Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

Melted Russian Bombs Needed to Ease Uranium Pinch: Chart of Day

Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The world’s atomic-power plants risk running short of fuel within a decade because uranium suppliers can’t build enrichment facilities or recycle Soviet-era warheads fast enough, according to the World Nuclear Association.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows forecast global demand overwhelming fuel supply for reactors after 2017, potentially driving up costs for Exelon Corp. and Electricite de France SA, the largest reactor operators in the U.S. and Europe.

Fifty-two nuclear reactors are under construction, from China and India to Finland and France, according to an October bulletin from the association. Atomic power is undergoing a revival partly because it produces far fewer greenhouse gases than conventional coal- or natural gas-burning generators.

“Due to the wide range of risks and uncertainty for individual project deployment, the enrichment market could be subject to tight supplies by the end of the next decade,” the London-based trade group said in an August finding that it reiterated this month.

About 10 percent of global fuel demand will be met with supplies generated through a U.S.-Russia weapons agreement ending in 2013. Under the 1993 accord, Russia retrieves enough bomb-grade uranium from melting warheads and blending the metal with lower-level fuel to feed about 30 U.S. plants that can produce 41,250 megawatts of power.

An adequate fuel supply also depends on Areva SA, USEC Inc., Atomenergoprom and Urenco Enrichment Company Ltd. meeting their timetables for new production facilities to increase capacity by at least 15 percent by 2015, the association reported, based on classified information provided by its members.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gianluca Baratti in Madrid at gbaratti@bloomberg.net