uranium

The issue of nuclear electricity is a complex one. In this post, I offer a few insights into the nuclear electric situation based on recent reports and statistical data. According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, the highest year of nuclear electric production was 2006. Now, however, two trends have emerged.[read more]

concept w/Shutterstock

My last post focused on the uranium as a renewable resource.This seemingly radical view, is supported by well known facts. The question then is, with the renewable nature of uranium, why should we need thorium?Although uranium is virtually infintly renewable in sea water, the amount of uranium that can be recovered from seawater may not...[read more]

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has proposed to the U.K. government to build an advanced nuclear reactor that would consume the country’s stockpile of surplus plutonium.The technology is called PRISM, which stands for Power Reactor Innovative Small Module. If accepted, it would be very different than the other proposals to process...[read more]

In one of the entries on my series of posts on the Integral Fast Reactor, I pointed out that a next-generation nuclear-power-plus-full-fuel-recycling plant would require only 1 tonne of natural uranium fuel (or thorium, or nuclear waste, or depleted uranium) per year, for a 1,000 MWe plant. However, I recently got asked this related...[read more]

The project is set to begin work before the snow flies on the Arco desert The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the license for Areva’s $2.4 billion uranium enrichment plant on October 12. The action by the federal agency will allow the firm to ink the final term sheet of its $2 billion federal loan guarantee with the U.S....[read more]

Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World, by Tom ZoellnerI recently have had a bit of down time in the transition to my new career (having finished my Ph.D. and waiting to begin my new job at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in October), so while perusing the library this weekend, Zoellner's popular history of Uranium...[read more]

What are the problems with MSR/LFTR technology? This turns out to be a hard question to answer. Since there are a large number of LFTR design options, however, it is difficult to identify a set of problems that shared all of the options. Rather we should talk about elective choices, and the problems that a MSR/LFTR designer would face...[read more]

The sustainability of the nuclear fuel cycle will be an eventual threat to the expansion of nuclear power, even if Uranium is cheap at the moment. As mentors of mine have argued, if we can't move to a more advanced fuel cycle, nuclear power will likely have "no future". The fungibility of fuels used in commercial power plants is...[read more]

The nuclear industry has to clean up its supply chain, be as ethical, accountable and transparent as possible, and come clean on its true carbon impact, if it is to earn our trust.The UK is considering supporting the building of a new generation of nuclear plants, and the Treasury's Carbon Price Support mechanism could result in nuclear...[read more]

This is Part IV of my review of Doug Koplow's "Nuclear Power: Still not viable without subsidies." In Part I, I examined the definition of subsidies and looked at several limiting cases, including subsidies to an energy related project, the Cape Wind Project. Par II focused on Government policy toward the domestic Uranium mining...[read more]

Nuclear Industry Subsidies Part II: The Mining Sector Doug Kaplow, in a Union of Concerned Scientists report titled, Nuclear Power: Still not viable without subsidies," has offered us an attempt to assess subsidies offered by the Government to the Nuclear Industry. Koplow charges that one form of government subsidy has to do with...[read more]

  On May 18, 2011, Senator Mitch McConnell exercised the privilege of being the senate minority leader to visit the Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Energy and Water while the committee was holding a hearing on the fiscal year 2012 budget for the Department of Energy. He asked Secretary Chu a number of pointed...[read more]

Cameco (NYSE: CCJ), one of the world's largest uranium producers, announced its earnings dropped 36% in the first quarter of 2011. The Saskatchewan-based company saw its profits drop from $143 million in the Q1 2010 to $91 million in Q1 2011.  Additionally, the company's revenue dropped 6% from $485 million to $454 million...[read more]

In an earlier post, I stated that there were many different possible Molten Salt Reactor designs. I pointed to nuclear fuel as one possible source of reactor design variations. There are two potential nuclear fuel cycles that can be used in Molten Salt Reactors. Choice of fuel cycles can make a difference in reactor designs. Today, I...[read more]

It opens the U.S. market to more Russian uranium This is my coverage published in Fuel Cycle Week V10:N418; 03/31/11, published by International Nuclear Associates, Washington, DC. Posting it here was delayed by the press of business related to the reactor crisis in Fukushima, Japan. As the 20-year, $8-billion Megatons-to-Megawatts...[read more]