How dependent is France on Niger's uranium?
How dependent is France on Niger's uranium?
The military coup in Niger has raised concerns about uranium mining in the country by the French group Orano, and the consequences for France's energy independence.
The question is more like: "How dependent is France on uranium which is a finite resource?"
"The demand for uranium continues to increase, but the supply is not keeping up. Current uranium reserves are expected to be depleted by the end of the century, and new sources of uranium are hard to find. As a result, uranium prices have been steadily rising, with some estimates predicting a doubling of prices by 2030. This is causing a global uranium squeeze, where the demand for the resource is outstripping the supply."
France: Let's build more nuclear plants, also do not invest into renewable energy, also since we are used to wars for oil, why not having wars for uranium in the future too?
Well, "By the end of the century" is almost 80 years away, that is significantly longer than any normal nuclear power plant lasts.
Also it is very difficult to know which exact price someone pays for uranium because they normal dont buy on the spot market, but via long lasting contracts.
So from my point of view we don't have sufficient information for a proper estimation of the situation.
The end of the century at current rates of use which means about 77 years. At just 10% increased use annually that would double roughly every 7 years which means it won't last nearly that long.
The real key factor is as the cost of uranium continues to go up and suffers potential shortages and supply issues the cost of installing solar and wind continues to drop - they got planning permission for a solar farm near me about a year ago and it's already half way through having pannels installed, the speed they can do it is only going to keep increasing especially as more automated tools get developed. Then there's the almost certainty of a breakthrough in chemistry reaching market which significant reduces cost and increases the range of locations suitable which would again drastically lower price per kWh while the price of running nukes continues to rise and they're locked into decades of economic loss or they'll choose to close them and all that investment and effort will be for nothing.
I wonder how long until all those people always glorifying atomic energie come here...
Usually this community is full of them even in threads only talking about renewables.
This is one of the main problems with atomic energy that we haven't got any idea how to solve - Germany got pretty much all of their uranium from Russia - France from an unstable country like Niger - it's just not something you can extract easily in countries that care about their citizens so it'll always come from a shitty place.
I wonder how the Venn diagram looks between those people that defend atomic everywhere and the people telling you all about how bad electric cars are because of their batteries...
it's just not something you can extract easily in countries that care about their citizens so it'll always come from a shitty place
First two countries for known reserves are Australia and Canada, together they hold around 40% of all the uranium reserves of the planet. Uranium could also be extracted from seawater, obviously at a much higher price.
It's just that it's easier to extract it where exploitation rights for land is cheap. But that's unfortunately also true for many materials we need for renewables
Yeah but even though we're using the cheapest Uranium possible atomic power is STILL much more expensive than renewables - I wonder how insane the prices would be if you only took Uranium from good sources.
Also those costs almost never include the cost of securing the waste for thousands of years since you can't just leave the waste laying around out of fear of dirty bombs.
Sure it looks decent in a vacuum but with all the factors playing into it from Uranium being a limited resource that costs a lot to the waste-management it's just much more expensive than just spending the money you'd need to buy one plant on renewables and energy-storages that are also ready to go a lot faster...
Usually this community is full of them even in threads only talking about renewables.
I think you have to mention Germany and energy in the title to summon them.
This is one of the main problems with atomic energy that we haven’t got any idea how to use
Doesn't this apply to almost any form of power generation? Fossil fuels and raw materials for nuclear fuels are often imported from undemocratic or unstable countries. As are many of the raw materials required for renewable power generation and storage.
Using this as an argument againt nuclear power is as intellectually dishonest as the people using it as an argument against electric cars.
Or people citing rain forest balsa wood in wind turbine blades as their greatest concern while being totally fine with lignite coal.
I wonder how long until all those people always glorifying atomic energie come here...
You mean the realists who want to eliminate carbon emissions with more than wishful thinking? Or the people trying to educate against decades of the oil and gas corporations' anti-nuclear propaganda and fearmongering?
Canada's Uranium City is coming back baby.