Nuclear Confusion  

David Fleming continued the nuclear debate in this weekend's Financial Review (which I failed to notice while over-focussing on the oil market), this time raising the "peak uranium" issue and quoting the same sources that the Herald did earlier (via Energy Bulletin). After several rounds of back-and-forth on this subject I'm still leaning towards the belief that this is a real problem (in addition to the usual concerns about waste disposal, accidents etc).

The solutions offered don't really seem credible (breeder reactors don't seem to be a reliable solution, if thorium could replace uranium we'd just extend the peak out a bit and uranium from seawater sounds like a pipe-dream - no disrespect to the Engineer-Poet, but I'm not convinced by the arguments I've seen for this).

The graph below shows one analysis of the depletion curve for uranium along with demand, though like everything to do with the peak uranium topic, I'm not very confident it's entirely accurate (either as a representation of the past or as something that could be extrapolated into the future - given that the lack of nuclear plant construction for the past 20 years meant there was plenty of over-supply for uranium that has only recently disappeared).

There are two things to be said for nuclear power. It is based on an energy process which does not produce carbon dioxide. And it is a way of generating energy which is not directly at risk from the looming scarcities affecting oil and gas. These two killer arguments tend to be conflated into one persuasive and rhetorical question: "What's the alternative?"

There are arguments against it too, and most of them are well known. It is expensive and, without hefty government subsidy, offers little potential for profit. It leaks low-level carcinogenic wastes into the air and water. It produces high-level radioactive waste, requiring standards of treatment and storage which are seldom met. It produces the materials for nuclear proliferation. Its accidents can potentially devastate continents.

But there are two other arguments against nuclear power that are not so well recognised. The first is that nuclear power actually produces quite a lot of carbon dioxide: every stage in the process uses fossil fuels (oil and gas) - with the exception of fission itself. Uranium ore has to be mined and then milled to extract the uranium oxide from the surrounding rock; it has to be enriched; the wastes have to be processed and buried, safely; nuclear power stations have to be constructed, maintained and then eventually chopped into bits and stored away.

But it is the second argument which shocks: nuclear power depends on a supply of uranium ores from scarce, rich deposits, which face a depletion problem every bit as serious as that of oil and gas. That rich ore will soon no longer be available. The poorer grades of ore that would then have to be used take more energy to process than they yield.

The question of how much rich uranium ore is left would not matter if the industry were to continue on its present small scale. So the question is: what job is nuclear power likely to be asked to do? A serious contribution - enough to make a difference - might mean bringing on nuclear power to replace the gas and coal now used to generate electricity. A more ambitious one - but necessary, given the scale of our energy problem - would be to provide the primary energy to generate the hydrogen that we would need to replace the use of petrol and diesel on road and rail. If nuclear power did all that, then gas could be reserved for the jobs it does best - providing fuel for industry and households. If applied worldwide, this would, in principle, solve the energy problem for some years to come.

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All this would bring forward the point at which the industry would be forced to use ever poorer uranium ores as the richer ones were depleted - and its need for energy from fossil fuels to extract the uranium would start to rise quickly.

It is not the mining process that makes the really serious demands for energy, but the milling. All too soon, it would be necessary to mill hard ores with a uranium oxide content of 0.02per cent - that is, one part in 5000: for every tonne of uranium oxide they extracted, the industry's raw material suppliers would have to mine, mill and dispose of some 5000tonnes of granite. At the same time, it would be reduced to milling soft ores (sandstone) with a uranium oxide content of just 0.01 per cent - 10,000 tonnes of ore to be mined, milled and disposed of for every tonne of uranium oxide extracted.

It is with ores at these grades that nuclear power hits its limits; this is where the energy balance turns against it. If ores any poorer than this were to be used, while at the same time maintaining proper standards of waste control in all operations, nuclear power production would go into energy deficit.

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Most of the analysis in this field is being done by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith, both nuclear scientists at the end of distinguished careers, now free of the need to appease any institution, and with the courage to cope with a great deal of criticism and worse.

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Just at the moment, we have an opportunity. Very efficient, manageable, small-scale solutions - focused on renewables and conservation technologies comprehensively applied - do exist. They need single-minded planning, big investment and training programs; but they have the advantage that, unlike any other option, they are feasible; and they do not conceal within them some terrible snag that no one dares talk about. There could be real solutions to the rapidly unfolding energy crisis. If sacrifices are now made to the voracious demands of nuclear power, that chance will be lost.