Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.
by Starvid » Sat 05 Jan 2008, 13:25:15
Mining is a cyclical boom and bust business with immense lead times, and no mining more so than uranium mining. There migh well be a time lag of 5-10 years between increasing prices and increasing production.
Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
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Starvid
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by sch_peakoiler » Sat 05 Jan 2008, 13:32:05
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'M')ining is a cyclical boom and bust business with immense lead times, and no mining more so than uranium mining. There migh well be a time lag of 5-10 years between increasing prices and increasing production.
yes but Dezakin here says there is no immediate danger of a shortfall. So?
whom should one believe. Him, you, Industry, Tanada or maybe antinuclears???
There is no knowledge that is not power.
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by TonyPrep » Sat 05 Jan 2008, 17:33:42
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mkwin', 'N')o one is suggesting the reserves booked in the period 2003 to 2005 have anywhere near the difference in production profiles that crude and shale oil have. I think you're cluching at straws Tony.
Not really, the analogy was with oil: if reserves went up 50%, then peak oil would be irrelevant. This isn't the case with oil, as it depends on the quality of the reserves and at what rate it can be produced. I'm sure it also isn't the case with uranium. However, a lot of people here (not saying you are) look only at the numbers (like the amount in seawater), and estimated numbers at that, and assume that it's plain sailing for ever.
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by Dezakin » Sat 05 Jan 2008, 17:38:39
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sch_peakoiler', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'O')f course not. The problem is that the "heretics" aren't producing any data (beyond the imho faulty EWG report). That's not the fact when dealing with peak oil, where the peakers are the ones who supply data.
And seriously, if oil reserves had grown 50 % in 2003-2005 I wouldn't worry about peak oil either.
a) de facto uranium production falls (2006 less than 2005 if I get this right, and 2007 looks like it was less than 2006), but reserves grow into zillions. Of which, nota bene!, only 4.7 million ton are considered "real" and not "estimated".
In place at mines. Come on, your arguing about production capacity that has atrophied over the past several decades.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'b')) we need extra 20 000 tons to replace secondary supplies, and thats a 50% increase of current production, but what we hear from mine operators is thing like with Roessing: "increase from 3711 up to 4000 over several years" - nowhere near 50%. And if you consider the new plants being built - the reality (even PLANNED) does not come near the "nuclear future".
That is the problem. There is little facts about the concrete hard numbers. There is a list of mines _planning_to_expand_operation. But the published numbers are not as marvellous as some would like to believe. When I read 3711 to 4000 ton increase I see "scratching for last bits of uranium" and not "mining the plentiful resource of which there are billion tons".
This is expansion of current capacity at a highly productive mine and extending the life of the mine.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nyway: nuclear plants run on real uranium, not on "planned" uranium. Planned mines tend to go Cigar Lake way which is still "planning".
Now you're just throwing words around. Cigar Lake production is scheduled to start in 2011.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f we want nuclear power grow say 10% a year, we will need a yearly 10% increase either in uran production, or in SWU capacity (or both so that we could leave less tails).
And when the people say: Look, the price has been high for two years now, and the industry has 15 years of lead time, so today is the freakin good day to see some numbers, there is a list of uranium mines "planning to expand capacity".
Look, even though we're well capable of expanding nuclear power capacity 10% a year, thats not gonna happen. People are still flocking towards coal, and the mining industry is responding to that.
by TonyPrep » Sat 05 Jan 2008, 17:53:18
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sch_peakoiler', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'M')ining is a cyclical boom and bust business with immense lead times, and no mining more so than uranium mining. There migh well be a time lag of 5-10 years between increasing prices and increasing production.
yes but Dezakin here says there is no immediate danger of a shortfall. So?
whom should one believe. Him, you, Industry, Tanada or maybe antinuclears???
Well, we shouldn't believe anyone, of course. But that is not what the pro-nuclear folks would like us to do, they would like us to believe that uranium supplies are ample for the operating life of all reactors, current and planned, and that there will never be a problem with uranium supply, because fast breeders will become commercially viable and seawater has more uranium than we could ever need.
What I find amazing is that people here actually propose that we should base our futures on things we believe, rather than things we know.
by Twilight » Sat 05 Jan 2008, 20:48:09
Brown gives wide-ranging interview to the Guardian newspaper.
Part 1
Part 2
Summary 1
Summary 2
BBC piece on nuclear plan
Key points:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd so when North Sea oil runs down, both oil and gas, people will want to know whether we have made sure that we've got the balance right between external dependence on energy and our ability to generate our own energy within our own country, and that's about renewables as well as about other things. And so the willingness to take tough long-term decisions, whether it's wind power or wave power, whether it's renewables generally or nuclear, is I think a fundamental pre-condition of preparing Britain for the new world.
That's as clear an admission of depletion as you are likely to get. And yet on future decisions on airport expansion:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') mean there will be more [airline] passengers in the years to come, let's be realistic about that, that people know that there will be more people who will want the freedom to travel.
Sounds like he expects the airlines will buy their way out of supply issues.
He devotes much attention to the impact of the credit crunch on the UK economy, but later has this to say:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e've got a housing bill that we want to use to build three million houses over the next few years which is solving the, at least part of the problem about housing demand.
Vote-winning with the public sector workers whose pay he is cutting in real terms to keep inflation under control (a tough, difficult, long term decision he says), but it will feed into the coming housing meltdown for sure.
I think understanding is beginning to dawn but he is still trying to please everyone.
by sjn » Sat 05 Jan 2008, 22:52:15
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'I')f nuclear generation provides energy for heat and transport, much more oil will be freed up for the airlines.
Here in the UK any new nuclear build would first have to go towards replacing the current nuclear fleet before anything else. By the time any new power stations are built oil and gas will have already significantly declined so it won't be freeing up anything.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')I just get a sense that big-nuclear is going to jerk us around, in a propaganda battle, using global warming as the compelling reason to build more plants. They'll play up diminishing oil, to the point of hysterics, too, quite likely.
No doubt. But frankly I don't think GW and PO can be over hyped at this point - whether nuclear is a solution is another matter. In principle I'm not opposed to nuclear power, but it requires complete systems analysis to determine its viability.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
') The truth is out there, but it's going to be increasingly difficult to differentiate between hype and hope, when it comes to claims of "clean energy" by nuclear. This issue is going to gain tremendous traction after the US elections in 2008. Yanks will need some kind of national unifying theme and massive make work projects, after the abuse they've taken at the hands of the neo-cons.
I suspect events will be leading politics by then. The time of the neo-cons creating their own reality will nothing but a brief sad monent of history.
by Starvid » Sat 05 Jan 2008, 22:55:56
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sch_peakoiler', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'M')ining is a cyclical boom and bust business with immense lead times, and no mining more so than uranium mining. There migh well be a time lag of 5-10 years between increasing prices and increasing production.
yes but Dezakin here says there is no immediate danger of a shortfall. So?
whom should one believe. Him, you, Industry, Tanada or maybe antinuclears???
I've never said there won't be a temporary shortfall. There might well be. Or not. The uranium market has been disrupted for decades by governments, and it's not strange if it'll take a decade for price signals to start working again. As things stand now I don't think anyone can be sure of a shortfall, or a lack of that.
What I am saying is that the long term uranium picture looks perfectly alright.
Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid » Sat 05 Jan 2008, 22:57:16
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sch_peakoiler', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'M')ining is a cyclical boom and bust business with immense lead times, and no mining more so than uranium mining. There migh well be a time lag of 5-10 years between increasing prices and increasing production.
yes but Dezakin here says there is no immediate danger of a shortfall. So?
whom should one believe. Him, you, Industry, Tanada or maybe antinuclears???
Well, we shouldn't believe anyone, of course. But that is not what the pro-nuclear folks would like us to do, they would like us to believe that uranium supplies are ample for the operating life of all reactors, current and planned, and that there will never be a problem with uranium supply, because fast breeders will become commercially viable and seawater has more uranium than we could ever need.
What I find amazing is that people here actually propose that we should base our futures on things we believe, rather than things we know.
If you want perfect certainty you'll never get anything done. We live in an uncertain world and there's nothing to do but trying to get the best data and then acting on it. It'll never be perfect, especially when dealing with something as neboulus as geology.
by kublikhan » Sun 06 Jan 2008, 07:26:26
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', 'I')f we go nuclear, we should get uranium mining companies to guarantee supplies for the lifetime of any nuclear plant that is planned.
Will you require solar power plants to guarantee that they will provide power 24/7? Will you require wind generators to provide steady, constant power as well? if not you seem to be setting a double standard.
The oil barrel is half-full.
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by kublikhan » Sun 06 Jan 2008, 07:39:09
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'T')he best work on the subject is MacGregor and Deffeyes (yes, the grand old man of the PO movement), "World Uranium resources" Scientific American, Vol 242, No 1, January 1980.
1980 is a bit old. Is there anything more recent?
Also, if the entire would switched to nuclear for 100% of it's electrical needs, do you see that as being feasible?
The oil barrel is half-full.
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kublikhan
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by TonyPrep » Sun 06 Jan 2008, 07:41:57
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', 'I')f we go nuclear, we should get uranium mining companies to guarantee supplies for the lifetime of any nuclear plant that is planned.
Will you require solar power plants to guarantee that they will provide power 24/7? Will you require wind generators to provide steady, constant power as well? if not you seem to be setting a double standard.
Not at all. The primary energy source for sun, wind and wave (and probably a few others) are assured. Don't you agree? I've already acknowledged that these sources can be variable, but they are effectively infinitely long lived. It's not the plants that I'm asking give the guarantee but the supplier of the fuel source.
by kublikhan » Sun 06 Jan 2008, 07:59:51
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', 'I')'ve already acknowledged that these sources can be variable, but they are effectively infinitely long lived. It's not the plants that I'm asking give the guarantee but the supplier of the fuel source.
But if renewable power plants are not required to give a guarantee why are you requiring a guarantee of nuclear, fuel source or otherwise?
The oil barrel is half-full.
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kublikhan
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by Tanada » Sun 06 Jan 2008, 09:39:06
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s Figure 2 illustrates, the first kilograms of uranium saved by lowering tails assay are relatively inexpensive. About 1550 tonnes may be saved by lowering the average tails assay to 0.34%, at a cost of $35.76/kg U. However, the next 1,470 tonnes extracted between 0.34% and 0.33% costs $39.17/kg U to “extract.” The curve then rises rapidly, as increasing amounts of separative work must be used to extract decreasing volumes of uranium. In stripping from 0.25% to 0.24%, for example, only 960 tonnes of uranium are produced, at a unit cost of $88.47/kg U.
Uranium currently cost $90.00 per pound/$198.00 per kg. At these prices SWU becomes the driving factor in consumption, even though prices have appreciated 20% for SWU Uranium prices have appreciated from around $40.00 per kg to about $198/kg, or 495%.
[web]http://www.uxc.com/cover-stories/uxw_19-41_Neff-Paper.pdf[/web]
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Alfred Tennyson', 'W')e are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
by Tanada » Sun 06 Jan 2008, 09:50:17
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', 'I')f we go nuclear, we should get uranium mining companies to guarantee supplies for the lifetime of any nuclear plant that is planned.
Will you require solar power plants to guarantee that they will provide power 24/7? Will you require wind generators to provide steady, constant power as well? if not you seem to be setting a double standard.
Not at all. The primary energy source for sun, wind and wave (and probably a few others) are assured. Don't you agree? I've already acknowledged that these sources can be variable, but they are effectively infinitely long lived. It's not the plants that I'm asking give the guarantee but the supplier of the fuel source.
The only way to do that would be if the Uranium mines owned specific power plants or vice versa. In the dynamic market of competition we have now anyone can buy from almost any supplier and as a result competiton drives the price down when supplies are high and up when supplies are low. If supplies are locked into specific users you remove the broad price signals from the market and each user has to sub specialize in two different industries, mining and using.
What you are asking for is the equivelant of a big auto maker like Toyota also owning the iron mines and petroleum wells that produce the steel and plastic component raw materials for their cars.
by Tanada » Sun 06 Jan 2008, 10:32:38
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'I')f you want perfect certainty you'll never get anything done. We live in an uncertain world and there's nothing to do but trying to get the best data and then acting on it. It'll never be perfect, especially when dealing with something as neboulus as geology.
Well, we've had two reports in the last year or so (
one from the Energy Watch Group and
one from the Lean Economy Connection). Now nuclear proponents attack such studies as nonsense but it seems clear to me that we are nowhere near certainty on uranium supplies. As we are in an energy crisis (or very near it), it's important that we come up with strategies that aren't simply a lurch to crisis after crisis. Building nuclear is a long term investment in our future energy supply. If the fuel supply can't be assured for such a build out, then it's a big risk. It's a risk not only in energy security but a risk that energy shortfalls may cause disruptions in our societies that could make having a lot of nuclear material and waste very worrying.
So what do we actually know? Well, we know that uranium, like all natural resources, is limited and of variable quality and accessibility. We know that renewable resources are, effectively constant over moderate periods of time (e.g. there will always be sunshine, wind and waves, for as long as there are humans), even if the quantity is variable over very short periods. Where should we put the investment in our energy future? In sources that we know will be available in 20 years, 50 years, 100 years, 1000 years, 1,000,000 years, and more, or in sources that we know will deplete?
We also know that accessing Wind or Wave or Solar requires a large energy investment up front, to build the turbines or arrays. By some estimates, and I don't have a link handy, it takes about the same quantity of concrete to errect similer levels of wind turbine generating capacity as it does for a 1 Gwe fission power plant. If that is the case should we build enough wind turbines to provide intermittent power while filleting flocks of birds or one constant baseload source of fission power that produces in its entire lifetime of 60 years 1200 tons of high level waste that would occupy a few acre's of dessert in dry storage containers?
The few fission power plants in the USA which have been fully decomissioned have been returned to a state of nature, no other industry can make a claim anything like that level of decontamination. Take a look at the hundreds of abandoned industrial sites in the USA and compare it to decomissioned fission facilities. Even the government owned facilities in Oak Ridge and Hanford are better than many of the industrial sites abandoned around the country.
As for you
Lean Guide To Nuclear Energy cited above, you are using an anti-nuclear no verifiable information list of errors as proof of what exactly?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')
1.The world's endowment of uranium ore is now so depleted that the nuclear industry will never, from its own resources, be able to generate the energy it needs to clear up its own backlog of waste.
Patently false, nobody who has studied resources for 15 minutes would beleive this statement.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')
2. It is essential that the waste should be made safe and placed in permanent storage. High-level wastes, in their temporary storage facilities, have to be managed and kept cool to prevent fire and leaks which would otherwise contaminate large areas.
by mkwin » Sun 06 Jan 2008, 11:01:56
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TonyPrep', 'I')f we go nuclear, we should get uranium mining companies to guarantee supplies for the lifetime of any nuclear plant that is planned.
Will you require solar power plants to guarantee that they will provide power 24/7? Will you require wind generators to provide steady, constant power as well? if not you seem to be setting a double standard.
Not at all. The primary energy source for sun, wind and wave (and probably a few others) are assured. Don't you agree? I've already acknowledged that these sources can be variable, but they are effectively infinitely long lived. It's not the plants that I'm asking give the guarantee but the supplier of the fuel source.
Tony, renewables are part of the long-term solution but they cannot possibly be relied upon to provide the only element. Not only do we have to replace the the energy lost from declining oil but also, within a couple of decades, gas.
I am a huge fan of renewables, in fact I am beginning a part-time home study engineering degree in August with the option to do a renewable energy master degree after. However, the scalabity of renewables means that even optimistic projections fall short of needed capacity.
Peak oil is going to cause enough economic problems by itself, the last thing we need is a wider energy problem due the lack of foresight.
It is clear uranium supplies are suffcient in the medium to long term. The two reports you quoted are based on the discredited SLS study. This is without considering 3rd and 4th generation nuclear plants. The plants being built today are far more fuel effcient and standardised than the ones currently in operation. The UK reactors are generation 1 based on designs 50 years old!
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hird-generation reactors have:
a standardised design for each type to expedite licensing, reduce capital cost and reduce construction time,
a simpler and more rugged design, making them easier to operate and less vulnerable to operational upsets,
higher availability and longer operating life - typically 60 years,
reduced possibility of core melt accidents,
minimal effect on the environment,
higher burn-up to reduce fuel use and the amount of waste,
burnable absorbers ("poisons") to extend fuel life.
