Energy Watch Group warns: Depleting uranium reserves dash hopes for atomic energy supply
Brent Crowhurst
Energy Watch Group warns: Depleting uranium reserves dash hopes for atomic energy supply
Widening gap between uranium production and consumption / Uranium production will only be able to cover the requirements of the world’s current nuclear power stations for a few decades
Berlin/ Ottobrunn, 29 November 2006 – The temperature of the earth’s climate is rapidly rising as the combustion of fossil fuels continues to heat up the atmosphere. Some experts have suggested focussing more heavily on nuclear energy to secure our future energy supply. However, this scenario does not offer us a viable alternative: as a group of independent experts recently discovered, our global uranium reserves will be depleted even before the end of this century. “Even if we take into account that uranium prices will rise dramatically and that this will raise interest in exploiting previously uneconomical uranium mines, our uranium reserves will be fully depleted in 70 years at the latest“, says Dr. Werner Zittel, energy expert at Ludwig Bölkow Systemtechnik GmbH in Ottobrunn. He is one of the key figures of the Energy Watch Group that has taken up the cause of conducting critical and politically unbiased analyses of our future energy supplies. “All suggestions to expand nuclear energy production overlook the fact that the raw material reserves needed for this technology are severely declining and don’t permit further expansion.”
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. If we continue to expand nuclear energy production – as the IEA recommends that we do – then we will already start to run out of uranium fuel reserves before 2030. “The IEA’s atomic energy goals have been built on uranium sand that doesn't exist", commented Zittel. This means that the operators of new nuclear power plants – construction of which was encouraged by the IEA in its World Energy Outlook this autumn – will in any case be faced with a dramatic rise in prices.
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.
The Energy Watch Group’s first report is based on a study of trends and assumptions, such as those that recently appeared in the World Energy Outlook of the International Energy Agency (IEA) or in the current edition of the Red Book, published by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA 2006). So far, around 2.3 megatons of uranium have been produced worldwide.
As many as eleven uranium producing states have depleted their uranium reserves. Only Canada currently has uranium ore deposits with a uranium content of more than one per cent. The ore found in many countries only contains 0.1 per cent uranium and more than two thirds of all ore deposits have less than 0.06 per cent of the nuclear fuel.
The uranium content in the bedrock is an essential factor in development cost considerations and in determining the profitability of a mine. The current shortage of uranium has already caused the price of uranium to increase manifold to 130 dollars per kilogramme. “The fuel rods of nuclear reactors consume as much as 67 kilotons of uranium per year. Yet uranium mines can only supply 42 kilotons per year.” To fill the gap of 25 kilotons, uranium is largely obtained from the conversion of nuclear weapons and old deposits at present. These deposits stem from before 1980; they will be depleted within the next ten years. We would need to increase the annual production of uranium by 50 per cent until 2015 to cover our future needs. Yet the development of new mines is turning out to be extremely difficult. At the end of October, for instance, the Cameco Group announced that the uranium mine Cigar Lake, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, had been flooded due to water inrushes in the bedrock. All attempts to stem the water inflow failed. Cigar Lake was considered to have the world’s second largest ore deposits with high uranium content. Now hopes are shrinking that this mine will ever be able to supply uranium ore.
Nuclear reactors are planned for the long-term future, and their construction takes at least five years. Once completed, a reactor will supply electricity for approximately 40 years. Currently more than 45 per cent of the world’s reactors are older than 25 years, and 90 per cent have been operating for more than 15 years. They need to be replaced by new reactors by 2030.
Yet, worldwide, only three to four new reactors join the grid each year. This figure is not likely to change until 2011, since no new reactors are currently being built. In order to replace the old reactors by 2030, the construction of 15 to 20 new reactors per year would be necessary. “These are undisputable facts“, Zittel sums up. “This does not take into account political resistance to new nuclear power plants or potential dangers, as nuclear plants are also very vulnerable to terrorist attack.”
Zittel concludes: “From the data we have available on the existing uranium deposits, we can conclude that nuclear energy will no longer be a major source of energy in a few decades’ time.
The Energy Watch Group is an association of independent researchers and economics experts who are in the process of developing sustainable concepts to secure our global energy supply. The group was established by Hans-Josef Fell, a member of the German Bundestag (Lower House). In addition to Dr. Werner Zittel, participants include Jörg Schindler, Managing Director of Ludwig Bölkow Systemtechnik GmbH, Dr. Harry Lehmann, an expert from the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) and Stefan Peter from the Institute for Sustainable Solutions and Innovations. In addition, the research group gets advice and support from Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schmid of the Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Kassel, Daniel Becker of Ecofys, World Watch Institute in Washington, EUROSOLAR and the World Council for Renewable Energies.
Solarpraxis AG is the media partner of the Energy Watch Group. The Berlin-based company is one of the top consulting and service companies in the solar sector. Since 1998, it has been acquiring and marketing knowledge from the field of renewable energies, and specifically from the solar energy sector, for companies, trades, associations, politicians and the general public. Solarpraxis AG creates technical documentations. It publishes technical literature in its own publishing house and organises congresses and events. Solarpraxis AG was listed on the stock market in August 2006 and is currently the only listed service company from the renewable energies sector.
If you have any questions, please contact:
Dr. Werner Zittel, Ludwig Bölkow Systemtechnik GmbH
Phone: 00 49 /89/60811020, Fax: 00 49 /89/6099731, Email: zit...@lbst.de
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