1. I am not sure what they mean by an extraction cost of $40 - $130/kgU. But the current spot price of yellowcake (U3O3, the standard price) is $172/kg. As fuel costs are a trivial fraction of the end cost of generating electricity by nuke power, the cost of uranium fuel could rise quite a bit and not change the economics of nukes vs. alternatives.

2. Commercial reserves, the only reliable source of this data, are typically about 30 years. Considering the cost of verifying mineral reserves (unlike oil, that means drilling holes in the ground), why bother to find more? Using these numbers to mean “total recoverable reserves” was the fallacy of the 1970’s “resource scarcity” hysteria. Three decades later we still have 30 years usage of reserves. That’s why this report says that the reserve numbers are speculative; folks can only guess how much is beyond “reasonably assured reserves.”

3. Since uranium prices lifted off the floor (it was $34 in Jan 2004), there has been a wave of exploration — and new finds. Whatever the reserve numbers were when they wrote this in Dec 2006, they are higher today.

A couple of quick points from it:
“Eleven countries have already exhausted their uranium reserves. In total, about 2.3 Mt of uranium have already been produced. At present only one country (Canada) is left having uranium deposits containing uranium with an ore grade of more than 1%,”

“The proved reserves (=reasonably assured below 40 $/kgU extraction cost) and stocks will be exhausted within the next 30 years at current annual demand. Likewise, possible resources – which contain all estimated discovered resources with extraction costs of up to 130 $/kg – will be exhausted within 70 years”. Note that’s at current demand, greater demand will reduce this time. Yes, breeder reactors extend this time (not in the least because thorium 232 can be used, which is at least as plentiful as uranium), also new designs of ‘normal’ fission reactors use breeding to improve their efficiency. These are not true ‘breeders’, in the sense that they still consume more fuel than they create, but may achieve 70%+ efficiency.

Depending on how many breeders are built, uranium, thorium (and possibly some other elements) availability and how many ‘normal’ fission plants are built gives the expected lifetime of fission power.

Estimates vary wildly, but some estimates (from a miriad of sources) cluster around the 50-120 years, depending on demand. Obviously a crash program to replace coal and gas power stations throughout the world (even just the western world) moves us closer to the bottom limit, lower demand moves us to the higher limit.

But eventually you run out of feedstock for the breeders then the fuel cycle stops. Long before that point you can no longer create additional fission plants, as all the fuel in the total fuel cycle (new stock + recyling)is required for existing plants. This creates the ultimate ‘cap’ of fission energy production that I was talking about before. They key thing is to ensure that fusion plants are commercially available at (or preferably well before) this point, so that they can be phased in as fission energy production peaks, then starts to decline.

Note the canny Japanese, they are big supportors of ITER (and DEMO) but are still maintaining their own large fusion research program. Obviously they want to try and position themselves as an independent competitor to the EU in the future fusion plant contruction market. Not in our lifetimes, but a 20 year old today will seen commercial fusion reactors on-line.

Very good point about talent. It’s not scarce, but it would be nice if America produced its share of engineers? This is not a problem specific to nukes or oil, but related to a globalized market for talent. American logically prefer to focus on job areas that are not exposed to globalization — like medicine, law, and investment banking — where third world talent does not so directly force down wages.

I agree with you about the potential for fission. It was fusion I am skeptical about over the short and medium term horizons.

I agree with you about ‘generations’ in your fission comment (I give it 50-100 years or 2-3 generations), but if we do it right, as the uranium starts to run out the fusion reactors will come on line.

DEMO is the planned ‘Beta’ fusion plant, starting after and running concurrent with ITER:
Conceptual design is to be complete by 2017
Engineering design is to be complete by 2024
The first ‘Construction Phase’ is to last from 2024 to 2033
The first phase of operation is to last from 2033 to 2038
The plant is then to be expanded/updated
The second phase of operation is to last from 2040 onwards

This ties in nicely with uranium supplies getting tight (assuming large scale fission plant building worldwide). But taking 10 years off those dates, with a few dozen or so more billions spent would create a much better comfort zone for unforeseen issues (heck, Oz could do an embargo on uranium exports because the English beat us at cricket, “US you must bomb the MCC or you won’t get any of our uranium”, you never know, Australian cricket terrorists could be the next great existential threat).

I’m being selfish about the ‘talent’ issue. Worldwide the gap will be filled, but who do we want fusion reactors to be built by, us or the Japanese and Chinese? Will they lend us the money to buy them or let us rot into 3rd world nations as they power into the 22nd century?

The fission debate is so clouded by propaganda (on all sides) that it is hard to get good, reliable figures. Best way is to look at an actual case study and determine how successful or not it is. A good start is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France. France is about 79% nuclear, with the cheapest electricity in Europe and is also a huge exporter of electricity (and produces sod all CO2).

I agree about the EROI figures, I’ve seen from 5 to 60 quoted for nuclear. When you take into account extraction, shipping and waste management energy usage, I find it impossible to imagine that nuclear is worse than coal.

One thing that the anti-nuke crowd quietly ignores is that coal plants release far more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear plants do, worse, it goes straight into our lungs, water, etc.

The “peaking” meme has run wild, in my opinion — in most cases an expression emotional fears or cultural alienation rather than actual quantitative forecasts. Peaking is a serious concern for petroleum, but that is a unique case: organic origin, requiring rare geological conditions to be produced, concentrated, and stored. These constraints do not apply to most minerals, and this reasoning does not extend easily to them.

As for the energy return on investment (EROI) story, it is true but the timing is uncertain. Decades? Generations? Who knows? This is not known for coal, as clearly stated in the four major studies done so far — an absurdly small number of low-budget studies on which to draw big conclusions.

I have seen *no* equivalent EROI studies for uranium, but what little I’ve seen suggests that widespread use of breeder reactors would allow greatly expanded use of nukes for generations.

Ditto, I have seen little suggesting that trained talent is a constraint on fusion research (unlike money) or exploitation of fission. Note my article about the pseudo-shortage of petroleum engineers, which shows how easily these stories get taken as fact and circulated.

Ditto for water. Lots of scary stories, little data suggesting that it is a global problem – although it is a serious problem in some regions. Note the large number of stories about water as a limiting factor on Phoenix’s growth. Totally absurd considering the quantity of water used to grow *cotton* in Arizona.

I have some high level contacts in the fusion world, and opinion is divided on its medium-term potential. The long history of failed promises is not encouraging.

Fusion power is the only way the human race can free itself from energy and resource constraints and ensure its long term future. The ITER is essentially a template for future commercial reactors, not basic research, but an engineering prototype. Call it a 500MW Alpha test. When the engineering bugs are sorted out the next one will be a Beta test, directly from which will come commercial reactors. How long this takes is now a just a function of the resources applied. Put a lot in and it will be quick, put less in and it will take longer.

Fission power buys us time, but it has a limited lifespan and limited energy generation potential. Say we changed all coal fired power stations to fission (something I’m in favour of), less (say) 20% for renewables (a global average, some countries would be higher, some lower, depending on the luck of the country). The demand for uranium goes through the roof (great for Australia). Even with breeder reactors there will be limits. The raw uranium would run out in about 30-40 years, breeders buy us another 50 years (max). So maybe it buys us 50, maybe a 100 years.

The fundemental limit is the energy of extraction vs energy obtained. Eventually you get to a point when it takes more energy to extract and process ore than you get from power generation (same applies to coal, etc). Even today the quality of ore used is far less than in the past.

KEY POINT: Long before it runs out it becomes impossible to create new reactors, as everything is needed for existing ones, creating an energy ‘cap’ - because you run out of feedstock for the breeders.

One thing about the ‘peak’ theories is that (and this is pretty irrefutable) the ‘best’ stuff gets used first. The highest quality, the easiest to extract, etc. After that point it becomes harder and harder and, in the case of energy reserves, the energy equation start to deteriorate. This is what causes the production bottleneck. Like a ‘red queens race’, you have to run harder and harder to achieve the same effect. Eventually, no matter what you do production start to decline (just look at North Sea oil and gas, with the highest technology available production is declining).

Re other resources (taking water as an example) yes far, far greater efficiency can be achieved but it takes money and time. To switch irregation methods, change crops, develope and apply new farming methods requires a massive investment in infrastructure, science, education and training. Like a super tanker, turn the wheel and it takes a long time to start turning. Our current agricultural systems have taken decades to develope, they will take decades to re-develope.

My argument about all this, is that (at least the majority) of these issues can be dealt with without returning us all into 1800’s poverty, but we need to start now. If you have 20+ year lead times for change and some issues are staring us in the face now, then we have real problems.

As an aside, a key bottleneck in fission and fusion reactors is going to be shortages of nuclear physicists and engineers. The existing ones are all getting old and there are not enough coming through the education system to replace them. The UK has responded with all the vision and forward thinking that we have come to expect from them. They have just cut the physics budget massively, making hundreds unemployed and leading to the shutting down of some physics depts in universities. I think their national saying should be “forward, to the past”. It’s up to the US whether it wants to go the same way.

I see few studies suggesting peak uranium. In fact during the great nuke power collapse most of the world’s mines closed, as only the lowest cost could operate at a profit. The massive sale of the USSR’s uranium stockpiles delivered a second blow to the industry. There are many mines just now being opened, and little exploration has been done for 20+ years. Also note that if prices rise we can use breeder reactors.

Aquifer depletion is a big deal! On the other hand, water is used inefficiently - like most “free” resources. Note the massive increase in energy efficiency resulting from the increased price of oil in the 1970’s. Water can be recycled very easily (potable to brown back to the river), instead of dumping soiled water back into the ecology. This will cost money, but increasingly prosperous 2nd world economies can afford it.

Peak coal is conjecture. Until the work of Greg Vaux (one of the brighter lights at the US DOE), we thought that global coal reserves were sufficient for centuries. He showed that reserves were only guesses and their BTU content were not only wild guesses but also probably far lower than estimated. Much of America’s zillion tons of coal might have the BTU content of Kitty Litter. This has since replicated by other researchers. So Peak Coal is out there, but when is still unknown (even more so than Peak Oil).

Neither peak oil nor peak coal have arrived, they cannot show us what happens “once you hit the limits.” How about the lessons from Peak Whale Oil and Peak Waterwheels?

Since Fusion research has consumed hundreds of billions of dollars with little to show for it (it’s been a decade away for three decades), perhaps sending these scientists back to the drawing board is a good idea.

How sea levels are rising is also controversial, as it is difficult to measure given so many distorting local factors. Note the battles of the Ross mean sea level mark at Tasmania. And the forecast rise of 1 mm/year seems unlikely to cause problems. Global warming, for example, might raise or lower sea levels (e.g., warm weather increases evaporation, which turns to snow over the South Pole and is sequestered in the ice cap).

Water ‘mining’* (from aquifers and ground sources), plus phosphates were the two main components of the ‘green revolution’ (along with clearing marginal land). Underground water tables across the world are dropping precipitiously (peak water). These combined with global warming, desertification (’mining’ topsoil and reduced rainfall), salinification, etc, has now caused ‘peak’ food production. It will be unlikely that we will be able to maintain current levels of worldwide food production. More likely it will decline.

Price is only part of the answer. As peak oil (and coal) shows, once you hit the limits then no matter what the price production does not increase and the decline still happens. Food prices are going up, production is not following. Price can improve efficiency, utilisation and re-cycling. But the investment and time-lags needed to change (say) current water usage are immense. Fine to stop watering gardens but this is a drop in the ocean (deliberate) compared to the main user agriculture, which is not so easily changed without production declining.

Re-cycling is achievable (mining the rubbish tips) but this again requires massive investment and incurs huge labour, energy (and probably water) costs. The investment and time to set up re-cyling of (say) tantallium, lead, tin, silver, et al, will be immense. On the bright side, the western countries are now sitting on huge deposits of rare minerals in their rubbish tips.

The crunch things are the coming energy and water shortages, with peak coal and oil really hitting hard in the next 20-40 years.

Renewables and nuclear fission power can play a major part but uranium is also finate and, while some countries are fortunate in their renewable energy resources, others are not and it will be insufficient to maintain our industrialsed society overall. Even a crash program of fission reactors and renewables will only buy us 50-70 years or so.

Fusion is the great hope, we crack that and industrialsed society’s future is certain. But in the true spirit of looking forward and investing in the future, the US has just cut its support of the international fusion reactor project.

Just to show it is not just the US that is not thinking ahead, here in Victoria Australia the State Govt’s plans are: build more coal power stations (brown coal no less, the filthiest polluting stuff in the universe), build more freeways, build a desalination plant and build yet another power station to power it. And, in a time of rising sea levels, change the structure of our Bay that will raise tide levels.

Right, back to my 10 laws again (previous post).

On the other hand, lowered population is also a solution. A US population of (say) 150 million will still be able to live very well and have large food surpluses to export and easily support industry. A world population of (say) 2.5 billion would be a paradise, with a good environment and high living standards. So there is a great positive to low fertility.

* Water and topsoil mining is simply using it faster than it is replenished. In the case of topsoil it is both using up all the nutrients and actual phyical loss. E.g. in the south western Australian wheatbelts the topsoil is totally denuded of minerals and require fertilisers (phosphates, etc) to grow anything. It is also declining in physical area due to topsoil loss (blown away) and rising salt levels (salinification).

How this will all work out is difficult to say. An sociobiological perspective is that it work out as societies that cannot learn how to maintain sufficiently high fertility plus immigration levels die out.

This goes to your point about high male incomes. I doubt that this proposition will fly if presented to a class of new med students, a majority of whom are women. Most will likely say that they want to be doctors, to the detriment of their fertility rates, no matter what their future husbands’ income.

This has happened to many countries and cultures including non-western ones: such as India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Iran, Indonesia, etc, etc. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rate

Even the big ‘exceptions’: Saudia Arabia, Israel have dropped (e.g. SA from 6.3 births per woman in 2000 to 3.94 now). These high rates can be explained by economic distribution (SA may be rich but the majority of the population is pretty poor and females poorly educated, compared to the low rate for Iran which has a more equitable spread of wealth and very good education for females) or high immigration (Israel) from poorer countries (though Israel also provides tremendous incentives to have children, especially in its religious and settler communities).

The other ‘exception’ quoted is the US. Trouble is when you break it down. Immigrants from poorer countries, poorer communities (due to huge income disparity and particularly in the South) and teenage births (predominately to poor, low educated teenagers) are mostly responsible for the difference. I don’t think Spengler has this quite in mind when he prattles on about religious values causing the US’s higher rate than the EU (bit more like Kornbluth’s Marching Morons).

The US teenagers are particularly interesting, see: http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard3e.pdf

In Australia, where the majority of immigrants are of working/middle class or higher, their fertility is actually LOWER than the average population.

4. ‘Regression to the Mean’. As immigrants become more like the majority population (health, income, etc) their fertility behaviour follows. The one exception this may be if certain immigrant groups remain economically marginalised, however their statistics will still move towards the mean of the rest of comparable income groups in that society. It may be higher than average, but similar to the other poorer (and poorer educated) sections of that society. See:http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/rb/RB_402LHRB.pdf for example.

5. The key thing about female workforce participation is the main fertility years (16-35) and whether they can afford to take time off and/or have support to have and raise their children. If they have to work full time (to pay for the mortgage, etc) then the economic cost is horrendous. One child may be affordable but multiple ones are not, as taking several years off becomes impossible. Childcare may be affordable for a single child, but 3,4 or 5?

The reality is that it shows how powerful genetic programming is, because for the vast majority of people, in most higher income countries, having a child is the most personally economically irresponsible thing a person can do. Various surveys have shown (at least in Australia which has a very high female workforce participation rate) that many women would like to drop out of the workforce (or at least drop to part time work) during their childbearing ages. The economic cost deters them.

This brings us to (2). Higher male incomes means that a higher proportion of families will be able to opt out/take time off during child bearing years and still keep a roof over their heads. The destruction of high paying male jobs (and high unemployment rates in young and older males) particularly in the manufacturing sectors has been disastrous to the working classes (and increasingly the middle) classes in some countries (e.g Australia, US, UK). Outsourcing and very high immigration rates has only added to this sorry picture.

As an aside I find it (almost) amusing that the Govt’s in these countries (of all political persuasions) have all ran high anti-immigrant rhetoric, while in reality flooding the countries with very large numbers of immigrants, which coincidently keeps wages down.