifying anything besides the insults!
In other words, not anything which would give you any greater incentive to be accurate with your claims and projections. You will eat just as much crow if you're wrong whether you take it or not.
I have been writing under this pseudonym for about 6 years, and I have a reputation under it. My legal name is not important, but you have been using it as an excuse to not answer questions about e.g. the effect of changing SWU capacity on the relationship between NU input and LEU supply. If my name was Theophilus Q. Hasenpfeffer, would it make my uranium concentration spreadsheet any more or less useful and accurate? The thing speaks for itself, as do the facts. You refuse to address them because you don't recognize somebody using an established pseudonym as a person? You are not only self-righteous, you are extremely petty.
For your real name and especially your background. Your reputation under EP is no problem
you will enlarge it with telling about your background and why you are a supposed "expert" what ever that means.
Are you a hobby nuclear researcher, do you have professional background etc.
Putting up your real name and background means that you stand for what you are
writing. As simple as that!
For the rest:
This post is not about the SWU and how much nuclear fuel will come out of depleted uranium
but about the new mines which will bring up (or not) the primary uranium to 60000 tons and perhaps 100000 tons by 2020.
If you have hard numbers for the predictions of "secondary" resources and from improved SWU's and so on
make a table and post it. But stop bringing unsubstantiated random numbers.
michael
You keep trying to personalize a PURELY FACTUAL discussion. No. The facts, the spreadsheet, etc. are either correct and valid or not. Whether I got the SW value function from a professor's scratching in a nuclear engineering class, from a book at the library or from Wikipedia is irrelevant.
I find it very revealing that you could write 50,000 words on nuclear energy and never post a calculation of required separation budgets vs. the expected capacity of the industry. You kept assuming a fixed relationship between NU and kWh, when your own sources and figures showed that both higher burnup and separation can change the output per ton of NU by roughly your expected shortfall. Despite these problems with the FACTS, you want to talk about personal credentials. No. They are not relevant (neither mine nor yours), and are only proof of your desperate attempts to change the subject away from THE FACTS.
There's an expression among lawyers which goes "If the law is against you, bang on the facts. If the facts are against you, bang on the law. If they're both against you, bang on the table." You have been leaving a lot of dents in the table.
I have had a multi-author post ready for publication for more than 2 months now, but the TOD editors would not publish it because it (IMO) gave you the verbal treatment you deserve. It's there.
It is a uranium supply scenario. Your upper limit forecast
there are many predictions and scenarios out there about uranium supply.
The WNA plot is one of many. The WNA is a scenario and is not reality yet.
So I don't see why you are making a big deal about this WNA plot when you ignored it in your first four part series.
My view of 2009 is from the major companies stating with first 9 month production and then projecting for the
last quarter and for 2010 based on what was happening and stated to be happening for 2010.
the WNA plot is clearly far more optimistic that your upper limits and if the WNA plot happens it would appear that I would win
all of the bets as the reference scenario appears to me to be above the midpoint between you and me.
Are you saying that you want to concede the bets because the WNA plots represent your new expectation of the future ?
Dear Brian,
yes I had also the WNA scenario in my article(s).
If you would just bother to read the paper chapter I and II before you comment.
(actually it was the table and text just before the table you copied! see below)
Thus willingly you are not telling / writing the truth!
>My view of 2009 is from the major companies stating with first 9 month production and then projecting for the
>last quarter and for 2010 based on what was happening and stated to be happening for 2010.
good luck with this view using the first 9 month from 2009.
>the WNA plot is clearly far more optimistic that your upper limits and if the WNA plot happens it would appear that I would win
>all of the bets as the reference scenario appears to me to be above the midpoint between you and me.
correct! I have explained in my articles why I do not believe in the WNA numbers.
(are you saying that you have just made an "intelligent" copy of the WNA plot without referencing their work? )
>Are you saying that you want to concede the bets because the WNA plots represent your new expectation of the future ?
no of course not. My expectations are as reasoned in the articles. As I said I am surprised by the Kazakhstan numbers for the
first 9 month of 2009. For the rest of the world it looks like presumed in my articles.
Do I believe in the Kazakhstan numbers and especially in their future estimates?
No I do not believe that they are capable to achieve the large increase. For the year 2009 lets see.
Again the real trouble will start in 2013! So far we nuclear power reduction in TWHe produced is only roughly 1% per year.
michael
for the parts of my chapters which you did not ``remember"...
this is from chapter II (for chapter I and why I do not buy the rosy pictures see the copied part at the end of this post!
Secondary uranium supply, the near future
All existing data indicate that draw-down of the civilian inventories, practiced during the past 10 years, has reduced the civilian uranium stocks to roughly 50,000 tons. With an expected further yearly draw-down of up to 10,000 tons and without access to the military stocks, the civilian Western uranium stocks will be exhausted by 2013. Furthermore, the supply situation will become even more critical as the delivery of the 10,000 tons of military uranium stocks from Russia to the USA will also end during 2013. Thus we find, in agreement with the dramatic warning from the IAEA/NEA authorities, that secondary uranium supplies will essentially come to an end within a few years.
The severity of the supply situation seems to be known and acknowledged by the Uranium (Ux) Consult ing Company (UxC) and by uranium mining co-operations. For example some interesting numbers about the evolution of demand and secondary supplies and the required primary uranium mining were presented in September 2008 at the annual WNA symposium [10]. The evolution of the secondary supply side was estimated to decrease by roughly 1000 tons per year starting from 20,029 tons in 2009 and ending with 15,008 tons by 2013. For the following three years up to 2016, a further reduction of about 2000 tons per year is assumed (the numbers for the years 2014-2016 are in dis agreement with the 2013 termination of the yearly delivery of 10,000 tons from Russia). The authors of this WNA study assumed that many new reactors will start up during the coming eight years, and they estimate that the uranium demand will increase from 65,000 tons in 2008 to about 85,000 tons by 2013. Some of their uranium supply and demand estimations for the coming years are summarized in Table 2.
don't know how to put the table here.. but you know anyway where it is!
Table 2: Forecast for the world uranium balance prediction for the years 2008-2016 according to the Macquarie Research Commodities predictions presented at the 2008 WNA annual sym posium [10]. The forecast for the 2008 primary uranium number(*) was about 1200 tons larger than the now known number of 43,853 tons. The latest WNA forecast for 2009 is 49,375 tons and thus also about 1000 tons smaller [11]. The claimed accuracy for the forecast should raise some doubts about the underlying methodology to guess these numbers.
As discussed above, the uranium supply might become the limiting factor for the near future of nuclear power production. This demand depends, among other things, on the future of the aging nuclear power plants and on how rapidly the reactors that are currently under construction can be completed. If the primary fuel supply cannot be increased as quickly as required, some interesting world-wide decisions about the future of nuclear power can be expected. For example, one needs to weigh the stable operation of older nuclear power plants, which require 170 tons/GWe/year, against the stability of early operations for new reactors that have a first load requirement of 500 tons/GWe. Of course, the situation will be further complicated by national and regional interests. It is difficult to imagine that the US government will sell their strategic uranium reserves to their economic competitors in Japan, China or Western Europe.
In absence of such political insights, one can nevertheless try to guess how much uranium fuel will come from different sources, and how many existing and new nuclear power plants can be operated with this fuel during the coming years. For this forecast, we make use of the uranium supply information presented in parts I and II of this document and assume that the demand will be limited by the possible supply. This "upper" limit guess is calculated on the basis that 170 tons/GWe/year are required to fuel an already operational reactor, and that 500 tons/GWe are needed for the first reactor load. This forecast is presented in Table 3 and can be compared with the one from Table 2. The main difference comes from the mining forecast and the assumption that the military component of the secondary supply from Russia will terminate by the end of 2013. Obviously the two scenarios should be checked and corrected for the real mining results during the coming years. Interested readers should fill Table 3 with their own favorite nuclear energy scenario under the constraint that it be consistent with their future secondary and primary uranium supply estimates.
Table 3: The author’s upper limit forecast covering the years 2009-2018 for the world-wide natural uranium equivalent primary and secondary fuel supply and its consequences for nuclear fission produced electric energy in TWhe. This fuel-based scenario assumes that world-wide uranium mining cannot be increased as estimated by the IAEA/NEA and WNA. The result of this scenario will be a slow, about 1% annual, reduction of nuclear produced electric energy up to 2013. The decline will become much stronger after 2013, if military stocks will not add at least 10,000 tons annually to the fuel market.
Both scenarios obviously contain some guesswork, and many political and economic decisions during a world-wide economic crisis can change the near future of uranium mining and the evolution of the nuclear disarmament. Especially critical for uranium mining will be the situation in Kazakhstan, where the current optimistic forecast expects that by 2013 the existing and new mines will increase the uranium output from 8500 tons (2008) to about 18,000 tons annually. An increase of similar size is also hoped to come from the mines in Niger, Namibia, and South Africa [10].
In conclusion, uranium shortages and thus reactor shutdowns can be avoided only if world-wide uranium mining can be increased by roughly 10% or about 5000 tons each year. While such an increase looks rather unlikely for the next few years, the presented numbers for the required primary uranium in 2008 and the obtained results show a shortage of about 1200 tons indicating that up to 1400 tons will be missing already in 2009. This amount corresponds roughly to the reduction of the uranium requirements that followed the 2007 earthquake in Japan with an 8 GWe nuclear capacity outage.
We expect that the uranium supply situation will become especially critical for those countries where a large fraction of the electric energy comes from nuclear power and that important essentially 100% of their uranium needs. This supply problem will especially affect OECD countries in Western Europe and Japan. One might hope that discussions about new nuclear power plants will consider the warning from the NEA/IAEA press declaration about the Red Book 2007 edition expressed in the following paragraph:
from chapter I
The expected uranium production capacity is given in units of 1000 tons from the Red Book for the world and for different countries for the years 2010 and 2015 [25]. The expected world-wide capacity increase between 2007 and 2010 and from 2010 to 2015 is obtained from the evolution of the total capacity. The ratio between the real production numbers for 2007 from the WNA and the uranium capacity from the Red Book are given in column 2. Scenarios A and B are rough forecasts for the maximal uranium mining for the years 2010 and 2015 based on past capacity and real mining relation. For Scenario A, it is assumed that the mining performance will be 75% of the future capacity expected according to the Red Book. For Scenario B, we assume that the existing mines in 2007 will continue an average annual production of 40,000 tons and that only 50% of the capacity forecast can become operational in time.
The predicted large increase of world-wide uranium mining almost exactly matches the requirements. However, essentially all countries exaggerate their mining capacity predictions far beyond the amount that can be reasonably extracted, as demonstrated e.g. by comparing the 2007 claimed capacity with the actually achieved uranium 2007 mining results. The numbers in the second column indicate especially large and unrealistic expectations for Canada and the USA.
For 2007, the world-wide uranium mining capacity is given as of 54,370-56,855 tons. In comparison to this capacity, the expectations from the Red book for the year 2007 were given as 43,328 tons. Uranium mining 2007 achieved 41,264 tons, about 2000 tons less than the forecast for the same year. Similarly wrong estimates were given in past Red Book editions. For example the Red Book 2003 (2005) gave capacities for the year 2003 (2005) of 49,940 tons (49,720-51,565 tons). In comparison, the achieved uranium extraction was 35,492 tons in 2003 and 41,943 tons in 2005 [23].
As if these capacity numbers, exaggerated by 20-30%, would not be troubling enough, the discrep ancy between the claimed new mining capacity and the amounts that were really achieved is even more surprising. According to the Red Book 2007, the total additional capacity in 2007 compared to 2005 was estimated to be 5290 tons. The real result for 2007, a combination from older sometimes declining operating mines and new mines, was about 700 tons lower than the one achieved in 2005. For 2008, the production reached 43,930 tons, which is 2200 tones larger than in the year 2005 but still far below the increase expected already for 2007 [17].
Similar discrepancies between Red Book predictions and real extraction data can be found in previous Red Book editions. These discrepancies are, somewhat hidden, acknowledged in the latest 2007 edition. Unfortunately instead of explaining the origin of such mistakes and correcting them in order to improve the quality of the Red Book, systematic differences are simply accepted with the statement that "world production has never exceeded 89% of the reported production capability and since 2003 has varied between 75% and 84% of production capability" [24]. Further inconsistencies exist between the expected mining capacity increase and the detailed timetable given for the opening and extensions of uranium mines [25]. For example the Red Book forecast, Table 24 (page 48), assumes that between 2007 and 2010, the uranium mining capacity will increase by 26,000 to 29,900 tons. However, direct counting of the new uranium mines (page 49) results in new capacity of about 20,000 tons.
Similarly the forecast between 2010 and 2015 assumes that new mining projects should increase the capacity by another 15,000-30,000 tons. In comparison, direct counting of new uranium mines sums up at most to about 21,000 tons, about 30% below the claimed upper limit of 30,000 tons.
A critical reader of the Red Book will thus be intrigued to investigate, in which countries these capacity increases are expected. Some of these predictions, extracted from the Red Book, are shown in the table printed above. One finds that about 50% of the world-wide uranium increase between 2007 and 2010 should come from Kazakhstan. It is claimed that their production capacity will increase from 7000 tons in 2007 to 18,000 tons. Such an increase should have raised some critical reflections and comments from the authors of the Red Book, as it would put Kazakhstan on equal terms with the combined production of Canada and Australia in 2008. According to the WNA spring 2009 document, the 2010 forecast for Kazakhstan has already been reduced to 15,000 tons [26]. If one takes the latest news about a huge corruption affair concerning the uranium resources of Kazakhstan into account [27], a further drastic reduction of the 2009 and 2010 forecasts can be predicted.
Uranium mining in Canada is also far behind the Red Book expectations [28]. Not only are the real mining numbers much lower than the claimed capacities, but the existing three mines, which produce essentially 100% of the Canadian uranium, are in steep decline. The production from these three large mines (McArthur River, McClean Lake, and Rabbit Lake) declined from 11,400 tons in 2005 to 9000 tons in 2008. The previously expected 2007 start of the Cigar Lake mine, with an estimated yearly production capacity of 7000 tons, was stopped due to catastrophic flooding in late 2006. The start-up date of this mine is now delayed until at least 2012.
One may conclude that the Red Book uranium mining extrapolations are exaggerated and not based on hard facts, as one would have expected from this internationally well respected document.
Those interested in the near future nuclear energy contribution and thus uranium mining perspectives for the next 10 years should consequently not use the Red Book data directly. Instead, we might try to guess more realistic numbers by using the ratio between the 2007 mining results and the 2007 capacity as a first guess and update and improve these numbers accordingly during the next few years. Following this method, we should reduce the mining capacities by at least 20-30% in order to obtain a more meaningful forecast (Scenario A). As a result, we might predict a total uranium production of about 60,000 tons in 2010 and 72,000 tons in 2015. At least for 2010, it is already clear that the Scenario A numbers are still quite a bit too high.
For Scenario B, we used the evolution of new uranium mines in order to determine how fast new capacity can become operational. Using this procedure and the real mining data from the past few years, roughly 40,000 tons per year, and assuming that only 50% of the new mining capacities can be realized, we might predict a perhaps more realistic production of 54,000 tons in 2010, and 61,500 tons by 2015. Those numbers can be compared to the latest WNA June 2009 estimates, where a total of 49,400 tons and 74,000 tons are predicted for 2009 and 2015, respectively [29]. It seems that such professional estimations do not use much more input than a mixture of the above two simple-minded methods. Within less than one year, we shall be able to update the above scenarios using the 2009 results and improve the 2010 and 2015 forecasts accordingly.
For those interested, I am offering a bet that the 2009 and 2010 numbers will not be higher than 45,000 tons and 47,000 tons, respectively.
Taking into account that civilian secondary resources currently provide about 21,000 tons of natural uranium equivalent per year and that the civilian part of these resources will be basically exhausted within the next few years, one finds that even the optimistic WNA 2009 numbers indicate uranium fuel supply stress during the coming years. According to a recent presentation at the annual WNA September 2008 symposium from the Ux consulting (Macquarie Research commodities ) [29], about 1200 tons of uranium are missing for the 2009 demand. Furthermore, an uranium mining result below 50,000 tons/year in 2009 and beyond will result in a serious uranium shortage.
to post an image from another web page right click the image, go to properties and copy the
Address:
(URL)
then in your oil drum reply type (img src"URL")
but replace the parenthesis with the arrow brackets on the comma and period keys and replace "URL" with the copied Address:(URL) of the image you wish to post, no space after the src or after the pasted URL and no quotes
As to one of your comments: few were as against the US invasion of Iraq as much as I. Then the second I saw the looting I knew the US really had no long term plan--surprise surprise, we are talking the W bunch here. The country was then shredded.
but...whether or not Sadam's regime had actually left any real 'society' for us to destroy by the time our tanks crossed the border is arguable.
I accept a bet for 2009 at 47,383 tons as over under (the actual midpoint), but if I lose I will not agree to give any money to the oil drum. the monetary side of the bet has to be money between Dittmar and me. I am willing to up money but not a win lose to the oil drum. But I am willing to gloat in writing when the 2009 numbers come out higher than the midpoint and to allow you to gloat if the 2009 numbers fall below the midpoint.
My 2008 article was a casual summary of the Redbook, which took me about 5 minutes to write (one of the 4000 articles that I have written over the last 4 years. Here my analysis was more detailed.
The reason I did not dig deep before... I am not worried about the operations of a several hundred billion industry which is what nuclear energy is. It is like saying that the coal plants will forget to dig up coal.
But since I had to create a more accurate analysis I did the work to produce it.
As to what you did wrong. You assume that no mines will get added and that no projects will be done. Plus you ignore the current information of what is actually happening and base your review on annual reports which are based on data 2 years and older.
Yes, there are problems but problems can be overcome. This is why I included the problems because I am looking at it in an unbiased way. Problems and solutions and rate of progress.
Commodity prices will most likely go up. This does not mean disaster. Prices went up four times and even up to $140/lb and there were no nuclear power plants that had fuel supply problems that were not for political reasons (the embargo that was in effect on India which has been lifted). There has already been the point made about how much the per kwh price goes up as the uranium price increases.
Not every big project is like the Large Hadron Collider (where you work) with its delays. And even that is running now.
>I accept a bet for 2009 at 47,383 tons as over under (the actual midpoint)
good, you do whatever you like (morally) when loosing this one and the other bet!
So do I and I send the "bottle of wine" to the oil drum editor(s).
> As to what you did wrong. You assume that no mines will get added and that no projects will be done.
Where did I write this? Please quote or say sorry!
>Plus you ignore the current information of what is actually happening
Absolutely not. As above!
>and base your review on annual reports which are based on data 2 years and older.
If you would have read my articles, you would have noticed that the data I included are far beyond
the Red Book.
However, in contrast to you, I do not have the selected memory of what was claimed in the past
and what became reality.
You write:
>Yes, there are problems but problems can be overcome.
Can you explain the problems about the nuclear energy future within your own words?
Perhaps I have missed it. This will be interesting.
michael
ps.. 1) for the ``strikes in France" which are claimed officially to be responsible for the
delays of the nuclear fuel exchange and service France. I have asked around
and so far nobody seems to know anything about these strikes.
As far as I remember there were 1 or 2 days (perhaps locally a few days) against the
privatization of the French EDF. But someone should explain this in detail.
From what the new EDF boss seems to claim the current problems with the French nuclear
power plants are more because of mismanagements and delaying service because they were to expensive.
You might know that eventually it has to be done and sometimes "Murphy" enters into this game.
>Not every big project is like the Large Hadron Collider (where you work) with its delays. And even that is running >now.
thanks for pointing this out!
can you give some examples of big similar projects which started according to schedule?
(and within the price tag).
Compare perhaps USA, Russia, China, Japan and Europe.
You make empty claims and hot air so far, nothing else!
and yes, you "forgot" to compare your
``everything will work as promised (a religious like view?) "
and the WNA plot. Why? Its hurting your view, doesn't it?
I did not jump on your original bet offer because I did not read all the way through your post.
So you took this new bet but it is a modification as you did not have confidence in your original offer.
After only a few months.
You claim to not have selective memory and have read all of my past postings and then ask me to restate the problems that
the nuclear industry has had and has or will overcome.
==The Canadian cigar Lake mine water problem- It is a problem and it will be overcome
==Various reactor shutdowns (Japan from the earthquake), reactors were shutdown and being restarted
==some project delays.
the delays on some uranium mines because prices are currently too low. Prices will go back up when supply is sufficiently less than demand.
It is simple economics and allows the demand to be met with supply that demand is willing to pay for.
You make the simple rise and fall of uranium prices to be some kind of big deal.
Delays and the French strikes
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLD68746520091113
On time and budget:
In September 2005, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) signed a technology development agreement with CNNC which opened the possibility of it supplying further Candu-6 reactors. AECL built the two-unit Qinshan Phase III plant on schedule and under budget and estimates that it could be replicated for 25% lower cost.
http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/speechesandtestimony/sept-22-2009-lesli...
The Tennessee Valley Authority returned Unit 1 of its Browns Ferry nuclear plant to commercial operation in May 2007. The five-year, $1.8-billion project was completed on schedule and only 5 percent over the original budget estimate, a significant achievement during a period of rapidly escalating commodity costs. The Browns Ferry 1 restart project was comparable in complexity to the construction of a new nuclear power plant. Most systems, components and structures were replaced, refurbished or upgraded, and all had to be inspected and tested.
At the Fort Calhoun plant in Nebraska, Omaha Public Power District replaced the major primary system components—steam generators, reactor vessel head and rapid refueling package and pressurizer—as well as the low-pressure turbines, the main transformer and hydrogen coolers, among other equipment. The outage began in September 2006 and ended in December of that year, lasting 85 days. The $417-million project was completed approximately $40 million under budget and five days ahead of schedule.
Nuclear construction experience in South Korea over the last 15 years demonstrates the “learning curve” that can be achieved. The “first of a kind” nuclear power plants—Yonggwang Units 3 and 4—were built in the mid-1990s in 64 months. The next two units—Ulchin 3 and 4—were built in 60 months at 94 percent of the “first of a kind” cost. The next plants—Yonggwang 5 and 6—were built in 58 months for 82 percent of the “first of a kind” cost. By 2004, Ulchin 5 and 6 were built in 56 months for 80 percent of the “first of a kind” cost. The next two plants—Shin-Kori 1 and 2—will be in service next year, with a construction duration of 53 months at 63 percent of what it cost to build Yonggwang 3 and 4. South Korea’s goal is a 39-month construction schedule.
Nuclear power plants in Japan achieve construction schedules similar to those in South Korea. The first two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors built were constructed in times that beat the previous world record, and both were built on budget. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Unit 6 began commercial operation in 1996, and Unit 7 began commercial operation in 1997. From first concrete to fuel load, it took 36.5 months to construct Unit 6 and 38.3 months for Unit 7. Unit 6 was built 10 months quicker than the best time achieved for any of the previous boiling water reactors constructed in Japan.
The Qinshan nuclear power plant in China consists of two 728-megawatt pressurized heavy water reactors. First concrete was placed on June 8, 1998. Unit 1 began commercial operation on Dec. 31, 2002, 43 days ahead of schedule. The construction period was 54 months from first concrete to full-power operation. Unit 2 began commercial operation on July 24, 2003, 112 days ahead of schedule
==============
You will have a long wait before I ever say sorry to you for anything.
Just as I do not expect or need you to say sorry for the crap that you write.
I only need to prove you wrong and have the bets and predictions and reality show that you are wrong.
Then I will extract your humiliation. I expect and have confidence in what will happen and I can wait for the confirmations.
Dear Brain,
thanks for finally admitting!
>I did not jump on your original bet offer because I did not read all the way through your post.
for
> ==============
You will have a long wait before I ever say sorry to you for anything.
sure, because you can not quote and
because you do not know how to behave!
Thus, you are not interested in figuring out what is right and wrong as I presumed since we started arguing a couple of month back.
for the strikes in France your article says that an ``unnamed EDF spokesman" told Reuters
"Around half of that sum is related to the strikes," an EDF spokesman told Reuters by telephone.
sure, but do you remember
what did Enron spokespeople tell the newspaper agencies some years back
or the different huge banks? Or your government on why one had to destroy the Iraq society?
etc etc.
and can you connect the dots?
>On time and budget:
ok, you got a list together! thanks
I am happy to see that not all such projects are delayed.
As you have an excellent memory and good google search capacities
perhaps you can did out what the WNA document in 2007 wrote
about new nuclear power plants to be connected to the grid
in 2008, 2009 and so on.
When you look at the list now some starting dates have been moved
but for 2009 still a couple of new reactors are listed and it looks like none of them will be on schedule
(perhaps the Japanese one has still a chance..)
since August 2007 not a single new reactor was connected to the grid.
Sounds like everything works out fine!
michael
for
>Then I will extract your humiliation. I expect and have confidence in what will happen and I can wait for the confirmations.
good luck!
Brian, I think that means you're not bowing low enough to the PhD.
So you are putting up anecdotes from "your unnamed contacts" that there were no strikes in France that effected EDf against an actual spokeman for the company who was quoted in Reuters.
You phoned/emailed some people and asked them if they remember any strikes.
then you try to link the claims of strikes with an Enron like scandal/conspiracy.
It seems your clown hats are made out of tinfoil.
Come back with some evidence for your conspiracy. chump.
you have a history of trying to make fake conspiracies.
Remember your categorization mystery and implied problems for Nigers reserves ?
Dittmar Part III
http://www.vaec.gov.vn/userfiles/file/Uranium%20in%20Niger%20and%20Gabon...
The uranium price paid by Areva in Niger rose from € 41.62/kg to € 60.98/kg, valid from the beginning of 2007.
Back when the euro was weaker, then all of the Imarouen resources (140,000-150,000 tons would be <$40/kg) then a weaker dollar and the shift in price paid by Areva, shifts all of the Imarouen resources into the $40-130/kg. Plus the Areva contract could have been a few euro cheaper to get it under $40/kg.
Areva is reported to have been paying royalty of 27,300 CFA francs (US$ 57) per kg, and in 2007 this was increased to 40,0000 CFA (US$ 83) plus 300 tonnes of product for Niger to sell on the open market.
http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/17819.html
Areva lists the selling price of uranium (2007) as '60 €/kg, increasing by around 50% in 2008.' The company broke down the profits of the Niger government, as follows:
"Main direct profits include the Mining fee, 5.5% of the selling value of uranium produced; the Income Tax, 40.5% of the annual profit of the companies and the annual dividend of the companies; ONAREM (whose name changed recently to SOPAMIN) owns 31% of COMINAK and 32% of SOMAÏR, which fixes the dividend percentages."
=============
My simples news research revealed the real explaination about the movement between categories in Niger.
All your other number analysis is attempts to conjure relevance and meaning out of numerical noise. You only considered inflation but did not look at contract renegotiation or currency movements.
You were wrong about Niger. Your approach and methodology was wrong. You can do simple internet searches to see what happened in Niger and see what happened in all of your "suspicious number countries". The movement between $40 and less and $40-130 categories is a trivial matter as has been shown with Niger. All of the $40 and less can move to $40-130 and it would not effect the course of the nuclear energy industry.
=====
Now you are trying to conjure about something about labor problems in France being exagerrated.
Hot air and no substance.
concerning the strikes in french nuclear power plants.
After all I live in France. But yes, if the EDF would explain how a few days of strikes in some plants
could delay service for 10-15 GWe by at least two month, it would perhaps become credible. But they do not so far.
Actually the new EDF boss was making some strong statements about the "unhealthy" state of the
french nuclear power plants.
Concerning the huge fluctuations in the claimed Niger resources (and for other countries).
You might think about comparing the evolution of these resource numbers in the
RAR numbers and the IR numbers as well as for the other categories.
Your inflation argument does not hold as I told you already in September
but you have certainly not even looked into what I had written.
(the Red Book states also that market fluctuations are not considered in case that it matters for you)
thus substantiate what you write.
Your article was not about that and why can't you stay with what your article claims
and the delays you have noticed yourself and the difference
between claimed capacity and "real" capacity.
You also fail to communicate why certain mines are declining (or did in the past) much faster than
one could expect.
And yes finally it is remarkable that you do not even discuss the uranium mining situation in your own large country.
It tells a lot (while every government since at least 30 years has claimed that energy independence is of prime importance).
Thus explain why your country and your miners fail to dig even the expected yearly uranium results out of the ground
and how the dependence on Russia's good will end?
Western Europe's dependence on Russians Gas are not too great!
michael
Пересмотрела много информации по этой теме, у вас самая коректная и правильная, это конечно мое мнение