Thanks for a great article. Building a strategic uranium reserve should be a national priority but who could take such a decision. Nuclear policy like many important decisions in the UK has been handed to a quango called Great British Nuclear. They won’t be taking a final investment decision on SMRs until 2029, which is the end of the next Westminster political cycle.
“GBN has launched the next phase of the SMR technology selection process and invites SMR vendors to register their interest. This is an important next step in identifying those companies best able to reach a project Final Investment Decision (FID) by the end of 2029, which could result in billions of pounds of public and private investment in SMR projects.”
Meanwhile according to the Tekegraph Rolls Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgic is promising to build his first SMR project in Europe, before the UK.
Fascinating. Even with friendly Five Eyes nations like Canada and Australia supplying a large part of our Uranium requirements, the supply is still subject to global fluctuations in demand, supply and price. If Net Zero fantasists get their way, our electricity supply will rely largely upon 'home grown' wind and solar, which, if they do not solve the storage problem, will be entirely dependent upon the ever so dependable British weather. Meanwhile, Labour intend to curtail investment in North Sea Oil and Gas, vastly expand 'renewables' and who knows what they will do about nuclear energy. The net result is that we shall be totally dependent upon global supply chains for our energy resources, apart from 'home grown' intermittent renewables. Maybe they should rename DESNZ as the DEINZS - the Department for Energy Insecurity and Net Zero Supply.
Highly informative and interesting article! Easy to read as well.
It is ironic the Urenco is still owned in part by 2 German utility companies - they won't have much use for uranium now that the Radical Greens forced closure of German nuclear plants. Another irony is that China's build out of nuclear infrastructure is built on the back of coal energy and selling the West EVs and other garbage also produced using coal energy.
I agree fully with your points - in the UK, we should be fracking the shale gas sat under our feet and building more CCGT to support our transition to a completely nuclear future
Many nations around the world are ahead of us in this, yet again, we play catch up
We need DESNZ to drop the nonsense net zero claptrap and instead of pouring £Billions into inept, intermittent renewables, our energy security needs common sense and a gas/nuclear solution
Yesterday evening, the UK electricity grid was kept alive by gas, coal, nuclear and interconnectors (mainly French nuclear), meanwhile solar was 0GW and Wind was 0.24GW (from a total installed wind & solar of 45GW) - even someone with zero energy competence can see power outages ahead if we don’t change course sharpish
Back when the UK was considering a new reactor for Hinkley Point, GE offered to build PRISMs that would burn the UKs excess reactor grade plutonium and SNF, which they claimed they really wanted a solution for. At a much lower electricity cost than the French EPR boondoggle, the most expensive, poorly designed GenIII reactor on the planet. They could have gone with the South Korean APR-1400 at a far lower cost for a far better reactor, as the UAE did. Of course they would have had to have the cojones to tell the EU dictatorship to F-OFF and the meddlesome Austrian government should have been sued for maybe $100B. After sending the Austrian ambassador home with a good swift boot to his rear end and told never to come back. Unfortunately the British government woozed out, as usual.
They had an excellent SMR design in the UK, Moltex Stable Salt Reactor, which Pratt's analysis concluded it would be the cheapest electricity in Britain. And would run on the spent nuclear fuel the Government is always whining about, that they need to do something with. And they were not allowed to develop them in the UK. So they had to move to Canada where they have passed their 1st stage licensing. And this while the UK gov't claimed to have an SMR program and were promoting their development. Lying, corrupt politicians.
'Self described elite' are 'deliberately DISMANTLING' Western democracy - Neil Oliver - YouTube:
"'The time has come again to be rid of the whole rotten lot of them'. Neil Oliver says the 'self described elite' have been carefully and deliberately dismantling Western democracies and holding on to power for too long."
Thanks for a great article. Building a strategic uranium reserve should be a national priority but who could take such a decision. Nuclear policy like many important decisions in the UK has been handed to a quango called Great British Nuclear. They won’t be taking a final investment decision on SMRs until 2029, which is the end of the next Westminster political cycle.
“GBN has launched the next phase of the SMR technology selection process and invites SMR vendors to register their interest. This is an important next step in identifying those companies best able to reach a project Final Investment Decision (FID) by the end of 2029, which could result in billions of pounds of public and private investment in SMR projects.”
Meanwhile according to the Tekegraph Rolls Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgic is promising to build his first SMR project in Europe, before the UK.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/22/rolls-royce-boosted-post-pandemic-jump-demand-jet-engines/
Fascinating. Even with friendly Five Eyes nations like Canada and Australia supplying a large part of our Uranium requirements, the supply is still subject to global fluctuations in demand, supply and price. If Net Zero fantasists get their way, our electricity supply will rely largely upon 'home grown' wind and solar, which, if they do not solve the storage problem, will be entirely dependent upon the ever so dependable British weather. Meanwhile, Labour intend to curtail investment in North Sea Oil and Gas, vastly expand 'renewables' and who knows what they will do about nuclear energy. The net result is that we shall be totally dependent upon global supply chains for our energy resources, apart from 'home grown' intermittent renewables. Maybe they should rename DESNZ as the DEINZS - the Department for Energy Insecurity and Net Zero Supply.
Highly informative and interesting article! Easy to read as well.
It is ironic the Urenco is still owned in part by 2 German utility companies - they won't have much use for uranium now that the Radical Greens forced closure of German nuclear plants. Another irony is that China's build out of nuclear infrastructure is built on the back of coal energy and selling the West EVs and other garbage also produced using coal energy.
An interesting detailed look at Niger and its environs
https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/11/perfect-storm-nigers-uranium-amidst-sahelian-chaos/
Kudos David, another superb, analytical article
I agree fully with your points - in the UK, we should be fracking the shale gas sat under our feet and building more CCGT to support our transition to a completely nuclear future
Many nations around the world are ahead of us in this, yet again, we play catch up
We need DESNZ to drop the nonsense net zero claptrap and instead of pouring £Billions into inept, intermittent renewables, our energy security needs common sense and a gas/nuclear solution
Yesterday evening, the UK electricity grid was kept alive by gas, coal, nuclear and interconnectors (mainly French nuclear), meanwhile solar was 0GW and Wind was 0.24GW (from a total installed wind & solar of 45GW) - even someone with zero energy competence can see power outages ahead if we don’t change course sharpish
So, would this supply issue encourage faster development of thorium-based nuclear technology?
Excellent article David! Clear, easy to understand, & addresses the bias and updates like production shortages.
Any thoughts on higher cost of nuclear energy relative to the alternatives? Unfortunately UK and many countries have to import natural gas.
Back when the UK was considering a new reactor for Hinkley Point, GE offered to build PRISMs that would burn the UKs excess reactor grade plutonium and SNF, which they claimed they really wanted a solution for. At a much lower electricity cost than the French EPR boondoggle, the most expensive, poorly designed GenIII reactor on the planet. They could have gone with the South Korean APR-1400 at a far lower cost for a far better reactor, as the UAE did. Of course they would have had to have the cojones to tell the EU dictatorship to F-OFF and the meddlesome Austrian government should have been sued for maybe $100B. After sending the Austrian ambassador home with a good swift boot to his rear end and told never to come back. Unfortunately the British government woozed out, as usual.
http://prismsuk.blogspot.com/
They had an excellent SMR design in the UK, Moltex Stable Salt Reactor, which Pratt's analysis concluded it would be the cheapest electricity in Britain. And would run on the spent nuclear fuel the Government is always whining about, that they need to do something with. And they were not allowed to develop them in the UK. So they had to move to Canada where they have passed their 1st stage licensing. And this while the UK gov't claimed to have an SMR program and were promoting their development. Lying, corrupt politicians.
'Self described elite' are 'deliberately DISMANTLING' Western democracy - Neil Oliver - YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATWG0bBWe_o
"'The time has come again to be rid of the whole rotten lot of them'. Neil Oliver says the 'self described elite' have been carefully and deliberately dismantling Western democracies and holding on to power for too long."
Thank you Hillary Clinton. The “absurd conspiracy theory” was really a set up. https://www.nationalreview.com/the-campaign-spot/how-hillary-let-russia-buy-20-us-uranium-production-capacity-jim-geraghty/