RECOMMENDATION TO GOVERNMENTS FROM THE PERMANENT MONITORING PANEL ON ENERGY

Abstract

Nuclear power now provides some 17% of the world’s electricity, mostly from lightwater reactors that operate at about 90% capacity factor. They are supplied with low-enriched uranium and need the corresponding 156kg of natural uranium per mega watt-year of electrical energy. A typical 1100-Mwe reactor thus each year consumes fuel from 156 tonnes of uranium. Uranium prices and resources were discussed in particular in a paper by Steve Fetter and Matt Bunn paper in the Erice, August 2006 meeting, from which we take our data.’ At the average 2006 uranium price of $37/kg, the cost of the uranium component of fabricated fuel was $O.S/MWh (0.08 cents per kWh), which is only 1.2 percent of the present 7cent/kWh cost of nuclear power. Spot uranium prices have risen rapidly since 2006, which will presumably encourage uranium exploration, but information on availability of uranium at higher prices is very weak. The best available data, from an IAEA study in 2001, has substantial uncertainty.* The only way that nuclear power can make an early contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is for the industry to deploy large numbers of reactors of existing type, although the gradual introduction of more advanced reactors will be welcome. A fivefold expansion of nuclear power to about 1500 plants of I-million kW each, would consume each year about 1500 x 156 = 0.24 million tonnes of uranium = 0.24 MTU. The IAEA estimate of about 20 MTU available at an extraction cost up to $130/kg U would thus supply this expanded reactor fleet for about 80 years. For the longer term, it is technically feasible to build breeder reactors that yield energy from 75% of the uranium rather than only about 0.5% as in the light-water reactors, with a resulting tolerance for uranium costs 150-fold larger. The potential electrical energy production would be increased by a factor 150 from a given uranium resource, and much more by the increased amounts of uranium available at higher cost of production-up to much of the 4500 MTU in the waters of the world’s oceans. One half of this seawater uranium would supply fuel for a fleet of 10,000 LWRs for 1000 years, or for that many breeder reactors for 200,000 years. Although costs for uranium from sea water have been estimated as “$250-450/kg” there is no certainty that the actual cost will lie in this range. For terrestrial resources the uncertainty is how much there is that can be extracted at current costs; for seawater the amount of the resource is clear, but little has been expended on establishing and reducing the cost of extraction. Analyses accompanying such studies should illuminate such questions as: To what extent can we expect that advancing technology can increase there serves (the economically recoverable resource) by mining and processing uranium at lower cost? What are the reasons for the rapid changes in historical “spot” prices in 1975, and between 2005 and 2007? What are the implications of the price history for the future?