Term
| How much uranium has already been produced since 1945? |
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Definition
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Term
| At present the reactor uranium demand of about 67/kt year would last for about how long? |
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Definition
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Term
| Energy demand for uranium extraction increases steadily with what? |
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Definition
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Term
| How much of world wide resources have ore grades below 1%? |
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Definition
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Term
| What are 3 RAR countries for nuclear? |
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Definition
| Australia, Kazakstahn, Canada |
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Term
| 11 countries have already exhausted their uranium supply. List 3. |
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Definition
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Term
| Is US post peak in uranium? |
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Definition
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Term
| How much uranium is the world producing? |
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Definition
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Term
| How much uranium is the world burning? |
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Definition
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Term
| Are we burning producing enough uranium? |
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Definition
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Term
| Before 1980, why did production exceed the demand of nuclear reactors? |
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Definition
| The uranium production in the early years before 1980 was strongly driven by military uses and also by expected nuclear electricity generation growth rates. |
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Term
| What led to the conversion of nuclear material into fuel for civil reactors? |
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Definition
| The break down of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war |
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Term
| Production of uranium falls short of demand by how much? |
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Definition
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Term
| What must happen in order to ensure continuous operation of existing nuclear power plants? |
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Definition
| Uranium production capacities must be increased considerably over the next few years |
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Term
| What will probably happen between 2015 and 2030 with uranium? |
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Definition
| a uranium supply gap will arise when stocks are exhausted and production cannot be increased as will be necessary to meet the rising demand |
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Term
| If you have 65,000 tons of Urananium and 3% waste, how many tons of waste do you have? |
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Definition
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Term
| What will later happen with uranium? |
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Definition
| Production will later on decline again after a few years of adequate supply due to shrinking resources. Hence it is very unlikely that beyond 2040 even the present nuclear capacity can still be supplied adequately |
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Term
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Definition
It can be concluded that by between 2015 and 2030 a uranium
supply gap will arise when stocks are exhausted and production
cannot be increased as will be necessary to meet the rising demand
• Production will later on decline again after a few years of adequate
supply due to shrinking resources. Hence it is very unlikely that
beyond 2040 even the present nuclear capacity can still be supplied
adequately
• This gap will occur earlier if not all of the reasonably assured and
inferred resources can be converted into produced volumes or if
stocks turn out to be smaller than the estimated 210 kt U |
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Term
About 10% of the uranium is a by-product of the mining of gold,
copper or other minerals. The mining effort increases dramatically
with decreasing ore grade |
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Definition
1. “The materials throughput is indirectly proportional to the ore
grade:
• To extract 1 kg of uranium out of 1 % ore containing material needs
the processing of 100 kg”
• 2. Separation of the uranium ore from the waste material can only be
achieved with some losses |
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Term
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Definition
According to a study by Storm van Leeuwen and Smith, 2005, the
energy demand for uranium mining increases according to the
formula
Energy demand = Eo / (yield * G)
• Here Eo is the energy demand at 1% ore grade
‘yield ’ being the amount of extracted uranium
and ‘G’ being the ore grade in percent
• The following table shows the increasing energy demand relative to
the energy demand of 1 % ore grade |
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Term
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Definition
The whole calculation including energy needs covering the whole fuel
path with the steps
• “ore mining”, “yellow cake processing” and “transport to the power
plant”
• It shows that below an ore grade of 0.02 – 0.01 % the net energy
balance becomes negative
• It can be concluded that the ore grade sets the lower limit for
uranium ores that can be regarded as possible resources
• “It is very likely that most of the undiscovered prognosticated and
speculative resources might refer to ore grades of below 0.02 %.
These resources would not be available as an energy resource due to
their negative mining energy balance” |
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Term
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Definition
“Reasonably assured” and “estimated” resources were successively
downgraded with a steep dip from 67 kt to 28 kt in 1991
• And a second big downgrading from 13 kt to 0.19 kt in 2001
• “Reasonably assured” and “Inferred” resources below 80 $/ kgU are
zero
• It is interesting that resource estimates increased as long as the
production increased but were followed by significant downgradings
as soon as production had peaked and started to decline |
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Term
| Is France post peak in Uranium? |
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Definition
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Term
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Definition
“Reasonably assured and additionally estimated resources below
80 $/kgU in 1977 were at 1,361 kt when 200 kt had already been
produced at the time
• In 1983 the “reasonably assured and inferred resources” were
downgraded by 85%, a decline of almost 1,000 kt
• The drop of US uranium resources by 1,000 kt was the reason for the
decline of “reasonably assured and inferred resources” at world level
at that time
• The “reasonably assured resources below 80 $/kg U” are still at 100
kt while at the same time the production declined steeply |
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Term
| Scenarios for uranium over next 10 years |
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Definition
• In general, three scenarios for the evolution of the yearly nuclear
capacity are envisaged for the next 20 years
1. A fast growth with an increase of +2% per year
2. A reference scenario with a 1% annual growth
3. A slow decline scenario with a 1% annual decrease starting in 2010
• After considering the performance from the world-wide nuclear
power plants and from the uranium mines in the last few years as an
indication, the slow phase-out seems to be consistent with the
current data
• It is evident that unpredictable events such as earthquakes, accidents
or wars can only result in a capacity decrease |
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Term
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Definition
• The expected increase in nuclear power plant capacity is expected to
come from a few countries only
• Germany, which is currently the fifth largest nuclear power
consumer , has indicated a definite plan for their nuclear phase-out.
According to the plan, the Germany nuclear power capacity should
be reduced from 20.3 Gwe to about 11 Gwe by 2015
• China proposes to complete a large number of nuclear power plants
by 2015, where the current 7.6 GWe (2007) should increase to 25-35
Gwe.
• India also plans a similar increase, where 3.8 GWe (2007) should
increase to 9.5-13.1 GWe. This can be compared with the plans from
Japan, Russia, and South Korea, where their entire capacity should
increase by an additional 8-10 GWe |
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Term
| USA Uranium Minin Ratio/Production Capacity |
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Definition
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Term
| Nuclear Fission Energy Today |
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Definition
• The overall fraction of nuclear energy to electric energy has gone
down from 18% in 1993 to less than 14% in 2008
• Electric Energy provides roughly 16% of the world-wide energy end
use and one finds overall a nuclear energy contribution of less than
2.5%
• The number of produced Twhe of electric energy from world-wide
nuclear power plants is lower than in 2005 and it has decreased by
about 2% from a maximum of 2658 Twhe in 2006 to 2601 Twhe in
2008 |
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Term
| IMportantnce of secondary uranium resources |
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Definition
• The overall fraction of nuclear energy to electric energy has gone
down from 18% in 1993 to less than 14% in 2008
• Electric Energy provides roughly 16% of the world-wide energy end
use and one finds overall a nuclear energy contribution of less than
2.5%
• The number of produced Twhe of electric energy from world-wide
nuclear power plants is lower than in 2005 and it has decreased by
about 2% from a maximum of 2658 Twhe in 2006 to 2601 Twhe in
2008 |
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Term
| Who is particularrly vulnerable to uranium shortage supplies? |
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Definition
Nuclear power plants in Japan, South-Korea, and the Western
European countries, which have little or no uranium mining and have
little or no civilian and military uranium stocks, are particularly
vulnerable to uranium supply shortages” |
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Term
| Composition of secondary uranium resources |
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Definition
• Secondary uranium resources provide the fuel for about 1/3 of the
world’s nuclear fission power plants
• The secondary uranium resources are classified as follows:
• Nuclear fuel produced from reprocessing of reactor fuels and from
surplus military pluto-nium
• U235 produced by re-enrichment of previously depleted U235
uranium tails
• Civilian and military stocks of natural uranium, weapon-grade
enriched uranium, and Pu239, accumulated during excess mining
operations in the past 50 years |
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Term
| Composition of secondary uranium resources |
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Definition
• Secondary uranium resources provide the fuel for about 1/3 of the
world’s nuclear fission power plants
• The secondary uranium resources are classified as follows:
• Nuclear fuel produced from reprocessing of reactor fuels and from
surplus military pluto-nium
• U235 produced by re-enrichment of previously depleted U235
uranium tails
• Civilian and military stocks of natural uranium, weapon-grade
enriched uranium, and Pu239, accumulated during excess mining
operations in the past 50 years |
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Term
| 4 barries to fission energy |
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Definition
These are the four barriers:
• 1. Commercial energy production requires steady state fusion
conditions for a deuterium-tritium plasma on a scale comparable to
that of today's standard nuclear fission reactors with outputs of 1
GW (electric) and about 3 GW (thermal) power
• The 1 GW fission reactors of today function essentially in a steady
state operation at nominal power and with an availability time over
an entire year of roughly 90
It will take at least 20 years from the agreement by the world's
richest countries to construct International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor (ITER), before one can find out if the goals of
ITER, a power output of 0.5 GW (therm)
• ITER proponents explain that the achievement of this goal would
already be an enormous success. But this goal, even if it can be
achieved by 2026, pales in comparison with the requirements of
steady-state operation, year after year, with only a few minor
controlled interruptions
• 2. The material that surrounds and contains thousands of cubic
meters of plasma in a full-scale fusion reactor has to satisfy certain
requirements3. The radioactive decay of even a few grams of tritium creates
radiation dangerous to living organisms, such that those who work
with it must take sophisticated protective measures.
• Tritium is chemically identical to ordinary hydrogen, and as such is
very active and difficult to contain. Since tritium is also a necessary
ingredient in hydrogen fusion bombs, there is additional risk that it
might be stolen. So, handling even the few kg of tritium is likely to
create major headaches both for the radiation protection group and
for those concerned with the proliferation of nuclear weapons
• 4. The neutrons produced in the fusion reaction will be emitted
essentially isotropically in all directions around the fusion zone.
These neutrons must somehow be directed to escape without
further interactions through the first wall surrounding the few 1000
m3 plasma zone.An efficient way has to be found to extract the tritium quickly, and
without loss, from this lithium blanket before it decays
• Extracting and collecting the tritium from this huge lithium blanket
will be very tricky indeed, since tritium penetrates thin walls
relatively easily, and since accumulations of tritium are highly
explosive
• If we get that far, the extracted and collected tritium and deuterium,
which both need to be extremely clean, need to be transported,
without losses, back to the reactor zone
• There is a long list of fundamental problems concerning controlled
fusion. Each of them appears to be large enough to raise serious
doubts about the viability of the chosen approach to a commercial
fusion reactor |
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Term
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Definition
Today's achievements in all relevant areas of nuclear fusion are still
many orders of magnitude away from the basic requirements of a
fusion prototype reactor
• No material or structure is known that can withstand the extremely
high neutron flux expected under realistic deuterium-tritium fusion
conditions
• Self-sufficient tritium breeding appears to be impossible to achieve
under the conditions required to operate a commercial fusion
reactor. |
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Term
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Definition
Since at least 1975 about 90 reactors have been operating at a net
capacity of 62 GW
• These reactors are expected to be decommissioned during the next
10 years by the end of 2015
• The average construction rate over the last 15 years was between
three to four reactors per year
• This is represented by the blue line in the following figure. The red
bars indicate the construction start of already existing reactors with
an extrapolation of the present trend |
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Term
| Forecast of nuclear power capacity |
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Definition
The installed capacity will decline from 367 GW at present to 140 GW
if this trend is upheld
• About 28 reactors were under construction at the end of September
2006, 62 are on order or planned with a net capacity of 68 GW and
160 reactors with a net capacity of 68 GW and 160 reactors with a
net capacity of 119 GW are listed as “proposed”
• About 164 of the present reactors will be more than 40 years old by
2021
• The total capacity will still decline even if all the proposed reactors
are completed within the next 20 years |
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Term
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Definition
1.Kazatomprom
2. Cameco
3.Areva |
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