There are two important points often overlooked in the debate over uranium availability. 1) Sea water is a virtually inexhaustible supply of uranium that can be 'mined' at maybe $200 / lb. So the price does have a long term ceiling at which nuclear power is competitive; and 2) discussions of 'exhausting resources' typically assume that all of the earth's resources have been identified. The truth is that much of Africa, Central Asia and S. America have not been explored. Case in point, the high grade deposits in remote Saskatuwan were identified only relatively recently, after the last uranium resource debate in the early 1970s. It should also be reassuring that Kazakhstan has been ramping up production in response to high prices, i.e. the invisible hand is working. Uranium availability needs to be studied and followed, but this is PROBABLY a problem, not a showstopper.

David Dixon
Nuclear Engineer

With respect to long-term uranium supply, there are an estimated 4.5 billions tons of uranium in seawater. Work in Japan has demonstrated technology, including recent improvements, to extract that uranium with costs, based on the demonstration project, of $200-300 per pound. At the least, this is a brake on uranium costs, as mining would be pursuing lesser grade ores. While fuel would no longer be a minor cost in nuclear power, it does not change the long-term economics of nuclear power unless compared with hydropower.

There is also work on extracting uranium from coal ash, initially from sources with known higher uranium concentrations. There are numerous such secondary sources that become economic with higher uranium costs.

Current uranium estimates are also subject to three decades of the lack of exploration, with a number of finds in the last few years that indicate

In addition to breeding uranium into plutonium in breeder reactors, thorium is four times as abundant as uranium and can be bred into uranium-233, which like uranium-235 and plutonium-239, is fissile to run

Note that the Shippingport plant, built by Adm. Rickover at Duquesne Light Company cost, connected to the grid in 1957, ran its last five years (1977-1982) as a light water breeder reactor, making uranium-233 from thorium as well as plutonium-239 from uranium-238. After producing power for five years, it had 1.3% more fuel than when it started. See, e.g.:
http://www.atomicinsights.com/oct95/LWBR_oct95.html

Jim Muckerheide
Mass. State Nuclear Engineer

The discussion of uranium supply is interesting and the arguments are sound; however, all things nuclear are not necessarily based on the uranium supplies discussed in the article. The Japanese have shown that uranium can be extracted from seawater and this will be an economic supply at some point. The use of fast reactors, not necessarily breeders, will allow greatly expanded use of the uranium that has already been mined. All of this points to the importance of reprocessing to recover the material from the used fuel currently stored at operating power plants. Remember we only use about 5 percent of the U235 in the fuel originally placed in the reactor as fresh fuel. Finally, we will also develop a fuel cycle based on thorium, which has a much larger natural abundance then uranium.

Kenneth D. Kok, PE

You're bringing up points that I have talking about since this latest nuclear craze started in the United States. In addition to what do we do with the spent fuel rods, how do we protect our nuclear reactors against terrorist attack, you now recognize wht question "What do we do for a fuel source"? Forgetting about the cost of uranium for the moment, from what nation(s) do we buy the fuel from? Is this not analogous to lowering dependency on petroleum? With respect to energy why not promote coal gasification? We have a virtual unlimited supply of coal. There are proven coal gasification technologies. We would thus become energy independent, not having to rely upon foreign fuel suppliers. Nuclear is a problem from virtually every standpoint. What no one wants to mention is how much does it cost to license a nuclear facility? Lets talk real dollars including the costs hidden through government subsidies. There is a much easier road to energy independence for the United Sta tes and that is coal gasification. No, I don't have any stock in the coal industry!

Joe Langenberg
Fresno, CA

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