"Discussions about future energy sources and the possible contribution from nuclear energy are often tainted and dominated by irrational expectations and fears.
As a consequence, very little actual knowledge is available to the general public and even to decision makers about the contribution of nuclear energy today, about uranium supplies, uranium resources, and current and future technological challenges and limitations."
- Dr. Michael Dittmar
Until I read Dr. Dittmar's guest post on The Oil Drum (Part 1 of a 4 part series - Part 2 is also available) I saw nuclear energy as something that might reduce CO2, but at an environmental and monetary cost that was much too high and was a critical misdirection of resources. I had numerous other qualms with nuclear and still do, but now I realize that's beside point.
When I saw this post, it became clear to me. It doesn't matter what the arguments are. Nuclear power will NOT undergo a renaissance. There isn't enough uranium.
Jump the fold to learn about this critical situation.
Dr. Michael Dittmar is a researcher with the Institute of Particle Physics of ETH Zurich who also works at CERN in Geneva. I'm thinking the guy's credentials are about as top-notch as you get. This isn't an anti-nuclear activist (no offense - I thank God for anti-nuclear activists!), this is PhD physicist researcher at the best atomic research institute in the world.
If you know otherwise, fill us in, but you better be right or you're gonna get roasted.
I'm going to keep this relatively short, because Dr. Dittmar covers a LOT of ground that we all need to read. He uses all the best available evidence to make his case. So please do go read his post. Read Part 2 and when 3 and 4 show up, read those too.
Here are a couple of key excerpts - this one from the top of Part 2, summarizing Part 1:
The current nuclear fuel situation is, according to official documents from the IAEA and the NEA, totally unsustainable, and the existing secondary resources are expected to be exhausted within the next few years. The seriousness of this situation, largely ignored by the media, has been expressed in the IAEA and NEA press declaration of June 3, 2008, launching the 2007 edition of the Red Book:
"Most secondary resources are now in decline and the gap will increasingly need to be closed by new production. Given the long lead time typically required to bring new resources into production, uranium supply shortfalls could develop if production facilities are not implemented in a timely manner."
Hmm, that gets my attention. How about you?
He explains that "primary" sources of nuclear fuel are those that are mined, which is what you'd expect. Secondary sources come from reprocessing reactor fuels, from surplus military plutonium and from civilian and military stocks of natural uranium.
He then informs us that nearly 1/3rd of the annual uranium requirement of the world's nuclear reactors, comes from secondary sources. Isn't that fascinating? I sure didn't know that!
I also didn't know this:
<snip> ...without access to the military stocks, the civilian Western uranium stocks will be exhausted by 2013. Furthermore, the supply situation will become even more critical as the delivery of the 10,000 tons of military uranium stocks from Russia to the USA will also end during 2013. Thus we find, in agreement with the dramatic warning from the IAEA/NEA authorities, that secondary uranium supplies will essentially come to an end within a few years.
Dr. Dittmar spends quite a bit of time detailing and explaining the reality that many key uranium mines are in severe decline and that the expectations for other mines and other countries to fill the gap let alone produce more than we do now, are unrealistic at best. Even if rosy projections proved accurate, we'll have serious difficulty maintaining our ability to run the current fleet of nuclear power plants.
So dear friends - this is actually pretty grave stuff. When I get over my initial relief and elation that there will not be a nuclear renaissance, I find myself worried, worried because we may not even be able to maintain nuclear's contribution to our global electricity generation.
We need to get off coal immediately. We cannot ramp up nuclear. Our only choice is to ramp up the contributions that wind, solar thermal, solar PV, Concentrated solar power (with storage) and above all, energy efficiency improvements (the most cost effective "form" of energy) AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.
Natural Gas (thank goodness large discoveries have been discovered in the past 2 years here in the US) must be a part of this solution - to serve as a bridge fuel for electricity generation - NOT TRANSPORTATION Mr. Pickens. We've got to use it very wisely. Amory Lovins' idea to use it as a transition fuel for the hydrogen economy is looking more and more like the right and necessary thing to do.
Let's be sure to use this critical information to push hard for intelligent policy choices at every level, municipal, state and federal. We've got to push as hard for the right stuff as we are now doing for the Public Option. But in this case, we need to cut straight to the equivalent of Single Payer. There is no room for baby steps.
Here is one brilliant policy, which I've been fortunate to advance in my hometown, that should be enacted across the country: Municipal Financing of RE/EEI and another, Feed-in Tariffs. Check out the frame on the right for more ideas at each level. The group behind the newrules.org website is fantastic. They're called the Institute for Local Self-Realiance at www.ilsr.org.
Let's go Kossacks!