Peak uranium

Peak uranium is the point in time at which the maximum global uranium production rate is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline. Like fossil fuels, uranium is a finite resource used for producing Nuclear power and Nuclear weapons. In his 1956 landmark paper, M. King Hubbert wrote "There is promise, however, provided mankind can solve its international problems and not destroy itself with nuclear weapons, and provided world population (which is now expanding at such a rate as to double in less than a century) can somehow be brought under control, that we may at last have found an energy supply adequate for our needs for at least the next few centuries of the "foreseeable future."" Hubbert predicted peaks like Peak oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium.

As the rate of uranium production peaks and begins to fall in one country after another, the demand for uranium continues to grow due to an increased demand for electricity and industrialization requiring the construction of more nuclear power plants. Several technologies have been proposed to increase the efficiency of nuclear reactors and extend the fuel through breeding and reprocessing. It is thought that thorium may be a viable alternative to uranium. But it too is a finite resource. Due to rising costs of uranium and possibly thorium, other more cost efficient sources of energy will have to be found in the long run.

Uranium supply

Uranium occurs naturally in many rocks, and even in seawater. However, like other metals, it is seldom sufficiently concentrated to be economically recoverable. Like any other resource, uranium can't be mined at any desired rate, nor every last ounce can be mined. No matter the technology, at some point it is just too costly to mine lower grade ores. Below 0.01–0.02% ore content the energy required to extract and process the ore is so high that the energy needed for supplying the fuel, operation of the reactor and waste disposal comes close to the energy which can be gained by burning the uranium in the reactor.

Production

Currently, only 62% of the requirements of power utilities are supplied by mines. The balance comes from inventories held by utilities and other fuel cycle companies, inventories held by governments, used reactor fuel that has been reprocessed, recycled materials from military nuclear programs and uranium in depleted uranium stockpiles. But the plutonium from dismantled cold war nuclear weapon stockpiles is drying up and will end by 2013. The industry is trying to find and develop new uranium mines, mainly in Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan. However, those under development will fill only half the current gap.

Production difficulties

Canada's Cameco mine at Cigar lake is the largest, highest-grade uranium mine in the world. In 2006 it flooded. Now there is uncertainty about when and if it ever will be developed. A lot of new uranium mines to need to be developed just to replace Cigar Lake. Cameco expects to bring their mine back on line in 2010.

In March 2007, the market endured another blow when a cyclone struck the Ranger mine in Australia, which produces 14.3 million pounds of uranium a year. The mine's owner, Energy Resources of Australia, declared force majeure on deliveries and said production would be impacted into the second half of 2007.

Reserves

Reserves are the most readily available resources. Resources that are known to exist and easy to mine are called "known conventional resources". These are further broken up into "Reasonably Assured Resources" and "Estimated Additional Resources-I" Resources that thought to exist but have not been mined are classified under "Undiscovered Conventional Resources". This category is broken up into two classifications "Estimated Additional Resources-II" and "Speculative Resources"

Known conventional resources

According to the Australian Uranium Association, an industry group, assuming the world's current rate of consumption at 66,500 tonnes of Uranium per year and the world's present measured resources of uranium (4.7 Mt) are enough to last for some 70 years. Australia, Kazakhstan and Canada have the world's largest deposits of uranium. Australia's resources has just under 30% of the world's reasonably assured resources and inferred resources of uranium - about 1,142,000 tonnes. Kazakhstan has about 17% of the world's reseves, or about 817,000 tonnes And Canada has 444,000 tonnes of uranium, representing about 12%. On the other hand, eleven countries have already exhausted their uranium resources.

Secondary resources

Secondary resources are essentially recovered uranium from other sources such as nuclear weapons, inventories, reprocessing and re-enrichment. Since secondary resources have exceedingly low discovery costs and very low production costs, they may have displaced a significant portion of primary production. Secondary uranium was and is available essentially instantly. However, new primary production will not be. Essentially, secondary supply is a "one-time" finite supply.

Inventories

Inventories are kept by a variety of organizations - government, commercial and others.

Uranium from decommissioning nuclear weapons

Both the US and Russia have committed to convert their nuclear weapons into fuel for electricity production. This program is known as the Megatons to Megawatts program. Down blending 500 tonnes of Russian weapons HEU will result in about 15,000 tonnes of LEU over 20 years. This is equivalent to about 152,000 tonnes of natural U, or just over twice annual world demand. Since 2000, 30 tonnes of military HEU is displacing about 10,600 tonnes of uranium oxide mine production per year which represents some 13% of world reactor requirements.

Mixed Oxide Fuel

Main article: MOX fuel

Plutonium recovered from nuclear weapons or other sources can be blended with uranium fuel to produce a mixed-oxide fuel.

Reprocessing

Main article: Nuclear reprocessing

Spent fuel can be re-enriched to recover uranium.

Unconventional Resources

Unconventional resources are occurrences that require novel technologies for their exploitation and/or use. Often unconventional resources occur in low-concentration. The exploitation of unconventional uranium requires additional research and development efforts for which there is no imminent economic need, given the large conventional resource base and the option of reprocessing and recycling spent fuel. Phosphates, Seawater and Uraniferous Coal Ash are examples of unconventional resources being considered.

Phosphates

The soaring price of uranium may cause long-dormant operations to extract uranium from phosphate. The technology for recovering uranium from phosphate mines is mature.

Seawater

One proposed source of Uranium is low-cost extraction of uranium from seawater. The uranium concentration of sea water is approximately 3 parts per billion but the quantity of contained uranium is vast. Researchers estimate there are some 4 billion tonnes. This amounts to 700 times more than known terrestrial resources recoverable at a price of up to $130 per kg. If half of this resource could ultimately be recovered, it could support for 6,500 years 3,000 GW of nuclear capacity. No more than a very small amount of uranium has been recovered from uranium in a laboratory

Uraniferous Coal Ash

An international consortium has set out to explore the commercial extraction of uranium from uraniferous coal ash from coal power stations located in Yunnan province, China.

Increasing reactor efficiency

New reactor designs are being developed and tested that are capable of extracting more energy from the uranium than today´s reactors.

Breeding

Main article: Breeder reactor

A breeder reactor produces more nuclear fuel than it consumes and thus can extend the uranium supply. It typically turns the dominant isotope in natural uranium, uranium-238, into plutonium-239, another nuclear fuel that can also be used in nuclear weapons. Breeding is also possible with thorium-232. There are two types of breeders: Fast breeders and thermal breeders.

Fast breeder

Main article: Fast breeder reactor

The word 'fast' in fast breeder refers to the speed of the neutrons in the reactor's core. The higher the energy in the neutrons have, the higher the breeding ratio or the more uranium is changed into plutonium.

Despite massive research efforts, attempts to increase the uranium reserves with fast breeder reactors have failed worldwide. We do not yet have the know-how to technically and commercially exploit fast breeder reactors on a large scale.

Thermal breeder

Main article: Thermal breeder reactor

Thorium is an alternate fuel cycle to uranium. Thorium is three times more plentiful than uranium. Thorium-232 is in itself not fissionable, but fertile. It can be made into fissionable uranium-233 with a breeder reactor. In turn, the uranium-233 can be fissioned like uranium-235 with the advantage that the daughter products are less radioactive than the ones from uranium 235.

Despite the thorium fuel cycle having a number of attractive features, development on a large scale can run into difficulties:

   * The resulting U-233 fuel is expensive to fabricate.  
   * The U-233 chemically separated from the irradiated thorium fuel is highly radioactive.
   * Separated U-233 is always contaminated with traces of U-232 
   * Thorium is difficult to recycle due to highly radioactive Th-228 
   * If the U-233 can be separated on its own, it becomes a weapons proliferation risk
   * And, there are technical problems in reprocessing.

Uranium demand

World power usage in terawatts (TW), 1965-2005.

World population

Main article: World population

According to data from the CIA's 2007 World Factbook, the world human population currently is 6,602,224,175 (July 2007 est.) and it is increasing by 1.167% per year. This means a growth of 211,090 persons every day. According to the UN, by 2050 it is estimated that the earth's human population will be 9.07 billion. That's 37% increase from today. 62% of the people will live in Africa, Southern Asia and Eastern Asia.

Industrialization

Main article: Industrialization

Increased demand for electricity

The higher the Human Development Index (HDI), the higher the electric consumption.

According to the IAEA in 2025, world nuclear energy capacity is expected to grow to between 450 GWe (+22%) and 530 GWe (+44%) from the present generating capacity of about 370 GWe. This will raise annual uranium requirements to between 80 000 tonnes and 100 000 tonnes. The currently identified resources are adequate to meet this expansion.

Number of reactors

See also: List of nuclear reactors

In 2007, according to Lehman Brothers Holdings, there are 437 nuclear power plants across 30 countries, with 30 more being built, 74 planned and 182 proposed.

Supply-demand gap

Current global uranium production meets only 58 per cent of demand, with the shortfall made up largely from rapidly shrinking stockpiles. The shortfall is expected to run at 51 million pounds a year on average from next year to 2020.

Peak uranium for individual nations

Eleven countries, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, Congo, Gabon, Bulgaria, Tadzhikistan, Hungary, Romania, Spain, Portugal and Argentina, have already exhausted their uranium resources and must rely on imports for their nuclear programs or abandon them. Other countries have reached their peak production of Uranium and are currently on a decline.

France - 1988

In France uranium production attained a peak of 3394 tonnes in 1988. At the time, this was enough for France to meet the half of its reactor demand from domestic sources. By 1997, production was 1/5 of the 1991 levels. France markedly reduced its market share since 1997.

Germany - ????

Between 1946 and 1990, Wismut, the former East German uranium mining company, produced a total of around 220,000 tonnes of uranium. During its peak, production exceeded 7000 tonnes per year. In 1990, uranium mining was discontinued as a consequence of the German unification. The company could not compete on the world market. The production cost of its uranium was three times the world price.

India - ????

India, having already hit its production peak, is finding itself in making a tough choice between using its modest and dwindling uranium resources as a source to keep its weapons programs rolling or it can use them to produce electricity.

Sweden - 1969?

Sweden started uranium production in 1965 but was never profitable. They stopped mining uranium in 1969. Sweden then embarked on a massive project based on American light water reactors. Nowadays, Sweden imports its uranium mostly from Canada, Australia and the former Soviet Union.

U.K. - 1981

The U.K.'s uranium production peaked in 1981 and the supply is running out, yet the UK still plans to build more nuclear power plants.

U.S. - 1988, ????

The U.S. production had peaked in 1998 4.8 million pounds of uranium oxide (U3O8), then dipped in production for a few years and has since increased again.

Owners of U.S. nuclear power reactors bought 67 million pounds of uranium in 2006. Out of that 84%, or 56 million pounds, were imported from foreign suppliers, according to the Energy Department. In 2006. U.S. uranium mines produced 4.7 million pounds of uranium oxide (U3O8), 57 percent more than in 2005. However in a recent import deal, purchases from Russia will increase slowly over a 10-year period, beginning in 2011 and will cap out at 514,754 tons in 2020.

World peak uranium

Pessimistic predictions of future uranium production

Robert Vance - 1980

Robert Vance, while looking back at 40 years of Uranium production through all of the Red Books, found that peak global production was achieved in 1980 at 69,683 tU from 22 countries. In 2003, uranium production totaled 35,600 tU from 19 countries.

Meacher - 1981

According to Michael Meacher, the supply of uranium has already reached its peak, in 1981.

Willem and van Leeuwen - 2034

Jan Willem and Storm van Leeuwen, independent nuclear analysts from Ceedata Consulting, shows that supplies of the high-grade uranium ore required to fuel nuclear power generation will, at current levels of consumption, last to about 2034. Afterwards, the cost of energy to extract the uranium will exceed the price the electric power provided.

Rohit Ogra and Edward Moore - 2009, ????

Lehman Brothers Holdings analysts Rohit Ogra and Edward Moore predict uranium will hit a peak in 2009. However, they see it as a temporary peak because supplies of uranium won't exceed demand until 2012.

Earth Watch Group - 2035

The Energy Watch Group has calculated that, even with steep uranium prices, uranium production will have reached its peak by 2035 and that it will only be possible to satisfy the fuel demand of nuclear plants until then.

Optimistic predictions of future uranium production

Huber and Mills - Never

Huber and Mills believe the energy supply is infinite and the problem is merely how we go about extracting the energy.

Uranium price

The uranium spot price has ramped up from a low in Jan 2001 at $6.40 came to a peak in June 2007 at $135 per pound. The uranium prices have dropped since. Currently (Feb 2008) the uranium spot is in the mid $70 to mid $90 range.

Effects of rising uranium prices

Shrinking weapons stockpiles, a large mine closure and new demand due to more reactors coming online is driving uranium prices upwards. Miners and Utilities are bitterly divided on uranium prices.

Mining

For uranium exploration companies that constantly have to drum up new exploration funds, a rising uranium price entices institutions and investors to bet on their next project.

Mining companies are returning to abandoned uranium mines with new promises of hundreds of jobs and millions in royalties. Some locals want them back. Others say the risk is too great. They'll try to stop those companies "until there's a cure for cancer."

Uranium shows up in 50 to 200 parts per million in phosphate-laden earth, and rising uranium prices created the additional market to extract uranium from phosphate, which generally is used for fertilizer.

Electric Utilities

Since many utilities have extensive stockpiles and can plan many months in advance, they take a wait-and-see approach on higher uranium costs. In the past year, this strategy has backfired due to the number of planned reactors or new reactors coming online. Those trying to find uranium in a rising cost climate are forced to face the reality of a seller’s market. Sellers remain reluctant to sell significant quantities. By waiting longer, sellers expect to get a higher price for the material they hold. Utilities on the other hand, are very eager to lock up long-term uranium contracts.

According to the NEA, the nature of nuclear generating costs allows for significant increases in the costs of uranium before the costs of generating electricity significantly increase. A 100% increase in uranium costs would only result in a 5% increase in electric cost. This is because uranium has to be converted to gas, enriched, converted back to yellow cake and fabricated into fuel elements. The cost of the finished fuel assemblies are dominated by the processing costs, not the cost of the raw materials. Furthermore, the cost of electricity from a nuclear power plant is dominated by the high capital and operating costs, not the cost of the fuel. Nevertheless, any increase in the price of uranium is eventually passed on to the consumer either directly or through a fuel surcharge.

Historical understanding of world uranium supply limits

• 1789 - The German scientist Martin Heinrich Klaproth isolated uranium in a sample of pitchblende.
• 1896 - A.H. Bacquerel discovered that uranium underwent radioactive decay
• 1939 - Otto Hahn and F. Strassmann discover nuclear fission
• 1956 - M. King Hubbert declares world fissionable reserves adequate for at least the next few centuries

See also

Prediction Hubbert peak theory Backstop resources World energy resources and consumption Economics Low-carbon economy Technology Energy conservation Energy efficiency Energy development Electric vehicles Renewable energy Soft energy path

Others Energy security Limits to Growth Overpopulation Overconsumption Green Revolution Causes of hypothetical future disasters

External references

Books

• Herring, J.: Uranium and thorium resource assessment, Encyclopedia of Energy, Boston University, Boston, USA, 2004, ISBN 0-12-176480-X.

Articles

• Deffeyes, K., MacGregor, I.: World Uranium resources Scientific American, Vol 242, No 1, January 1980, pp. 66-76.

External links

• "Uranium reserves". European Nuclear Society.