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I live in Saskatchewan, which has the world's largest and richest Uranium mines (producing 35% of the world's uranium from deposits as rich as 25%). But at present rates of extraction, the known reserves will last only 20 to 30 years according to the Cameco, the largest uranium producer.
It appears to me that we have to mine about 175 T of U for every 1 T. that is actually consumed (ie. fissioned). The rest ends up as either depleted U (U238) or waste. Presumably with Candu reactors the whole 175 T ends up as radioactive waste and a LWR leaves about 25 T of radioactive waste for every T consumed.
If China, India and other countries go ahead with accelerated nuclear programs using existing thermal reactor technology, it seems to me that we will have to do a whole lot more reprocessing (which raises environmental and proliferation concerns). Even then, I do not see the U supply being able to meet such an increase in demand - certainly not on a sustained basis.
Now we may find new economic deposits, but would it not be a better idea to perfect the technology to use the whole 175 T? If a reactor produced only fission products as waste, we would have enough U for thousands of years from existing high level deposits. Also, from an environmental point of view: the richer the deposit, the better it is for the environment to mine it (smaller tailings volume, processing volume etc.)
AM
It appears to me that we have to mine about 175 T of U for every 1 T. that is actually consumed (ie. fissioned). The rest ends up as either depleted U (U238) or waste. Presumably with Candu reactors the whole 175 T ends up as radioactive waste and a LWR leaves about 25 T of radioactive waste for every T consumed.
If China, India and other countries go ahead with accelerated nuclear programs using existing thermal reactor technology, it seems to me that we will have to do a whole lot more reprocessing (which raises environmental and proliferation concerns). Even then, I do not see the U supply being able to meet such an increase in demand - certainly not on a sustained basis.
Now we may find new economic deposits, but would it not be a better idea to perfect the technology to use the whole 175 T? If a reactor produced only fission products as waste, we would have enough U for thousands of years from existing high level deposits. Also, from an environmental point of view: the richer the deposit, the better it is for the environment to mine it (smaller tailings volume, processing volume etc.)
AM
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