...fairly large error margins should be associated even with the reasonably assured resources (RAR) category. As an example, one could assume the RAR resource numbers reported by Australia and Canada, who claim almost all of their RAR resources in the low-cost category, to be most reliable. If this idea is applied to the entire world, one would guess that only the numbers in the < 40 dollars/kg RAR category are reliable and therefore relevant. As a result, the known uranium resources could be guessed as ≤ 2 million tons, corresponding to a resource life-time of just 30 years at the current consumption rate.
Such an evaluation would certainly discourage the idea of constructing new standard light water reactors with a presumed life-time of 60 years.
This simple-minded example demonstrates that more realistic uranium resource information is urgently needed. Such an analysis, clearly beyond the scope of this paper, would have to be based on a critical mine-by-mine and country-by-country analysis.
At the current time, however, the Red Book uranium resource data are the only existing and usable data base. These data, including large uncertainties, demonstrate that the economic-geological hypothesis is contradicted by the data. This widely used hypothesis states that more and more uranium can be extracted if only the price is allowed to increase. This claim is in total disagreement with the overall resource data and with the data offered by many individual countries.
Thus, one is left with the choice of either rejecting the Red Book data completely and sticking with an unproven hypothesis, or giving up that unproven hypothesis.
In summary, we point out that countries interested in the construction of a new nuclear power plant within the next 10-20 years should find a way to guarantee their needed uranium fuel for at least 40 years, before they invest perhaps up to 4 billion Euro per GWe of installed power.
The warning applies to all Western European countries, Japan, and South-Korea, which depend to almost 100% on stable uranium deliveries from far away. These countries should take one particular paragraph from the Red Book 2007 NEA press declaration very seriously:
"At the end of 2006, world uranium production (39,603 tons) provided about 60% of world reactor requirements (66,500 tons) for the 435 commercial nuclear reactors in operation. The gap between production and requirements was made up by secondary sources draw down from government and commercial inventories (such as the dismantling of over 12,000 nuclear warheads and the re-enrichment of uranium tails). Most secondary resources are now in decline and the gap will increasingly need to be closed by new production. Given the long lead time typically required to bring new resources into production, uranium supply shortfalls could develop if production facilities are not implemented in a timely manner."
Read more if you got an hour From the Drum UK (Ohh... crap it's a long one)