As Uranium Declines, Future Looks Grim for "Clean" Nuclear Power
by Anonymous - May 9th, 2008
in
New research out of Australia's Monash University claims that mining uranium for nuclear power is spewing more greenhouse gases than the world's been led to believe when you account for the entire nuclear energy chain -- and it's going to get worse.
How come?
Because high-grade uranium is on the wane in the world. New deposits are expected to be deeper underground. And that means extracting them will require more intensive refining processes -- which adds up to more energy, water and carbon-polluting industrial chemicals.
Let's hope the findings begin to blow apart the popular myth that nuclear is the magic bullet solution to global warming.
The researchers' basic assumption of declining uranium jibes with data from the Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The agencies have put the total amount of known recoverable uranium reserves at around 3.5 million tons. That accounts for reasonably assured reserves and estimated additional reserves that can be mined at moderate costs.
At the current rate of usage -- around 67,000 tons per year -- those reserves will last for just over 50 years. And that's before any additional nuclear plants are built, reports Friends of the Earth, Australia in this analysis.
But the Monash researchers did something brand new.
They took a hard look at the CO2 impact of nuclear power in a uranium-constrained world. And they did it by analyzing the carbon footprint of uranium mining, milling, enrichment and fuel manufacturing. They also analyzed the CO2 emitted from the construction of the plants -- including the manufacturing of steel and concrete materials -- and decommissioning.
They looked at past and present CO2 emissions, and forecast into the future. Here's the conclusion, from lead author Gavin Mudd, in RedOrbit:
If there is going to be a nuclear resurgence, [the average grade of uranium ore] will go down and that will entail a higher CO2 cost.
Now get this: Presidential hopeful John McCain wants the US to emulate France and generate 80 percent of America's electricity from nuclear power.
According to Climate Progress, that will require the US to build 700 plus nuclear plants -- more than one a month for the next fifty years -- at a cost of roughly $4 trillion.
Given all that we know about nuclear -- including its hazardous waste and now questionable greenhouse gas benefits -- the figures for a nuclear revival in America just don't stack up.
Not if we're chasing a secure, clean energy future.
Source: BBC
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On Being Truthful
The uranium figures used are wrong. The total recoverable reserves are 4.7 million metric tons (tonnes), which gives us 87 years. This is 74% longer than stated, and if you add the total conventional resources this number jumps to 14.8 million tonnes, or 270 years worth. If conventional and phosphates are combined, it jumps again to 22 million tonnes, or 675 years. If the uranium is used even more efficiently in advanced nuclear reactors, all these numbers jump to thousands of years. (Redbook 2005, OECD/NEA)
With regard to the CO2 claims, it's interesting that nuclear seems to be the only energy source where lifecycle (i.e., total energy chain) emissions and/or energy use are mentioned. How much energy (and thus emissions) does it take to make a solar panel? How much energy (and thus emissions) does it take to fabricate a windmill? How much energy (and thus emissions) does it take to extract, refine, and send the coal to a coal-fired power plant? With the exception of the coal example, and normalizing to energy generated, all of these energy sources emit CO2 at very close to the same level based on lifecycle. The sooner everyone realizes that "there ain't no free lunch", and we really start to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, and we really start to look at the risks and benefits, and etc., the sooner we can find real/viable solutions to our energy challenges instead of criticisms based on incorrect/misleading data with no alternatives offered. If a person or group is anti-nuclear, that is fine. But trying to make a technical case using incorrect data and assumptions only hurts that individual or group, and calls into question their true motives. If it's a philosophical difference, then be honest and state it at the beginning rather than by trying to use a false and misleading technical argument.
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