Regarding uranium: on the short term, you are right, there will be a huge deficit on the supply side, unless mines get more capital and scale up production (a 5+ year process in the best case, possibly MUCH longer with regulations, etc.).
However, in the long run, there is a Russian reactor on the horizon that probably changes everything on the nuclear market. Surely, this will not be a game-changer process overnight, I would estimate it will take 20 years in the least for this industry to be kicked into gear, however the basis of it is the BN-1200 reactor, which had a successful test run in September 2022.
Specifically, I will copy paste here what I have written to Doomberg on a similar topic (nuclear energy):
Meanwhile Russia announced in September 2022 that they completed the first rounds of testing at their new BN1200 reactor, the newest addition to the BN series being developed since 1970. What can this reactor do? Essentially it is capable of breeding 40% more fissile material than it uses in a single reload round (typically 2-5 years with conventional reactors).
To put this into perspective, let`s take a look at what goes into a commercial nuclear reactor and what goes out. Typically, pressurized water reactors require 5% of fissile material (Pu-239 or U-235) and 95% of U-238 in their fuel pellets. When changing the fuel rods, the output typically looks something like this:
Charge Discharge
Uranium 100% 93.4%
Enrichment 4.20% 0.71%
Plutonium 0.00% 1.27%
Minor Actinides 0.00% 0.14%
Fission products 0.00% 5.15%
So typically, 93,4% of the nuclear waste coming out of a reactor is uranium, specifically U-238, the isotope of uranium that has not been burnt by the reactor. The rest is either plutonium, which is fissile, or fission products, like Iodine or Strontium isotopes that typically have a half-life of a few dozen years or so and split with much less energy than Uranium or Plutonium. Thus, with the exception of actinides, the overwhelming majority of nuclear waste is leftover uranium-238 that the reactor cannot burn. Given a reactor design that can burn the leftover U-238 by converting into fissile Pu-239, the problem of the radioactive waste is reduced to actinides (which can also be burnt in specialized reactors) and the daughter elements, which need to be contained for about 10 times their half-lives, so 300-600 years or so. The problem of nuclear waste will be reduced from a couple of billions of years problem to a few hundred years problem and with energy levels about 1 million to 2 million times less than with leftover U238.
The BN-1200 (and even its predecessor, the BN-800) can breed more plutonium than it needs to function (in case of the BN-1200 this can be up to 40% more), thus it can take used pellets, remix them with plutonium and create new rods of fuel from them as it goes. This means, that Rosatom will be able to buy nuclear waste and turn it into energy in the future. Not only does this mean they will be paid TWICE (once for ridding their customers of the most dangerous waste in world history, and once for reselling the fuel rods or directly selling the electricity), but also that they will be able to directly produce energy out of radioactive waste.
How much energy? Well, given the fact that we have mined about 3,5 million tons of uranium since the 1940s and that about 0,7% of this is fissile, and that U-238 when burnt in fast breeders can produce 86 million Megajoules per kg, we are talking in the range of 8,6x10^7x3,5x10^9 Megajoules, so 3x10^17 megajoules or 3x10^23 joules. Human energy consumption globally is roughly 6x10^20 Joules per year. So, Russia is just about to invent a way to provide 500 years worth of energy for the entirety of humanity while solving 97% (99,9999% if they also burn actinides) of the nuclear waste problem.
The only question is, why Germany has wasted some 500 billion euros on wind and solar while solving nothing, while Rosatom managed to do all of this listed above out of a fraction of this money. Especially considering how many young talented physics phds work in ITER and CERN in Europe, both of which are great basic research undertakings but serve no practical purpose for the time being to anything.
Regarding uranium: on the short term, you are right, there will be a huge deficit on the supply side, unless mines get more capital and scale up production (a 5+ year process in the best case, possibly MUCH longer with regulations, etc.).
However, in the long run, there is a Russian reactor on the horizon that probably changes everything on the nuclear market. Surely, this will not be a game-changer process overnight, I would estimate it will take 20 years in the least for this industry to be kicked into gear, however the basis of it is the BN-1200 reactor, which had a successful test run in September 2022.
Specifically, I will copy paste here what I have written to Doomberg on a similar topic (nuclear energy):
Meanwhile Russia announced in September 2022 that they completed the first rounds of testing at their new BN1200 reactor, the newest addition to the BN series being developed since 1970. What can this reactor do? Essentially it is capable of breeding 40% more fissile material than it uses in a single reload round (typically 2-5 years with conventional reactors).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-1200_reactor
To put this into perspective, let`s take a look at what goes into a commercial nuclear reactor and what goes out. Typically, pressurized water reactors require 5% of fissile material (Pu-239 or U-235) and 95% of U-238 in their fuel pellets. When changing the fuel rods, the output typically looks something like this:
Charge Discharge
Uranium 100% 93.4%
Enrichment 4.20% 0.71%
Plutonium 0.00% 1.27%
Minor Actinides 0.00% 0.14%
Fission products 0.00% 5.15%
So typically, 93,4% of the nuclear waste coming out of a reactor is uranium, specifically U-238, the isotope of uranium that has not been burnt by the reactor. The rest is either plutonium, which is fissile, or fission products, like Iodine or Strontium isotopes that typically have a half-life of a few dozen years or so and split with much less energy than Uranium or Plutonium. Thus, with the exception of actinides, the overwhelming majority of nuclear waste is leftover uranium-238 that the reactor cannot burn. Given a reactor design that can burn the leftover U-238 by converting into fissile Pu-239, the problem of the radioactive waste is reduced to actinides (which can also be burnt in specialized reactors) and the daughter elements, which need to be contained for about 10 times their half-lives, so 300-600 years or so. The problem of nuclear waste will be reduced from a couple of billions of years problem to a few hundred years problem and with energy levels about 1 million to 2 million times less than with leftover U238.
The BN-1200 (and even its predecessor, the BN-800) can breed more plutonium than it needs to function (in case of the BN-1200 this can be up to 40% more), thus it can take used pellets, remix them with plutonium and create new rods of fuel from them as it goes. This means, that Rosatom will be able to buy nuclear waste and turn it into energy in the future. Not only does this mean they will be paid TWICE (once for ridding their customers of the most dangerous waste in world history, and once for reselling the fuel rods or directly selling the electricity), but also that they will be able to directly produce energy out of radioactive waste.
How much energy? Well, given the fact that we have mined about 3,5 million tons of uranium since the 1940s and that about 0,7% of this is fissile, and that U-238 when burnt in fast breeders can produce 86 million Megajoules per kg, we are talking in the range of 8,6x10^7x3,5x10^9 Megajoules, so 3x10^17 megajoules or 3x10^23 joules. Human energy consumption globally is roughly 6x10^20 Joules per year. So, Russia is just about to invent a way to provide 500 years worth of energy for the entirety of humanity while solving 97% (99,9999% if they also burn actinides) of the nuclear waste problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density_Extended_Reference_Table
The only question is, why Germany has wasted some 500 billion euros on wind and solar while solving nothing, while Rosatom managed to do all of this listed above out of a fraction of this money. Especially considering how many young talented physics phds work in ITER and CERN in Europe, both of which are great basic research undertakings but serve no practical purpose for the time being to anything.
Truly insane times.
what is the new guidance from KAP and where it could be seen?