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Page added on August 7, 2014
Uranium Demand Higher, Supply Lower Over Long-Term
We all know that China, Russia, India and Brazil are deploying a large number of nuclear reactors. England and a few middle eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE also have big plans. Not only is the world’s population reportedly growing from about 7 billion to 9 billion + by 2050, the proportion of the population using significantly more electricity, i.e. middle-class citizens of the world– is growing as well. The world’s middle-class could rise from 4-5 billion today to perhaps 7 billion. On top of that, there’s the possibility (some would say likelihood) that the mix of base load power generation (coal, gas, nuclear, hydro, etc.) will shift towards nuclear. I’m certainly in that camp.
Only about 30 countries currently utilize nuclear power at all. That’s less than 20% of the world’s nation states. No matter how one slices it, there’s going to be a huge increase in the amount of uranium required. Cameco’s 10-yr forecast of uranium demand is a CAGR of 3.5%. Where will an additional 70 million pounds of annual supply come from? That’s a good question. There are many problems on the supply side, ranging from terrorist activity and resource nationalism in select African countries, to severe water scarcity concerns, to depleting reserves in key countries, most notably Kazakhstan. While we may not be looking at, “Peak Uranium,” it appears that the low hanging fruit has been harvested in many parts of the world, especially the lower-cost supply.
Supply challenges could be more problematic than pundits realize
But, here’s where it gets interesting, virtually all of the talk about uranium revolves around when will demand pick up to move spot and long-term contract prices higher? Some pundits are calling for a shortfall in supply as soon as 2016, others say 2018-21. But, in looking at the data from the World Nuclear Association, a different worry surfaces in my mind. Of the top producing uranium countries (those producing at least 1,000 tonnes in 2013) are countries such as Kazakhstan, Niger, Namibia, Russia, Uzbekistan, China, Malawi and Ukraine. This is not all that comforting. Yes, supply could keep up with demand over the next few decades, but I would not count on consistent growth or no supply disruptions from some of these countries. In addition, Russia has considerable influence in Ukraine and Russia’s power base is increasingly centered around its abundance of natural resources. Do I trust Russia (or China) to supply the world with uranium without fail for the next several decades? Has Russia ever used oil or natural gas delivery as a sanction or threat against another country? I’m not saying that Russia or China will be the aggressor in some sort of geopolitical event, just that $%^& happens!
Global demand is probably understated by the World Nuclear Association
Switching gears to the demand side, many commentators refer again to the World Nuclear Association’s list of global reactors that are; “operable, under construction, planned and proposed.” I think this data underestimates long-term demand. Consider this–3 of the top 10 populations on the planet have virtually no nuclear aspirations (yet). Indonesia, (5 reactors planned or proposed), Bangladesh (2 reactors planned) and Nigeria, (0 reactors planned or proposed). Japan is a top 10 populated country with zero reactors in operation. I believe that 20-25 reactors will return to service in Japan before the end of this decade. That’s as important as China and India’s aggressive growth plans for intermediate-term demand.
Compare Bangladesh to Canada with about 1/5 the population and 24 operable, under construction, planned and proposed reactors. I think that long-term demand will be greater than expected, especially as BOTH the World Bank and IMF have recently proposed curtailing or heavily taxing the construction of new coal-fired plants. Other global agencies and countries are following the World Bank’s lead in just saying no to coal. Therefore, countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria, will have to turn to nuclear in a much more meaningful way.
Who will pay for third world countries multi-billion dollar nuclear programs?
Giant conglomerates and/or State sponsored entities in France, Russia, China, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. are fighting for this business. Programs to build and operate nuclear facilitates can be very lucrative. For some countries it’s a matter of pride and power projection to get as many contracts as possible. Contracts including permitting, design, testing, building and maintaining reactors as well as selling the uranium, installing the fuel and removing spent fuel rods. Better still if the World Bank or IMF guarantees the loans from the third world countries!
Conclusion
I believe that there will be a widening gap between supply and demand that may grow to levels not anticipated by market participants who rely largely on World Nuclear Association data. The WNA is an excellent source of information on all things nuclear, but it’s a snapshot in time. I believe that both supply will be lower due to some questionable countries as the world’s top producers and that demand will be greater due a number of the most populous countries with virtually no nuclear programs.
Graphics, special thanks to the World Nuclear Association — for more information, click here
– See more at: http://investorintel.com/nuclear-energy-intel/uranium-demand-higher-supply-lower-long-term/#sthash.LO6NEnZp.dpuf
– See more at: http://investorintel.com/nuclear-energy-intel/uranium-demand-higher-supply-lower-long-term/#sthash.LO6NEnZp.dpuf
26 Comments on "Uranium Demand Higher, Supply Lower Over Long-Term"
Plantagenet on Thu, 7th Aug 2014 3:04 pm
The good news is that nukes have zero carbon emissions. The bad news is that, as past events in Iran, Libya and Syria as shown, third world countries with nukes tend to gin up nuclear weapons programs.
R1verat on Thu, 7th Aug 2014 3:55 pm
And oh, whats that? Oh Fukushima? Yeah, I sorta remember that…..
Fukushima nuclear meltdown worse than initially reported:
http://rt.com/news/178572-fukushima-nuclear-meltdown-worse/
verstapp on Thu, 7th Aug 2014 8:10 pm
Correction, Plant. Nuclear is a 10,000 step process of which ONE doesn’t emit CO2.
Also, where are you going to put the waste?
>Fuku
As TEPCO has said from day one, ‘nothing to see here, move along’.
Makati1 on Thu, 7th Aug 2014 8:21 pm
Nukes have zero carbon emissions? Really? Don’t the mining machines, trucks, processing and refinement have carbon emissions? Those thousands of tons of ore don’t just materialize, ready to be installed, at the nuclear reactors.
If it takes a barrel of oil to make a cubic yard of concrete and one reactor takes many thousands of cubic yards in their construction, not to mention many thousands of tons of mined, refined, shaped and shipped steel. The very construction is carbon intense.
Ditto for the buildings and facilities of the refining and processing firms. And the factories that make the machines to do so. And the transport of all of those millions of tons of materials. And … on and on. The TOTAL system to get to that light switch is huge and heavy with carbon emissions.
Then there are the now 300,000+ tons of spent fuel that need containment and cooling for decades, and then safely stored for thousands of years.
Then there is the tens of thousands of people needed to run the 400+ reactors for 40+ years. ALL have carbon emissions, and ALL add up to NOT being ‘green’, nor renewable, nor safe.
I don’t think there will be a shortage as more and more reactors are being shut down. The few under construction may never be activated.
After all, this is nothing more than an ad for an investment scam. NOT real ‘facts’. Real facts are rare in Western media.
steve on Thu, 7th Aug 2014 11:06 pm
All you have to do is put the spent rods in rockets and shoot them to the sun…done…
Makati1 on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 2:10 am
Hahahahah…thanks for the laugh steve.
Sorry for being so sarcastic, but… You are not the first to suggest space as an answer and I am sure you will not be the last. I do suggest that you do some basic research before you make suggestions to make sure they are feasible. Many here don’t bother.
And when just one rocket fails and explodes, what then? Remember the Challenger and the dead astronauts? And that is only one of many rocket failures over the years.
Besides the FACT that the total freight plus shuttle was about 120 tons, and there are now over 240,000 tons of spent fuel rods laying in pools all over the world. That’s 2,000 rockets of the size needed to launch the US shuttle. At one every hour, (not even remotely possible in this world), that is three months of launches.
Using the US shuttle launch statistics of about 1.2% failure rate, that means that 24 of those rockets will fail, spreading 120 tons of radioactive debris (each) wherever they fail.
Now do you see why space is NOT the answer. Not even close. Too bad. It seems like a simple answer to a planet killing question.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 5:24 am
Bringing 1kg payload into orbit costs ca. 23,000 $. It will cost a multiple of that amount to escape earth, say 50k. So 1 ton costs 50 million $. Every nuke power station generates 20 ton of waste per year, that’s one billion $ per year per nuke power station. Currently the world has 270,000 ton waste. That is 12.5T$ or about one year worth of US gdp.
For 1 billion $ you can buy roughly 1 GW worth of solar panels, excluding installation, wiring and maintenance. So, the money you need to shoot one year worth of nuclear waste of a standard 1GW nuclear power station is the same amount of money you need for a 1 GW solar power station with a life expectancy of 30 years.
Conclusions:
Nukes suck.
Solar is the future.
There is no energy problem in the long term.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 5:48 am
I have to correct myself here, because I was talking about peakwatt, which is not the same as continuesly, far from it. This spplies also for a nuclear power station that is also not operational full time either, but much more so. Assuming a real production rate of 20% of peak, you can build a 1 GW real power production solar plant for the cost of five year shooting nuclear waste into space for a standard 1 GW nuclear power plant.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 6:01 am
A standard 1 GW nuclear power plant costs 4 billion dollar, if you pay up front:
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph241/schultz2/
That is roughly the same as a 1 GW solar power plant.
But solar power plants have no nuclear waste problems and you need no fuel, or a military like the French to safeguard your supply from half jihadist run Mali. And you never have to worry about supply from instable countries, like the ME or countries with an attitude like Russia.
Solar and wind already give the most bang for your buck. The Germans, not really dummies, have made that calculation a long time ago and are quietly acting upon it.
Davy on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 6:41 am
Art, as a doomer, your solar idea is important and the last hope to maintain some short and medium complexity in the coming descent. Art, where your message falls off the cliff is the medium to longer term. AltE power of all kinds cannot replace but a small fraction of the FF liquid fuels. The transition period is too short to even begin to change out the transportation rolling stock. The FF resources are not adequate to allow a transition. FF are suffering diminishing returns of supply efforts already. There are still too many hurdles to storage and grid wide applications of AltE. FF Transportation is vital to a complex economy. AltE grid power cannot even begin to provide enough electric power to replace itself nor grow its electricity market share. AltE is in effect a bridge energy source for a transition from industrial man to postindustrial man. This postindustrial man will be 19th century in look and feel transitioning further to 17th century look and feel. When complexity breaks it cannot be recovered in the short and medium term. It evaporates in the destructive process of systematic bifurcation and chaos. If we can ride this bifurcation gradient down managing the descent by reacting properly by adaptation and mitigation we can realizes some residual complexity. It is still up in the air if this can be done. There is no way to manage de-growth/collapse nor predict collapse. We can look at collapse scientifically and say what is possible just like CC. Collapse is nonlinear and random so there is no management of collapse. There is only reactivity of adaptation and mitigation. Man has mega predicaments ahead with his social structures and environment. Both the social structure and environment are in severe disequilibrium and ready to bifurcate to a lower level of environmental support, economic activity, and knowledge/technology complexity. AltE will not survive a less complex economy. AltE is one of the most important aspects of the coming bifurcation gradient as a lifeboat agent. It will give us some high quality power in a world of sever entropic decay and lower complexity. NUK has no future and is in effect a time bomb ticking away to destroy whole regions in radioactive pollution.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 7:15 am
Davy, all you say makes sense. We seem to agree about the long term, that a population of 1 billion could have a reasonable future… in 2100.
The real problem is the mid term, indeed. The possibility of a smooth transition was perhaps possible if we would have taken the Club of arome seriously in, when was it, 1973 or so, but we did not, although the peanut farmer made an attempt.
BAU is dead. Society is going to ‘decomplexify’ if you forgive me my french. Bye, bye cars and planes. Thirties style depression. Implosion of oldskool pensions and health care arrangements. Flash mobs around the clock. Walmart closes down, because China no longer accepts dollars to supply Walmart, only real values, like gold. We are all going to live like NWR and his American Datcha. Return of socialism is possible. You will get your 400$ job allocated to you.
Davy on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 7:31 am
Art, have you seen God and gone through a conversion?..lol. Well, I thought you were a corny (mild) but instead you are a closet doomer (mild). You were my hope and dream we have hopes and dreams…lol. Yea, Art, we are on the same page more or less. I enjoy your optimism. Like always in life we will see some doom with some plenty here and there. “But” Who friggen knows how the fat cat will fall.
Davy on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 7:32 am
Oh, Art, you always talk about Walmart closing. I was curious in Carrefour S.A will close?
Arthur on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 7:49 am
Our IKEA, Praxis, etc. will close down as well. But this is a US-centric public, so I refer to Walmart.
I am not a doomer in the sense that I necessarily see mass extinction happening. Less complexity is not the same as dying. And, I keep promoting it, against the judgment of a majority here… the internet is here to stay and will substitute a lot of superfluous traffic. Return of state level communism is not a done deal either. Perhaps local Kibbutz style socialism will suffice for the masses to survive.
Davy on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 8:19 am
Art, just poking you in the ribs. I want your alternative over mine. We need people like you to keep some realistic optimism going!
MSN Fanboy on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 2:21 pm
Arthur, how will the internet be maintained?
JuanP on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 2:46 pm
Art, a Kibbutz with internet access sounds good to me. I wouldn’t mind if it turned out like that at all. Do we put a Kibbutz on Davy’s, Ghung’s, Pops, and Paulo’s places? Cause we’ll need them all over the place. Tribes and Kibbutz sound better than warlords and Mad Max scenarios.
I wonder how competition and cooperation will balance out during descent.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 2:59 pm
“Arthur, how will the internet be maintained?”
Easy. Power consumption:
Average dull European car: 75,000 watt
Electric heater, full blast: 1500 watt
Modern 40 inch tv: 133 watt
IPad: 5 watt, tendency even lower.
That is why. IT technology can have a near zero energy footprint.
0.1 watt microprocessors are underway:
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2012/08/20/arm-cortex-a7-100-milliwatt-microprocessor/
Next year tablet sales will overtake sales of desktop and tablets combined; by the end of this decade all 60-120 watt consuming pc’s will be replaced by 2 watt tablets, that can power themselves with solar cells at the back side.
Arthur on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 3:03 pm
Should be: “Next year tablet sales will overtake sales of desktop and LAPTOPS combined;”
My apologies.
Makati1 on Fri, 8th Aug 2014 9:17 pm
Arthur, the inter net takes many multiples of your energy formula. You equate user energy to support your claim. Which is a minute fraction of the total energy used to provide you with the internet. How about the:
1. 100s of satellites?(building, placing in orbit, replacing when worn out)
2. dozens of factories?
3. international shipping of components?
4. mining those materials/minerals/ores?
5. making the mining machines?
6. the mining machines themselves?
7. assembling the components of that I-toy?
8. all of the maintenance materials for the entire system?
9. all of the millions of people that make it all possible?
10. etc.
I’m sure I missed some steps/energy inputs and maybe sunweb can fill them in, but your comment is like saying that the only calories in a loaf of bread is consuming it.
The internet will be the first to go if there is WW3. If there is no war, by some miracle, it will not last much longer than the world economy that makes it possible. I give that until 2020 at the latest. If we have any form of internet by 2025, I will be surprised. Too many events lining up that will take it down.
Perhaps you have not lived long enough to realize that even the most stable, profitable idea has a shelf life. Our current life style in the West is based on plentiful, cheap energy. Those days are about over and with it will go most tech and many other things you think are necessities. Wait and see.
Arthur on Sat, 9th Aug 2014 1:56 am
Makati, we had this discussion over and over again….
Currently the internet consumes ca 1.5% of the overall global energy budget, see post August 16, 2012:
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/category/internet/
This includes everything, including embedded energy of all the devices involved: servers, routers and clients. This energy is going to be slashed by a factor of ten or so when in the coming five years all desktops and laptops are going to be phased out and replaced by mobile devices (they can even replace tv). Furthermore, nobody needs satellites for internet, except you in the bush in the Ps. Why would internet go? The cables are already in the ground and will stay there for the coming 50 years. The first thing to go will be the car and plane, releasing an enormous amount of energy. In the future we are not going to be without energy. There will be more than enough to keep the internet going, that will constitute the backbone of the information society of the future.
Davy on Sat, 9th Aug 2014 7:43 am
Art, yes, but diminishing returns are hitting the digital age like everything else not to mention energy depletion halting the mass consumerism driving the replacement of these billions of devices. It is over soon Art. Unfortunately we had fun and the hangover will set in 3-5 years
JuanP on Sat, 9th Aug 2014 8:29 am
Art, I am normally using my iPad to be here, my other computers to work. I have used my iPad and iPhone on a 7w PV through an AA battery charger with USB adapter to regulate the energy flow and quality while boating, rafting, fishing and camping for several days.
Your energy efficiency point is very valid. I hope the Internet lasts for as long as I live, it is one of the few modern conveniences I would really miss, together with electric HVAC systems.
JuanP on Sat, 9th Aug 2014 8:38 am
Davy, I fear you may be right, but I hope you are wrong and the Internet lasts a bit longer. It is such a great resource for those that use it wisely, I would greatly miss the cheap, almost unlimited access to humanity’s knowledge and opinions.
But it is only a matter of time till it’s gone, considering complexity, returns, JIT supplies, depletion, etc.
So I am building a library for the day it is gone, and buying my books online. 😉
Davy on Sat, 9th Aug 2014 9:27 am
Juan, ditto, the internet is integral to my life for efficiency, management, and organization. My enjoyments of research and entertainment center on the internet. TV is horrible and I mostly watch documentaries or news during crisis. Juan, since we are entering a paradigm shift to descent the ability to predict the technological abandonment from energy and complexity descent is problematic. I imagine something will remain for a long time because of the huge investment in physical and non-physical infrastructure. There are guys like you who are prepping from grid instability now. I appreciate your input on the subject because I want to move in that direction with off the grid ideas. I have already made some efforts but you seem to be an expert for tweaking these ideas for maximum effectiveness.
JuanP on Sat, 9th Aug 2014 10:15 am
Davy, others here know more about PVs at a residential scale, like the off grid crowd. I have always messed with very small systems based on AA, AAA, USB, and 12v DC with small inverters for low wattage 110v AC appliances. Camping systems and boat systems. It has been a hobby since I was a kid. My seven years younger brother makes a living today, and all his adult life, as a PC and network design and repair technician. I am proud of having taught him electronics and computers as a child, and gifting him my computer and electronics gear and supplies when I left home. That is how he got started. I learned from an electronics encyclopedia.