Claudio Steuer’s Post

The #UK has stolen a march on the rest of #Europe by becoming the first national to invest in next generation of #nuclearfuel, namely, high-assay low enriched uranium (#HALEU). The World Nuclear Association offers a useful piece of background information: The current fleet of nuclear reactors runs primarily on uranium fuel enriched up to 5% uranium-235 (U-235). High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) is defined as uranium enriched to greater than 5% and less than 20% of the U-235 isotope. Applications for HALEU are today limited to research reactors and medical isotope production. However, HALEU will be needed for many advanced power reactor fuels, and more than half of the small modular reactor (SMR) designs in development. At present only Russia and China have the infrastructure to produce HALEU at scale. Centrus Energy, in the #UnitedStates, began producing HALEU from a demonstration-scale cascade in October 2023. 13th December 2023 The Secretary of State, Claire Coutinho, yesterday visited #Urenco in #Cheshire, who have been awarded £196 million to build a uranium enrichment facility. By 2031 the Urenco facility will be producing fuel that would be ready to export or use domestically, reducing Russia’s influence on the global uranium supply chain. It is suggested that by that date, the facility will have the capacity to produce up to 10 tonnes of HALEU per year which, when fabricated into fuel, could contain as much energy as over one million tons of coal. The funding is part of the £300 million HALEU programme announced in January this year. Urenco, which is part owned by the #UKGovernment and renowned for nuclear enrichment services, will co-fund the facility. A consultation has also been launched which proposes designating all fusion plants ‘nationally significant infrastructure projects’ enabling them to bypass normal local planning requirements, instead being assessed by the Planning Inspectorate and ultimately decided on by the Secretary of State for energy. The UK is also leading the way in #fusionenergy development, as engineering and construction companies will be invited on to bid for up to £600 million to build the first commercially viable fusion prototype power plant at a former #coalplant in #Nottinghamshire. Fusion could generate a near limitless source of #cleanelectricity, securing the UK’s long-term energy independence. Boris Schucht, CEO of Urenco, said: ‘The responsibility the #nuclearindustry has to help governments and customers to achieve #climatechange and energy security goals is clear. ‘We welcome this government investment, which will help accelerate the development of a civil HALEU commercial market and in-turn the development of the next generation of #nuclearpower plants. These plants will have even higher safety standards and lend themselves to quicker licensing and construction processes.

Another Chinese nuclear reactor enters commercial operation. Get used to this as China is the country with more reactors planned and under construction. In a wise move, China standardized the plant and reactor design so different manufacturers could share the supply chain, reducing costs by scaling operations. It all started in 2012 when central planners in Beijing directed China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and CGN to 'rationalize' their reactor programs. This meant CNNC's ACP1000 and CGN's ACPR1000 were 'merged' into one standardized design — the Hualong One. The first two units of CNNC's version of the Hualong One design at the Fuqing plant in Fujian province have both already started up. Unit 5 entered commercial operation on 30 January 2021, with unit 6 following on 25 March 2022. Two HPR1000 units have been constructed at Pakistan's Karachi nuclear power plant. Construction began on Karachi unit 2 in 2015 and unit 3 in 2016. These entered commercial operation in May 2021 and April 2022, respectively. The overnight construction cost is now $1,990/kW for the Hualong One, with a supply chain scaling up from 8 to 10 units per year with a target of 12 reactors per year. China owns the global solar energy industry, and wind will soon be Chinese too, with the strong contraction of GE, Vestas, and Siemens-Gamesa and the expansion of Chinese wind turbines. The US was once dominating the nuclear industry but the lack of a coordinated means that the future of energy seems to belong to China.

This is fantastic news. Let's build more large scale nuclear reactors in Canada, using Canadian CANDU technology to produce clean electricity for the next 100 years. Cost overruns in nuclear new builds happen when you lose supply chain and know-how, but it doesn't have to be that way. The Canadian nuclear industry is in the midst of an on-time, on-budget refurbishment of the existing CANDU fleet, which entails deconstructing and rebuilding the reactors, replacing all major components. It also means that we have a fresh, skilled supply chain to build new CANDUs already, located right here in Canada. Ontario has already relied on nuclear power for decades and with projected growth in power demand this expansion makes total sense to leverage and sustain the domestic supply chain while it's fresh as we transition out of refurbishment in the coming years. Bruce Power is already the largest nuclear plant in the world by number of reactors and has an excellent operational track record, not to mention the fact they are co producing life saving medical isotopes alongside clean 24/7 electricity (google "Bruce Power gamma knife"). We are also well on the way to proving CANDU technology can operate safely for 100 years or more. Let''s do it!!! https://lnkd.in/g949magb

Canada will speed up the approval process for new nuclear projects. It will also streamline the regulatory process for large industrial projects, including nuclear ones, by avoiding duplication between provincial and federal assessments. The review's details, which will affect mining significantly, will be announced in the next few months. Canada is the world's second-largest uranium producer, and these changes will benefit other aspects of the nuclear energy lifecycle, not just power plant construction. Canada is following the trend in Western countries, streamlining its regulations to remove unnecessary administrative delays. France announced a deep review of its regulations, aimed to reduce the certification and construction at least by two years. The US is creating a brand new regulation for Advanced Reactors and several bills to redefine the tasks of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and to provide funding to use nuclear as a plug-in replacement for coal power sites. Read more about the changes in the US here: https://lnkd.in/g2kvwAc8 .

Interesting article by Anthony King, ChemistryWorld - 'Nuclear power expansion plans highlight fuel bottlenecks' ''Nuclear energy shuffled into the spotlight in December with a declaration at the COP28 climate meeting to triple its capacity by 2050. The declaration lauded the role of nuclear energy in achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Uranium is not the main constraint on the supply of nuclear fuel. ‘There’s plenty of uranium in the world,’ says Bunn. Everyone knows how many nuclear reactors are operating, and how much uranium they need. ‘So you would expect prices to be pretty darn stable,’ he explains. ‘That expectation would be wrong.’ The price of uranium rose sharply towards $90 (£70) per pound in the second half of 2023, having hovered around $20/lb in 2017, and risen to over $40/lb after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The main drivers ‘are rising demand coupled with a lack of sufficient supply response,’ says Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, a market research firm for the nuclear industry. Kazakhstan is a behemoth in mining, with 13 active mines producing almost 19,500 metric tonnes in 2020. Australia produced 6200 tonnes, Namibia 5400 tonnes and Canada 3800 tonnes. But the Kazakhs rely on Russia for processing uranium into UF6, with Russia holding almost 40% of global conversion market, ahead of China and Canada, with France some way behind. Unsurprisingly, Russia also holds a significant share of the enrichment stage, with 46% market share in 2018. The state company Tenex supplied 30% of enrichment services to EU utilities in 2019, according to a recent report from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University in New York, US. China, however, has built up substantial conversion and enrichment capacity, exceeding its civilian needs. ‘The Chinese have been expanding their capacity like gangbusters because these are state-owned companies. They don’t have to worry about the profit situation,’ says Bunn. ‘They worry about cut-offs of foreign supply and being self-reliant.’ While Western powers discuss moving away from an overreliance on Russia for conversion and enrichment, they are loath to swap for dependence on China. ‘The world outside of Russia and China is quickly moving away from supplies from these nations,’ says Hinze. ‘However, these moves mean that costs of nuclear fuel are rising and supply chains are becoming tighter.’ Yet despite the drive to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear has been languishing in the doldrums. The adoption of small HALEU reactors has, if anything, slowed. The first company with approval, NuScale, cancelled a power plant for Utah in November after costs surged. ‘Costs have kept growing for small modular reactors,’ says Bunn. Solar, wind and natural gas are really, really cheap right now. That’s nuclear’s biggest problem – it’s expensive.’ #netzerocarbon #cleanenergy Read more at -

The nuclear industry is evolving, with advanced power reactor fuels being developed that require high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). Although HALEU is currently limited to research reactors and medical isotope production, it will be needed for more than half of the small modular reactor designs in development. However, HALEU is not yet widely available commercially, with only Russia and China having the infrastructure to produce it at scale. The United States has started producing HALEU from a demonstration-scale cascade, but establishing the supply chain to produce and deliver HALEU to customers will require significant capital investment. Governments will need to play a role initially until demand from the commercial market provides a sufficient signal to support private investment. Producing HALEU with existing centrifuge technology will require new or modified regulations and licensing regimes, as well as new transport containers to move the large quantities required for the deployment of SMRs and advanced reactors. It's an exciting time for the nuclear industry, but significant challenges still need to be overcome to make HALEU a widespread reality. Read more about HALEU and the nuclear fuel cycle at the World Nuclear Association. #nuclearindustry #HALEU #SMRs #advancedreactors https://lnkd.in/e6NXJfuB

Nuclear power has recently increased in popularity, particularly since Ukraine’s invasion by Russia, and many countries are seeking alternatives to Moscow’s supplies. As a result, governments are ramping up nuclear power capacity. For the already heavily electrified countries, this allows them to approach the famous “zero carbon” target and also allows the least electrified countries to harness the power of the electron without becoming dependent on fossil energy sources. According to a recent report from the World Nuclear Association, the demand for uranium in nuclear reactors is expected to climb from 65,000 t uranium in 2020 to 83,000 t by 2030 and 130,000 t by 2040. This corresponds to respectively 28% and 100% increase in consumption[1]. From here, most of the discussion will be based on the figure attached and napkin math. Since the first nuclear power plants were developed in the 40s the world's production of uranium for energy production purposes has always exceeded its consumption[2-3]. However, in the 80s, a combination of the last major mining exploration campaign being about two decades old, and the Chernobyl accident heavily impacted the uranium mining industry. In 1990, the world's uranium consumption finally exceeded production. This is still the case in 2023. This this approximately 555,000 t of U that has been used in excess of its production. In 2020 the excess consumption of about 17,000 t of U. At constant consumption and constant production (from 2020), it is expected that the world reserve of already mined uranium to run out in about 30 years. Unfortunately, since 2016 the production has been decreasing by about 3,700 t/year. This means that at this rate, without increasing consumption from 2020, the stock would run dry by 2033. Considering the 28% increase predicted by WNA, we run out by 2030. Furthermore, in 2020 only Canada was producing more uranium than they use (meaning that they are the only country with nuclear energy sovereignty)[3]. Therefore, without a major change in uranium resources, international political tensions will likely dramatically increase on the 5 countries that exclusively export uranium (Kazakhstan, Australia, Namibian, Uzbekistan, and Niger). Solutions exist. Short-term: closing the fuel cycle across the world with U, Pu recovery. Medium-term: development and generalization of Breeder reactor, development of the Thorium fuel cycle, exploring seawater uranium/thorium extraction. Long-term: nuclear fusion with emancipation from uranium. [1] https://lnkd.in/gkaAP4Eb [2] https://lnkd.in/gez8GPCW [3] https://lnkd.in/ggYh2jv5

The speed of positive change for nuclear ☢️ energy shows that nuclear is the only way forward to reach net zero by 2050.