Moal Boal,Uranium

Moal Boal Cebu 1986 wearing the black Pulsar watch which I lost yesterday (26Apr06)
- 20 years and still accurate. Chernobyl had just happened
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Uranium:
powerswitch The lower the ore grade, the more energy is consumed in the fuel processing, so that the amount of the carbon dioxide released in the overall fuel cycle depends on the ore grade. Only Canada and Australia have ores of a sufficiently high grade to avoid excessive carbon releases and to provide an adequate energy gain. At ore grades below 0.01% for ‘soft’ ores and 0.02% for ‘hard’ ores more CO2 than an equivalent gas-fired station is released and more energy is absorbed in the cycle that is gained in it. Ores of a grade approaching the "crossover" point such as those in India of 0.03%, if used, risk going into negative energy gain if there are a few "hiccups" in the cycle.
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Price is not the signal; net CO2 is the signal, as noted above, low grade Uranium is worse than gas.
so this report is absurd:
americanenergyindependence
"Uranium sources that cost up to $500, and perhaps even ~$1000/kg (which would increase nuclear power’s cost by 1-2 cents/kW-hr) can still be economic,
.. the price of ore will have to go extremely high ($500-1000/kg) before breeding would make economic sense, and this won't happen for well over a century; "
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after-oil
Uranium production in 2004 was only 40,000 tonnes. For the current level of nuclear power (10 EJ) the uranium demand of 69,000 tonnes had to be met by topping up the production from mines with so-called secondary sources, such as inventories, ex-weapons grade highly enriched uranium and re-worked tailings. For all electricity generation (63 EJ) to be from nuclear power, 443,000 tonnes/annum of uranium would be required.
.. The substitution by nuclear power of the primary energy derived from the combustion of fossil fuels needs special scrutiny, because in its use the electrical energy generated is not directly usable on road or air transport and although it can be applied to rail or tramways with fixed conductors, it would have to be used for electrolysis for the production and compression or liquefaction of hydrogen. Assuming that around 40% of the energy produced would be used for motive power and taking into account the conversion energy needed, the present global primary energy of 430 EJ would require electrical generation of 700 EJ.
.. This would require production of 4 million tonnes/annum of uranium (exhausting the entire global reserves in a year) fuelling 22,000 nuclear power stations of 1 GW(e) capacity (32 PJ). The idea that nuclear power can solve the coming energy crisis is therefore totally fallacious.
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opendemocracy
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), thereby transferring the financial burden onto ordinary citizens.
..The NDA will be responsible for the decommissioning of the early Magnox power stations and some nuclear weapons plants and research facilities. The costs are expected to be at least £46 billion
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theage
"If we doubled the global use of nuclear energy we would use all known reserves of uranium in 25 years," he says. "We would achieve emission reductions of only another 5 per cent
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Country	Uranium mining in tonnes
Australia	460,000 t
Canada	426,000 t
Kazakhstan	254,000 t
South Africa	186,000 t
Brazil	112,000 t
Namibia	110,000 t
Uzbekistan	109,000 t
USA	102,000 t
Niger	94,000 t
Russia	75,000 t

These ten countries possess about 96% of the global
uranium reserves. With their 2 million tonnes, all
439 world-wide operated nuclear power plants can be supplied for several
decades....................................................................

uic
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evatt.labor .. even for high-grade ores, there is a significant contribution from the construction of the nuclear power station, with the result that the station must operate for several years to generate its energy inputs. (For comparison, wind power requires only 3-7 months. ..
I define low-grade uranium ores to contain less than 0.02 per cent yellowcake, ..Van Leeuwen and Smith find that the fossil energy consumption for these steps in the nuclear fuel chain becomes so large that nuclear energy emits the same or more CO2 than an equivalent combined cycle gas-fired power station. Furthermore, the quantity of known uranium reserves with ore grades richer than this critical level is very limited... . With the current contribution by nuclear energy of 16 per cent of the world's electricity production, the high-grade reserves would only last a few decades. If nuclear energy were to be expanded to contribute (say) half of the world's electricity, high-grade reserves would last less than a decade. ..
.. according to Van Leeuwen and Smith, the first 7-10 years of operation of the station must be devoted to paying back the energy and CO2 debt. For comparison, an independent UK study by AEA Technologies for the European ExternE study estimates that the construction energy alone (ignoring mining, milling, enrichment, etc.) of a 1000 MWe nuclear reactor is 40 x 10^15 joules. Assuming a lifetime average capacity factor of 75 per cent, the energy payback period for construction is nearly two years of operation. It is emphasized that the energy payback period discussed here has nothing to do with money and everything to do with energy.
.. if nuclear energy is expanded rapidly, the CO2 emissions from construction could push the planet over the edge into irreversible climate change before the CO2 debt is repaid.
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acfonline
the best estimate for CO2 emissions during the whole nuclear cycle is 50-230 g CO2/kWh electricity produced, depending on the grade of uranium ore. This figure is in the same range as modern combined heat and power plants fuelled by natural gas which produce 150-300g CO2/kWh in direct and indirect emissions (Laka Foundation, 1996, based on W. Biesiot, Commission van Middelkoop)...
..the cost of CO2 abatement by nuclear power is US$ 8.82 to $11.76/tonne, compared with US$ 2.94/tonne CO2 abatement for the so-called 'ecology mix' of co-generation and renewable energy resources (World Information Service on Energy web site).
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..the long term economic, social and environmental costs of nuclear power are fully accounted, its efficiency is actually about minus 2%, ie. the nuclear fuel cycle consumes more than it produces (Canberra Times, 24/4/01).
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, as Mirage and Oasis reveals, as a response to global warming, nuclear power is too slow, too expensive and too limited. And, in an age of terrorist threats, it is more of a security risk than a solution....
a report produced in 2004 by the IAEA to mark the 50th anniversary of nuclear power conceded that it could not stop climate change. In an interview, Alan McDonald, an IAEA energy analyst, admitted that, “Saying that nuclear power can solve global warming by itself is way over the top.”
Lean, G. (2004) ‘Nuclear power ‘can’t stop climate change’, The Independent on Sunday, 27 June 2004.
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blogspot
The cost of new nuclear power has been underestimated by almost a factor of three and the potential of small scale renewables critically overlooked according to 'Mirage and Oasis' a
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commondreams
Nuclear Power 'Can't Stop Climate Change' by Geoffrey Lean..
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Nuclear power is "environmentally friendly, affordable, clean, dependable and safe," Mrs. Whitman said ..Mrs. Whitman headed the E.P.A. when it published rules for the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. After she left the office, the courts threw out the rules because they covered only the first 10,000 years of waste storage, while peak releases of radiation were expected after that time.
'Clean and Safe Energy Coalition'..the Nuclear Energy Institute..acknowledged that it was providing all of the financing..
Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace.....left Greenpeace in 1986, favors..nukes & genetic engineering ..
..Greenpeace released a report on Monday about 200 failures at American nuclear power plants, which it described as "near misses," since 1986..
Moal Boal Uranium