OBSTACLES TO NUCLEAR

Nuclear Power Revival Could Encounter Hurdles; Tight Uranium Supplies, Scarce Processing Facilities May Hurt Bush Energy Plan
John J. Fialka, December 5, 2006 (The Wall Street Journal)
- The Bush administration's plan for a "renaissance" in nuclear power may be crimped by tightening world-wide supplies of uranium and a lack of enrichment facilities to turn the uranium into fuel for power plants…an accident in October flooded the world's largest uranium mine, which was set to open in Canada next year. That nudged prices for processed uranium ore, already up more than 800% since 2001, even higher…

- [E]nrichment facilities, which turn uranium into fuel for nuclear power plants, have already pledged their services because of growing interest in nuclear fuel by other countries. The result is that the U.S. is relying more than before on Russia…
- Uranium is extracted from mines and processed into a form called "yellowcake." The yellowcake, in turn, is processed at enrichment plants, into fuel for nuclear-power plants. A far more time-consuming process is required to turn yellowcake into fuel for nuclear weapons.
- Spurred by President Bush, who for years has touted nuclear power as a clean, safe way to generate electricity, the owners of U.S. utilities have made plans for at least 30 new U.S. nuclear power plants…[reviving] a domestic industry that has been dormant for decades…[with] tax breaks the administration is offering for the first six plants…
- the "Ad Hoc Utility Group," an industry collective that represents 85% of the utilities involved in producing nuclear power is nervous about securing adequate fuel supplies for nuclear power plants over the next 10 years…[More Russian enrichment] could interfere with its plans to finance and build a new enrichment plant in the U.S…
- Thomas L. Neff, a senior researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says the supply issues mean that "it will take heroic efforts to fuel the expected growth in nuclear power by 2015…"

- Mr. Neff, who has followed the nuclear fuel market for 30 years, blames the tightening uranium supply on a failure to open mines in the U.S. and elsewhere…The accident at the Canadian mine highlights the supply problem…The mine could eventually supply 17% of the world's uranium demand…
- The dwindling supply of uranium enrichment plants began after two U.S. facilities, built after World War II, shut down, leaving power-plant owners more dependent on the Russians. Natural uranium has less than 1% of the unstable isotope U-235, which must be concentrated to a level of 4% to 5% to make fuel for nuclear power plants. The concentration required to make nuclear weapons is closer to 90%…a $2 billion enrichment facility near Piketon, Ohio, [is] scheduled to open around 2009, but it still must obtain the financing…
- The Russians say they could supply more enriched uranium to the U.S., but they are blocked by an agreement with the Commerce Department that restricts their imports…
- Getting more fuel from U.S. enrichment wastes…might require the Russians to enrich them…