Uranium Exports Research Articles

The nexus between Russian uranium exports and US nuclear-energy consumption: Do the spillover effects of geopolitical risks matter?

Geopolitical risks significantly impact global energy consumption, hindering material trade and influencing policy decisions. Specifically, the Russian uranium supply for US nuclear energy production faces geopolitical risks despite being exempt from ongoing sanctions imposed by Western and European entities during the Russia-Ukraine conflict. We investigate the effect of global, Russian, and US geopolitical risks on US nuclear-energy consumption driven by Russian uranium exports from January 1996 to December 2019. The cross-quantilogram analysis reveals a negative influence of global geopolitical risks on Russian uranium export-driven US nuclear-energy consumption in lower quantiles, and a positive effect in medium to upper quantiles under long memory. Interestingly, Russian geopolitical risks do not have any significant effect, while US geopolitical risks positively impact from the medium to upper quantiles in extended memory. Hence, our policy suggestion is solely concerned with adequately dealing with global geopolitical risks under the global governance platform to enhance worldwide uranium trade for nuclear energy consumption in the USA.

Uranium and the Macro-Economy in Niger: An Empirical Investigation

Like many commodities, uranium price is notoriously volatile, and such volatility can have serious economic consequences for countries that export them. Niger, which is the fourth-largest producer of uranium in the world, has been dealing with uranium price fluctuations since the start of its production in 1972. Since 2011, Niger is also an oil-exporting country. However, Niger is still one of the poorest countries in the world, and policymakers are keen on learning the impact of natural resource revenue on the economy. Policymakers are particularly interested in knowing whether uranium export has been a curse instead of a blessing. As such, the present study seeks to analyze, empirically, the impact of uranium price fluctuations on key macroeconomic variables in Niger. More precisely, the objective of this article is to document the existence of Dutch "disease" or lack thereof in the economy. The study uses VAR and VECM methodologies and utilizes Granger causality tests, variance decomposition, and impulse response functions to guide the analysis. These approaches allow for an empirical deeper dive into the impact of the uranium sector on the economy. The article uses annual time series data covering the period from 1977 to 2015. The data comes from three main sources, including the World Development Indicators (WDI) database, the Central Bank of West African Countries dataset (EDEN), and Niger's National Institute of Statistics (INS) dataset. The results show that Niger's economy suffered from Dutch disease from uranium export. Indeed, the Granger causality tests show that uranium export revenue cannot be used to forecast real income in Niger. Furthermore, impulse response functions confirm the above result as a shock to uranium price and the resultant effects on money supply, inflation, and the real exchange rate is consistent with the Dutch "disease" theory. In general, uranium export revenue was the source of macroeconomic imbalances observed in the country during the period considered by the study. Now that Niger is also an exporter of oil in addition to uranium, policymakers should avoid the trap of Dutch "disease" by investing natural resources revenue strategically. Given Niger's development challenges, using natural resources revenue for public investment in infrastructure, health, and education should be a priority.

Niger

With one of the world’s lowest levels of human development, Niger has enormous needs but only limited own resources to meet them. Insecurity in the Sahel, climate change, and low prices for its uranium exports are further challenges. Niger’s economy performed reasonably well before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. GDP growth exceeded 6 percent and large foreign projects were attracted, notably a pipeline for the export of crude oil. A new government will take office in April 2021.

Niger

Niger faces daunting development challenges, aggravated by terrorist incursions, climate change, and low uranium export prices. Presidential elections are due in late 2020. Reforms are advancing and economic activity is reasonably strong.

Niger

Niger faces daunting development challenges, aggravated by terrorist incursions, low uranium export prices, and climate change. Nonetheless, GDP growth picked up to 6.5 percent last year- and should average above 7 percent over the next five years thanks to reforms, substantial donor support, several large-scale projects, and a one-time boost from the projected commencement of crude oil exports in 2022.

Uranium in Greenland: Questions of Resources and Security in a Self-Government Setting

The exploitation of minerals in Greenland is governed by the Greenlandic Mineral Resource Act of 2009. Among the mineral resources is uranium. The exploitation of minerals lies within the competences of the self-government. However, the areas of foreign policy and security remain the competences of the Realm. When the socalled zero tolerance policy was lifted in 2013, the Danish Government insisted that uranium mining could not be under the (sole) competences of the Greenlandic self-government, as uranium is a dual-use good. In January 2016, the Greenlandic and the Danish government signed an agreement on exploitation and export of uranium and other radioactive resources. We are now are left with the question of competences not being unequivocally legally solved. And in addition we have open questions as to responsibility under international law.

Uranium export from a sandy beach subterranean estuary in Australia

Few studies exist on the contribution of subterranean estuaries (STEs) to the oceanic uranium (U) budget. Here, we estimate the dissolved U fluxes out of a quartz sand STE located on the east coast of Australia. Our results indicate that the advective flow of seawater in permeable sands enhances cycling of U in the STE. Dissolved U concentrations ranged from 25 nM in the STE to an effective zero salinity end-member of 3.8 nM in the surface estuary. The dissolved U (salinity corrected) concentrations were positively correlated to Fe (r2 = 0.49 p < 0.001) during a shallow beach time series experiment. These results indicate that reductive dissolution of Fe oxides may be an important process maintaining high concentrations of U in shallow permeable sand STEs. The U export rates from the STE to the surface estuary in this study were estimated to be 1.8 μmol U m−2 day−1 based on shallow saline groundwater exchange pathways and 0.4 μmol U m−2 day−1 based on deep fresh submarine groundwater discharge (SGD). Uranium's behavior in STEs is diverse and site specific. Out of the seven investigations available here and in the literature, three suggested a SGD-derived U source to the coastal ocean, while four suggested a U sink within STEs removing seawater U. Therefore, it remains unclear whether SGD is a source or sink of U to the ocean and additional investigations in contrasting settings are required to resolve the global contribution of SGD to the marine U cycle.

US approves large export of bomb-grade uranium

Belgian officials say their research reactor can’t be converted to low-enriched uranium fuels until at least 2023.

INTERNATIONAL ISOTOPES MARKETS

The paper studies world markets of stable and radioactive isotopes. Isotopes have found various applications in science, industry, agriculture and other sectors of the economy, but especially - in medicine. Nuclear medicine is developing intensively all over the world thanks to the success in the treatment of various diseases with the help of radioactive pharmaceuticals (radiopharmaceuticals). The article uses empirical data from a forecast study of the global radiopharmaceuticals market made in 2015 by a research company «Markets and Markets» for the European, North American and global markets. The paper also analyzes the statistical data on the global export and import of natural uranium, enriched and depleted uranium, plutonium, thorium and some stable isotopes of non-medical purposes, presented by a company «Trend economy» in 2014. Despite a unique industrial base for the production of isotopes created in the Soviet Union Russia occupies a modest position on the world market of nuclear medicine except for certain areas. More than 80% of isotopes, produced in USSR were consumed domestically, the export of the stable and radioactive isotopes was in equal proportions. Now the country's domestic radiopharmaceuticals market is poorly developed. To radically change the situation, it is necessary to carry out reforms that stimulate the development of nuclear medicine.

Impact of Pulling Down Regulatory State Barriers on Uranium in Australia: Is There a Need In Order to Maintain and Increase Australia's Global Market Share of Uranium?

This paper sets a prospective framework to study the impact of opening more mines to meet future growing demand on Australia’s economy. The structure is aimed at decomposing investments and exports variables into Uranium exports and Uranium Exploration expenditure and analyse their impacts on each State GSP (Goods State Product) and for Australia as a nation. The demand and supply factors affecting the uranium market are defragmented before providing the research methodology and data specifics. Later analysis is expected to have policy implications by serving as a guide to pull down State Regulatory barriers like those imposed currently in Queensland, which is rich with uranium deposits and allow only uranium exploration but no uranium mining. Empirical findings would suggest whether exporting the carbon free energy would add value to Australia’s different competing states and as a whole globalized economy.

Nuclear Subsidies and Proliferation: Clarifying the Link

ABSTRACTIn March 2015, the South Australian state government established a royal commission to investigate the financial, social, technical, diplomatic, and nonproliferation benefits and risks of expanding its nuclear industry, including activities related to uranium mining; enriching, reprocessing, and fabricating nuclear fuels for both domestic use and export; producing nuclear power; and storing radiological waste, including foreign spent reactor fuel. Given its enormous uranium reserves and current mining activities, some Australians have argued that Australia could benefit financially by expanding the mining sector and by adding value to its uranium exports by enriching the material and fabricating it into reactor fuel assemblies. Others have maintained that Australia can realize significant economic benefits by recycling and storing foreign spent fuel and producing carbon-free nuclear power. In the end, the commission recommended that Australia consider opening up a high-level waste repository to take in foreign spent fuel. It did not recommend any other nuclear activities at this time. The following viewpoint is based on testimony I delivered to the commission on the nuclear weapon proliferation implications of the proposed activities. If Australia wants to avoid the temptation of selling nuclear goods to states that might use these goods to make bombs, it should only consider new nuclear activities that can be entirely financed by the private sector and turn a profit without having to resort to foreign sales. This policy would also enable Australia to set an important, new international nonproliferation standard.

Commodity exports and transboundary atmospheric impacts: regulating coal in an era of climate change

Do exporters of coal have a responsibility for the carbon emissions associated with the commodity’s end use? Situated within longstanding debates on whether and to what extent environmental objectives should be integrated with trade policy, theories of economic statecraft and international regimes, along with a preliminary survey of the structure of world coal production and trade, are employed to show that coal exporters possess a theoretical capacity to exercise significant price and supply based leverage over coal importers. Utilising this potential leverage, and deployed within the international climate regime, a coal export safeguard regime (modelled on the uranium export safeguard regime) provides coal exporters with a viable policy framework to minimise end-use risks associated with coal exports, while balancing policy demands of retaining the viability and global market share of national coal industries.

Down the yellowcake road: the minefield of Australian uranium

Using a range of sources, from personal narrative to news reportage, government discourse and both pro and antinuclear polemic, this article examines the fraught business of uranium mining and export in contemporary Australia in the context of the nuclear history of this country since the Second World War.The first great boom in Australian uranium, during the 1950s, was attended by nationalistic triumphalism: an isolated country had been catapulted onto the Cold War map. But that initial burst of enthusiasm has given way to agonising over the ramifications of being a primary purveyor of the fundamental nuclear fuel to a volatile world. A succession of governments has struggled to resolve embedded inconsistency on the issue, and the bipartisan political enthusiasm for expanding the uranium industry clashes with the hostility of a public otherwise sympathetic to mining.Concerns about the global consequences of peddling a potentially lethal resource are exacerbated by the most vexing of all Australian domestic concerns—that of indigenous rights—for the “modern Midas mineral” is found primarily on Aboriginal land. The landscape of Australian uranium is a minefield of competing motives and interests and invokes two national narratives that seem irreconcilable.

Follow the yellowcake road: balancing Australia's national interests against international anti-nuclear interests

The question of whether Australia should change government policy to permit the export of uranium to India has divided Australians, arms control advocates and scholars. This article does not take a position for or against Australia's export of uranium to India. Instead, it argues that the concept of ‘the national interest’ is misleading as the analytical framework for assessing this important foreign policy decision, and leads to a distorted analysis and policy prescription. It is not all that difficult for the government to justify a decision to sell uranium to India as being in the national interest. But a more nuanced and complicated analysis results when the issue is discussed using a novel analytical framework of ‘a balance of interests’. ‘The national interest’ is erroneous as a description of the empirical reality, substitutes tautology for explanation and is unhelpful as a guide to policy. ‘A balance of interests’ is superior on all three counts of description, explanation and prescription. In addition, it captures human agency and allows for human error and multiple balances as weighed by different people reflecting their personal predilections, professional backgrounds, life and career experiences, party philosophy, and institutional interests and perspectives.

Impact of pulling down regulatory state barriers on uranium in Australia: Is there a need in order to maintain and increase Australia’s global market share of uranium?

This paper sets a prospective framework to study the impact of opening more mines to meet future growing demand on Australia’s economy. The structure is aimed at decomposing investments and exports variables into Uranium exports and Uranium Exploration expenditure and analyse their impacts on each State GSP (Goods State Product) and for Australia as a nation. The demand and supply factors affecting the uranium market are defragmented before providing the research methodology and data specifics. Later analysis is expected to have policy implications by serving as a guide to pull down State Regulatory barriers like those imposed currently in Queensland, which is rich with uranium deposits and allow only uranium exploration but no uranium mining. Empirical findings would suggest whether exporting the carbon free energy would add value to Australia’s different competing states and as a whole globalized economy.

The Fraser Government's “Uranium Decision” and the Foundations of Australian Non‐Proliferation Policy: A Reappraisal*

The Fraser era represents a defining moment in Australia's approach to the issues of uranium exports and non‐proliferation policy. In contrast to some well‐established positions in the literature, this essay argues that the Fraser government's August 1977 decision to approve the export of uranium was framed not only by domestic political considerations stemming from the Ranger Environmental Inquiry but also by important international factors. In particular, I argue that the non‐proliferation initiatives of the Carter administration presented the Fraser government with an opportunity to portray the export of Australian uranium as means to strengthen the non‐proliferation regime and enhance Australia's influence.

‘Conflicts of Loyalty’: The Australian Labor Party and Uranium Policy, 1976-82

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) has periodically been enveloped by 'conflicts of loyalty' as a result of being forced to choose between representing its supporters in the trade unions and social movements and paying heed to powerful business groups whose investment decisions underpin the capitalist economy. This paper explores this dilemma through a case study of uranium mining policy from 1976-82. It is proposed that the party's initial policy of opposition to the mining and export of uranium was overturned, despite its wide appeal among party members and constituents, because of the anticipated backlash from powerful commercial interests in a climate of economic downturn and the increasing globalisation of capital. This policy outcome also needs to be seen in the context of the desire on the part of federal ALP leaders to resurrect the party's economic management credentials in the years following the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975. The case was symptomatic, moreover, of the fading energy for fundamental political change increasingly afflicting social democrats worldwide.

Redefining the Nonproliferation Norm? Australian Uranium, the NPT, and the Global Nuclear Revival

Optimists maintain that great powers oppose the proliferation of nuclear weapons and have a moral aversion to their use. The Eighth Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non‐Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in May 2010 produced a final declaration calling for steps toward complete disarmament. Yet recent optimism belies some contradictory, incremental foreign policy decisions taken by countries like Australia and the United States that could produce a change of meaning for the nuclear nonproliferation norm. Building on the “norm life‐cycle” model developed by Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, this article links a new constructivist model of normative change to decisions by developed states to expand the global nuclear fuel cycle and provide sensitive nuclear assistance to other countries. An exploratory case study of Australian government policies on nuclear energy and uranium exports (2006‐present), including the possible sale of uranium to India, a non‐NPT signatory, suggests an important role for elite agency in norm redefinition.

‘Born in an atomic test tube’: landscapes of cyclonic development at Uranium City, Saskatchewan

Drawing together insights from neo‐Innisian geography and environmental history, this paper explores the landscape and environmental changes engendered by ‘cyclonic’ patterns of development associated with uranium production at Uranium City, Saskatchewan. Strong postwar demand for uranium led to the establishment and rapid expansion of Uranium City on the north shore of Lake Athabasca as a ‘yellowcake town’, dedicated to producing uranium oxide concentrate to supply federal government contracts with the US military. In spite of optimistic assessments for the region's industrial future, the new settlement remained inherently unstable, tied to shifting institutional arrangements and external markets, and haunted by the spectre of resource depletion. The planning and development of the townsite at Uranium City reflected both neocolonial desires to open the north to Euro‐Canadian settlement and efforts by the state to buffer the stormy effects of resource dependency. Ultimately, however, quixotic government efforts to implant an outpost of industrial modernity in the Athabasca Region failed to forestall the inevitable winds of change, which left in their wake destructive legacies of social dislocation and environmental degradation, already evident with the near‐collapse of the uranium export market by the early 1960s.

An Australian Perspective on the Indo-US Nuclear Deal

Following its election in 2007, the Labour government imposed a moratorium on export of Australian uranium to India. This article argues that with the Indo-US deal and concomitant agreements now in place, Australia should agree to export uranium to India. It does so on the grounds that the agreements will adequately protect Australian uranium from misuse, will not unduly test the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime, could open out opportunities to meet important safety concerns, could help stabilise potentially dangerous vertical and horizontal proliferation and could also mitigate the region's burgeoning production of greenhouse gases. In supporting the agreements through nuclear trade with India, however, Australia should use any influence it is able to garner thereby to ensure that the Indo-US agreement itself is not seen as part of an attempt on the part of the United States (US), or any other power, to harness India as a means of containing China, and thus exacerbating what could become a destabilising tendency in the region.