RE:RE:Uranium shortageLots of different sites show the 200m lbs. but I use WNN and follow Quakes. He seems to have a lot of knowledge on the whole sector. Send him a note.
Reactor fuel requirements
The world’s power reactors, with combined capacity of some 400 GWe, require about 65,000 tonnes of uranium from mines or elsewhere each year. While this capacity is being run more productively, with higher capacity factors and reactor power levels, the uranium fuel requirement is increasing, but not necessarily at the same rate. The factors increasing fuel demand are offset by a trend for higher burn-up of fuel and other efficiencies, so demand is steady. (Over the years 1980 to 2008 the electricity generated by nuclear power increased 3.6-fold while uranium used increased by a factor of only 2.5.)
Born2Struggle2 wrote: Not wanting to start a scrap, not a pumper, not a basher, but where is the 200Mlbs number sourced from? WNN site at ...
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figures/world-nuclear-power-reactors-and-uranium-requireme.aspx
has this footnote:
"World Nuclear Association, The Nuclear Fuel Report (published September 2019, reference scenario forecast) – for uranium requirements 68,240 tU = 80,472 t U3O8"
80,742 = 177,400,000 lbs U308
68.240 = 150,435,000 lbs U
I've seen others use the 200Mlbs number as well and just am wondering where that number originates from?
The rest of what u say is correct regarding numbers of reactors, etc. However WNA site actually list 54 under construction, Sightline shows two numbers under construction 55 and 53 on their UDashboard page.
Another number we hear a lot about is the number of reactors in operation - Sightline shows 443 and 442 that are OPERABLE, while WNA lists 441. Operable means connected to the grid, not actually burning uranium, for example part of the 441 shows Japan with 33 but really on 9 ish are up and running. so 441 - 24 = no more than 417 actually needing uranium today?
Also prior to 2011 and the FUKUS_hima event there were 454 reactors in the world actually burning uranium. They Japanese reactor fleet was pretty much idled, 55 reators back then. There were others that suspended operations as well, Germay had 22 reactors now 6 (all to be shut down scheduled for 2022 - how much are they buying for future operations?) Other countries turned reactors off for safety checks as well at that time.That is like a lot of U went into inventory for 9 years + now.
As long as the reactor operators can buy their needs on the spot market from Kazakstan (my guess is 50Mlbs per year) they won't soon be signing onto off take agreements and how long the inventories last - no idea, we are screwed for the time being.
Got my dollars elsewhere for now but thinking this could soon be the bottom, zero debt is the key to outlasting the market.
GLTA - B2S2