SLX Discussion 2022

[zeeb0t]

Are you invested in SLX? If so, what are the highlights and lowlights from your perspective?

 

[brainsnap]

Yes i am (as well). Very hard to value. Seems to have huge optionality and any demonstration that can execute on the strategy will see this share explode. In the meantime, it wastes in value - like an option.

 

[Moosey]

Yep I hold a sizeable parcel of SLX shares, they have three tings going for them atm, but there may be more coming using their laser separation process, but Uranium enrichment is their focus now, they hold the rights to re enrich the tails material left over from the old Gas Diffusion days at Paducah (1st Generation) GLE hold the license from Silex to use their laser separation process on Uranium, which they say is very very promising, Cameco hold 49% and Silex own 51% of GLE,Cameco have the rights to get a further 24% of GLE which will take them to 75% ownership, Cameco have often stated that they see themselves as the go to fuel suppliers for nuclear in North America . the US is in North America as is Canada who have aspirations of producing their own nuclear fuels.
Not for those with a feint heart but with risk can come great rewards.

Page 4 of this PAC partners report is interesting! PAC partners were hired by Silex to help with shareholder information a while ago, so you would assume they know a bit more than the average punter? they say in 2025 Silex will pay a US$65 million dividend???

 

[Moosey]

"Kerry said there was promising research in the United States that address the issues of proliferation, nuclear waste and safety linked to nuclear power plants."

It is my belief that the US will recycle used nuclear fuel in the future and they will get up to 900 years of free fuel for generating electricity from existing UNF in the US already, it can be used in fast reactors to burn the waste as fuel and also eliminate 80% of it in the process and what is left is only radioactive for 300 to 400 years as against up to a million years in some cases if it is just buried.



February 19, 20228:47 AM GMT+11

U.S., Germany clash over role of nuclear energy in green transition​

By Joseph Nasr

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers a speech at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, February 13, 2016. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

​

BERLIN, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Germany and the United States clashed on Friday over whether nuclear power should be part of the energy mix as rich countries race to cut emissions to limit the impact of global warming.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Special Climate Envoy John Kerry said that cutting emissions fast required some reliance on nuclear energy, adding that without carbon capture technology relying on gas as a stop-gap fuel amounted to ignoring the root cause of the climate crisis.


Franziska Brantner, parliamentary state secretary in the Economic Ministry and a member of the ecologist Greens, defended Germany's plan to rely on gas a bridge fuel as it phases out nuclear and coal and expands renewables.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has been putting pressure on Germany to ditch the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that would increase it dependence on Russian gas.


It argues that the completed pipeline awaiting regulatory approval would allow the Kremlin to weaponise energy against Europe at a time of rising tensions with the West, which fears a Russia military incursion into Ukraine.

"Gas for instance. Gas can be used as a transitional fuel and it might be more than that for the longer term if somebody comes up with carbon capture storage and utilisation. But we haven't finished that journey yet," said Kerry.


"I personally believe that we can't get there as fast as we need to without some component of nuclear in that mix."

He appeared to question the wisdom of Germany's reliance on gas by calling long-term gas infrastructure "stranded assets," without mentioning Nord Stream 2, which runs under the Baltic Sea and bypasses Ukrainian territory.

Asked by a moderator if Germany's decision to shut its last nuclear plants this year did not amount to avoiding the most efficient path to a green future, said Brantner, pointing to Kerry: "No. The answer is easy, it's 'no'. And you gave part of the answer. You said nuclear is 'monumentally expensive.' Exactly. We have a much cheaper way we can go, and that's renewables."

Kerry and Brantner also disagreed on whether nuclear power could be transferred to poorer countries to help them cut energy emissions from coal.

Kerry said there was promising research in the United States that address the issues of proliferation, nuclear waste and safety linked to nuclear power plants.

Brantner, who Greens party has it roots in the anti-nuclear movement of the 70s and 80s, said Germany would not use tax payer's money to transfer nuclear energy know-how to developing countries given the risk of nuclear proliferation.

 

[Moosey]

Stock Market Insights | Seeking Alpha

seekingalpha.com

Nuclear Energy And Uranium Moving Into The Mainstream​

Feb. 19, 2022 4:40 AM ETURA10 Likes

Global X ETFs
2.52K Followers

Summary​

• Nuclear power is gradually shedding the stigma attached to it, helped by significant improvements in technology and safety measures.
• The pro-nuclear energy sentiment is even stronger in developing countries. Asia is a leading hub for new reactor construction.
• The ETF market and institutional investors like hedge funds are also signaling bullish uranium price dynamics.
• Most investors do not seek exposure to uranium through the futures market, but rather through ETFs, individual equities or spot market purchases.
• We believe that sustained political buy-in and financial support from governments means nuclear is here to stay, particularly as demand for clean and reliable energy grows.

Jan-Otto/iStock via Getty Images


With aggressive timelines to reach net-zero carbon emissions and global energy consumption expected to increase by 50% through 2050, governments are exploring all options in the next generation of power production.1 While much of the focus has been on renewables like solar and wind, there may still be a critical role for nuclear energy in the global energy mix, given that it’s clean, reliable, and yes, safe. Importantly, nuclear power is gradually shedding the stigma attached to it, helped by significant improvements in technology and safety measures. And as it gains broader acceptance, we believe nuclear energy is raising the investment profile of uranium, its key fuel input.

Key Takeaways​

• Nuclear power emits zero greenhouse gas emissions during operations, making it a viable energy option for net-zero climate ambitions.
• Nuclear production is more reliable than other renewables, and large population centers with rising energy needs like China and India are taking notice.
• With supply deficits expected to persist, leading indicators like ETF flows suggest that investor sentiment towards the uranium market is bullish.

Nuclear Power Can Help Achieve Clean Energy Transition Goals​

Meeting the world’s growing power needs while simultaneously reducing carbon emissions presents difficult challenges for policymakers. Compounding the issue is finding ways to power the 55% percent of the world’s population living in dense urban areas.2 While proven renewables likes solar and wind are becoming increasingly economical, their larger footprint, intermittent power production, and difficulty in rapidly scaling requires other clean solutions to diversify the world’s energy mix. Nuclear energy may be the solution, as a clean, high output, and reliable power source.

Similar to solar and wind, nuclear fission reactors produce no greenhouse gas emissions during operation. But even when accounting for total carbon emissions (such as in the building of a nuclear power plant or solar panels) they have lower carbon emissions than many other renewables.

World Nuclear


Nuclear is also more dependable than many other power sources. Renewables like solar and wind depend on variable climate conditions to power their panels and turbines, and at many points through the day and year may not produce much energy at all. The intermittent outages make it difficult for them to function as the sole provider of a nation’s power needs. Conversely, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that nuclear operates at full capacity 93.5% of the time, making it the most reliable energy source by far.

EIA

Governments Start to Embrace Nuclear Power in Multiple Forms​

In the quest for clean energy, recent government-led nuclear power initiatives focus on three main areas: 1) developing more or less advanced reactors tailored to need, 2) extending the lives of existing plants, and 3) building traditional reactors.

A primary benefit of the latest reactor technology is that they can be designed to meet specific end-user requirements, such as reducing water and waste usage. In addition, their upfront capital requirements are lower than traditional reactors in absolute terms, they can be compatible with other energy sources and they come with enhanced safety features.3

Small module reactors (SMRs) are the most prominent example of these new reactor types. SMRs have all the benefits of traditional nuclear power plants, but they require less planning and capital needs than their traditional counterparts, making them particularly suitable for smaller energy projects. The world’s first active SMR is a floating barge located in the Arctic that powers the Russian town of Pevek. It offers a glimpse of how SMR technology can be used, particularly in rural areas that rely on fossil fuels. Currently, there are more than 70 SMR designs at various stages of development in 17 countries.

World-Nuclear Association



Extending the life cycle of an existing nuclear plant is another option for governments, as it’s significantly less capital-intensive than building a new one. Importantly, plants with lifetime extensions are also much more cost-competitive with low carbon-generating technologies.

IEA


The U.S. has some of the oldest nuclear reactors in the world with an average age of 39 years. An estimated 90% of U.S. nuclear plants have received extensions to increase their operating life from 20 to 40 years over the last few decades. Recently, the Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC) started extending licenses and, giving plants a potential life cycle of 80 years. Over 20% of the U.S.’s nuclear reactors now plan to operate for up to 80 years. In December 2019, two nuclear reactor units in Florida were the first to be cleared by the NRC to operate for the 80-year life cycle.4

The pro-nuclear energy sentiment is even stronger in developing countries. Asia is a leading hub for new reactor construction. China has 18 traditional reactors under construction, India has six and South Korea has four. Globally, over 50 reactors are under construction in 19 different countries. With 445 reactors in operation around the world today, these new builds represent meaningful growth for nuclear power.5

Supply Deficit Could Support Higher Uranium Prices for Longer​

Uranium provides the fuel to nuclear power plants. But many of the world’s largest uranium miners, including Cameco (CCJ) and Kazatomprom, tapered production or shuttered mines completely as the global economy came to a standstill at the start of the pandemic. These decisions flipped a deeply oversupplied market into one that quickly became undersupplied. Now with demand increasing, the supply deficit is unlikely to dissipate soon due to the uranium production cycle.

Unlike other commodities, uranium requires a longer and more extensive production timeline. Utilities must source uranium 12–24 months before its expected use. Producers like Cameco and Kazatomprom, which together represented 28% of global uranium production in 2020, are not expected to increase production for the next 1–2 years.6 That timeline suggests the earliest we can expect materially higher production output is between 2024 and 2026, which could provide support for higher prices.


The ETF market and institutional investors like hedge funds are also signaling bullish uranium price dynamics. Uranium is different from other energy commodities like oil and natural gas in that its futures market is relatively underdeveloped. Therefore, most investors do not seek exposure to uranium through the futures market, but rather through ETFs, individual equities or spot market purchases. As this graph shows, ETF flows for uranium accelerated rapidly in 2021 as investors sought exposure to the space amid the supply/demand imbalance.

Bloomberg


For non-institutional buyers like utilities, which need uranium for purposes other than an investment, buying activity in the physical market puts them in a tenuous position. For example, between July 2021 and December 20, 2021, a new physical uranium fund purchased approximately 44 million pounds of uranium, currently valued at approximately $2.0 billion.7 To put that 44 million pounds in perspective, global uranium demand is estimated to be approximately 180 million pounds for 2021.8 The fund’s purchases contributed to driving up spot prices from $32/lb to $45/lb from July 2nd to December 31st. The price spike is likely to force utilities to think about re-contracting sooner rather than later to avoid a major price impact. Utilities typically keep only 2–4 years of inventory on hand. If utilities wait to re-contract, they run the risk that prices go even higher from here and they are forced to pay even more. But a potential price drop could be beneficial to these utilities as well.

Positive Momentum for Uranium’s Long-Term Investment Case​

We believe that sustained political buy-in and financial support from governments means nuclear is here to stay, particularly as demand for clean and reliable energy grows. In 2021, a wider pool of investors brought significant attention to nuclear energy and the role it can play in helping the world achieve its climate change goals. They also shed light on uranium’s unique production timelines and price dynamics. Uranium prices jumping from $25 to $42 led to a 60% rise in uranium equities last year.9 If the current price rally persists, it could open the door for wider uranium inclusion in broader indexes like those that are market cap weighted indexes, potentially driving equity price expansion relative to current earnings.

 

[Moosey]

I post this to provide some balance which isn't part of what they write in this article.

No one is saying that Wind and Solar are not good, but they do have some drawbacks and they aren't always available, a base load power will still be needed.

• "Getting to an 80% reduction in CO2 can be easily done with renewables and storage," report author David Schlissel says. “The last 20% needs these exotic technologies like SMRs or carbon capture."

Clearly Carbon Capture and storage at this point is not viable, electricity produced in gas fired power stations is still 50% as bad as coal, nuclear produces no GHG's.

What happens to all of the waste that is being generated by wind and solar and they need to compare apples with apples and not subsidised either technology, make it a level playing field and then look at which is best!

Report slams NuScale SMR: "Too late, too expensive, too risky"

NuScale is among the handful of companies developing small modular reactors.

www.axios.com

Feb 17, 2022 - Economy & Business

Report slams NuScale SMR: "Too late, too expensive, too risky"​

Alan Neuhauser

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
An analysis released Thursday by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) drops the hammer on NuScale's small modular reactor (SMR), which is arguably the most prominent next-generation nuclear reactor project currently planned in the U.S.
Why It Matters: NuScale is among the handful of companies developing SMRs, with the intent of reinvigorating the U.S. nuclear power sector.

• Advocates argue that the technology will be vital for fully decarbonizing the electricity sector while ensuring reliable power.
• Recent months have seen significant milestones, with Ontario Public Power moving to build an SMR from GE Hitachi, and the Tennessee Valley Authority last week green lighting up to $200 million to prepare for the potential construction of a similar SMR.
• Skeptics contend that the billions of dollars being invested in advanced nuclear can be better spent on rapidly deploying wind, solar, storage, and efficiency resources.

What happened: The report by IEEFA, a research nonprofit, sharply criticizes the NuScale effort, set to be built in Idaho by 2030.

• The report argues that the company's SMR will cost far more than the company claims, take much longer to build, and impede efforts to build other, zero-emissions options such as solar, wind, storage, and efficiency measures.
• In 2020, the planned SMR became the first to win a design certification from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Details: The report's opening line: "Too late, too expensive, too risky and too uncertain. That, in a nutshell, describes NuScale’s planned small modular reactor (SMR) project, which has been in development since 2001 and will not begin commercial operations before 2029, if ever."

• It continues: "This first-of-a-kind reactor poses serious financial risks for members of the Utah Associated Municipal Power System (UAMPS), currently the lead buyer, and other municipalities and utilities that sign up for a share of the project’s power."
• Communities that have agreed to buy power from the NuScale project could find themselves on the hook if prices soar past the company's estimates.
• NuScale was not consulted for the report. The authors say they drew from the company’s public statements, reports, presentations, disclosures, and correspondence with regulators.

What They’re Saying: Studies by researchers at Princeton University and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are among those that have concluded that the U.S. electric grid can be largely decarbonized without the construction of new nuclear.

• "Getting to an 80% reduction in CO2 can be easily done with renewables and storage," report author David Schlissel says. “The last 20% needs these exotic technologies like SMRs or carbon capture."
• Diane Hughes, NuScale's vice president of marketing and communication, said in a statement, "While we have not received or reviewed the IEEFA report, the UAMPS project remains on schedule, and NuScale is excited [to create] an energy source that is smarter, cleaner, safer, and cost competitive."

Of Note: NuScale, backed by Guggenheim Partners, is planning to go public via SPAC later this year.

 

[Moosey]

It's Time for a Homegrown U.S. Nuclear Manufacturing Base

Unless we can build a strong domestic industrial base to respond to this challenge, the CCP will use nuclear (and other sectors) to control global markets.

www.newsweek.com

It's Time for a Homegrown U.S. Nuclear Manufacturing Base | Opinion​

Ed McGinnis , CEO, Curio
On 2/25/22 at 6:00 AM EST

On January 16, 2019, acting as assistant secretary for nuclear energy, I testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the state of U.S. nuclear technology development. I indicated that American nuclear was declining faster than anticipated. I explained that "sustaining the current fleet of operating nuclear power plants is a priority for the nation because without a robust nuclear industry, we will not be able to reestablish...U.S.-based supply chains, nor maintain the...infrastructure and workforce necessary for a vibrant civilian nuclear industry."
Fast forward to 2022, and reactor closures are hampering the nation's greenhouse gas reduction efforts. Case in point, the 2021 closure of Indian Point, New York, increased the state's emissions by 30 percent! Meanwhile, China's reactor fleet is quickly growing and will become the world's largest by 2026.

China's recently announced $440 billion investment in nuclear energy should be a sign to the U.S. that the CCP is challenging our superpower status. Unless we can build a strong domestic industrial base to respond to this challenge, the CCP will use nuclear (and other sectors) as a multi-faceted geostrategic tool to control global markets. If current conditions persist, it will be China, not the United States, that sets the health, safety and security standards in the nuclear field.
U.S.-based nuclear innovation is in dire need of commercialization. One such high-impact project is the Transformational Challenge Reactor, or TCR for short. This Department of Energy program, which I advanced, aimed to build the world's first 3D-printed reactor—vessel, fuel, sensors, the works! If proven, TCR commercialization would mark a paradigm shift in nuclear manufacturing, much like SpaceX did with rockets.

At the same time, the U.S. must focus on streamlining and updating regulations, making the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) more agile. Amid a recent NRC inspector general report that raises questions about nuclear plants' reliance on counterfeit parts, it's clear that investing in and licensing innovative projects like the TCR will require an adaptable regulatory body that does not inadvertently delay innovation. Other key nuclear questions, such as that of America's "nuclear waste," will require a bold and innovative approach. Nuclear waste remains a major issue because the U.S. nuclear industry presently has nowhere to dispose of it. Political gridlock, coupled with court-ordered payments, has bred complacency. It was for this exact reason that I recently argued that categorizing used nuclear fuel as "waste" is holding back a second nuclear era.

TOMKINS COVE , NY - APRIL 22: A solar panel is seen in front of The Indian Point nuclear power plant is seen from Tomkins Cove, New York on April 22 2021. Nuclear Plant Indian Point will cease operations next Friday, April 30.New York is moving forward with its plan to dismantle and decommission the nuclear power facility in the Hudson Valley. Kena Betancur/VIEWpress/Getty Images

It goes without saying that safety must be a top priority. However, nuclear power has the safest track record of any power source in America—period. What's holding us back is our current approach to building nuclear power. The U.S. fleet is far from reaching the scale and size needed to make a meaningful difference. Only two reactors have come online in the U.S. since 1990. Tried-and-true Light Water Reactors cost utilities billions, with regulatory fees—including permitting, inspections, materials and specialized construction—increasing the expense. Design changes during construction add further delays and costs. This makes building a nuclear power plant in the U.S. a high-risk endeavor. It's time for lawmakers to remove these roadblocks and unleash the American private sector.
Congress must evaluate the entire regulatory structure of the NRC, especially its timeframes and fee structures and the impact these have on the nuclear industrial complex. The NRC, singularly focused on safety, has no incentive to ensure that reactors come online or that the materials and components necessary to do so are readily available. As a result, ironically, inherently safer technologies are not being commercialized.


The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act codified an Obama administration initiative to cut environmental review and permit decision-making timelines for infrastructure projects. Title 41 of that act (FAST-41) established new coordination and oversight procedures for infrastructure projects being reviewed by federal agencies. While the effectiveness of these procedures remains untested, the nuclear industry desperately needs a mechanism to disentangle the regulatory process—and can start by classifying next-gen nuclear construction as "Major Infrastructure Projects."
With the Biden administration supporting nuclear development as a critical step toward decarbonizing our economy, the infrastructure bill included a much-needed $6 billion in federal subsidies for existing plants. Such appropriations signal bipartisan support for a second nuclear era. Congress and the administration would be wise to further invest in the build-up of a nimble and productive industrial base. Judiciously leveraging American ingenuity will secure the nuclear industry of today and create the tools to build the nuclear industry of tomorrow.

 

[Moosey]

https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/Nuclear%20Energy%20Supply%20Chain%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf

Achieving American Leadership in the Nuclear Energy Supply Chain

1OFFICE OF NUCLEAR ENERGY
Summary
The United States is committed to achieving a 50 to 52 percent reduction from 2005 levels in economy-wide net greenhouse gas pollution by 2030, creating a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035, and achieving net zero emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050.

Nuclear energy is essential to meeting those goals. That includes the existing fleet and advanced reactors that are moving forward for deployment and under development.
Nuclear power plants produce 20 percent of the total electricity supply in the United States today and are the largest source of carbon-free energy. However, we have an opportunity to expand significantly nuclear energy’s percentage
of electricity generated in the United States.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) report - developed in response to President Biden’s Executive Order “America’s Supply Chains” signed in 2021 -describes the nuclear supply chain and investigates
challenges for continued operation of today’s 93 reactors and construction of advanced reactors.
The supply chain is critical for successfully enabling the continued operation of the existing domestic fleet of light-water reactors as well as supporting deployment of advanced nuclear technologies.

Key Findings and Opportunities
In addition to supporting the power sector, advanced nuclear reactors can provide low-carbon heat and/or electricity for facilities and processes outside the power sector, alongside other clean energy options for deep decarbonization.
Nuclear energy provides more local permanent jobs, and at higher average wage, than other energy sources.
The industry’s annual output value as measured by electricity sales is approximately $40 billion.
Nuclear reactors could be installed at retired or soon-to-retire unabated coal or fossil fuel plant locations to facilitate siting, utilize grid connection infrastructure and some of the internal components (depending on details of the coal and
nuclear plant types), reuse the cooling water intake system, take advantage of the local trained/skilled workforce, and provide continued availability of low-cost, reliable, dispatchable electricity.
NE’s supply chain report focuses on the need to deploy advanced reactors and find solutions to
their fuel requirements.
There is a functioning supply chain for existing nuclear reactors, although not all components are domestically supplied.
Many advanced reactors use high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) while others such as those under
NE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) require TRISO fuel and uranium metal fuel.
None of these fuels is commercially available.


Policy Next Steps
DOE’s goals are to enable continued operation of existing U.S. nuclear reactors, enable deployment of advanced nuclear reactors, develop advanced nuclear fuel cycles, and maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear energy technology.
Although there are challenges and risks in each of these areas, implementation of targeted policies would support
achievement of all the goals and would strengthen the U.S. nuclear supply chain to meet the nation’s energy, environmental, and societal needs.

 

[Moosey]

Centrus will supply some HALEU with their 16 centrifuge system, but the amounts will be very small and more than likely the military will take up all of that anyway, Urenco have stated they intend to produce HALEU but have not committed to building a plant yet?
GLE were asked by the NEI in the US to supply information on their prospects for producing HALEU going forward. the efficiency of the laser Isotope separation system is said to be somewhere between 2 to 20 times more efficient, something they (Silex) have not elaborated on, but Michael Goldsworthy has stated that the royalties of between 7 % to 12 % would rely on the efficiency and costs etc of the system, he has said he thought the royalty would be on the higher side of those figures, so would it not follow that the efficiency would also be on the higher side? more that 11 times more efficient at least than the competition???
Gas diffusion was not very efficient, centrifuge was more efficient and gets, more Uranium from the mined product, but if the laser plants are more than 11 times more efficient again? would that mean also that a laser plant will get a lot more product from the same amount of mined Uranium and in doing so will leave behind much cleaner U238 (depleted Uranium) than their competitors do?

Another aspect of using a laser plant is that it can be reconfigured to make all sorts of enriched Uranium, if Centrus or Urenco want to make HALEU I contend that it would have to be a dedicated plant and to build such a plant would cost about twice to three times as much to build compared to a laser plant? it will happen I believe (laser enrichment) and a plant to produce HALEU will be faster to build using the Silex system than any other method today, even if Urenco decided to build a dedicated HALEU plant which will be less efficient it will take longer to build, same goes for Centrus!
It is my belief that Urenco will just sit and watch for now?
Any plant using centrifuge technology will still leave behind wastes that at some point will need to be dealt with in some way, same as Portsmouth and Paducah gas diffusion tails only using centrifuge would mean less waste Uranium in their tails, but still significantly more than a laser plant does.

In my opinion, the Paducah plant will recover what Uranium was left in the tails, they say 5000 lbs of natural grade Uranium at UF6 annul production for 30 years and then make HALEU from that material which is already at UF6 (another cost savings) one that will be akin to a tier one Uranium mine!
Paducah will first of all be a cleanup, then a supplier of HALEU first up and the an LEU producer later on IMHO.
Paducah is a given IMHO.
But also watch Canada, they want to produce their own fuels one day.

https://www.ans.org/news/article-3679/ans-to-doe-haleu-availability-program-needed-asap/https://www.ans.org/news/article-3679/ans-to-doe-haleu-availability-program-needed-asap/

ANS to DOE: HALEU availability program needed ASAP​

Sat, Feb 19, 2022, 2:30AMNuclear News
The American Nuclear Society is urging the Department of Energy to accelerate the development of an availability program for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).
In a letter sent to the DOE earlier this week, ANS President Steven Nesbit and Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer Craig Piercy state that HALEU availability is critical to the continued development of advanced nuclear technologies.
The establishment of a HALEU supply chain, the letter says, would support the DOE’s efforts to deploy and commercialize clean energy technologies and infrastructure. “Further,” it continues, “the DOE’s substantial investments in the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) are at risk of significant deployment delays without the expeditious development of HALEU infrastructure.”
Context: The ANS letter is in response to a December 14 request for information from the DOE inviting input on the planning for a HALEU availability program. The Energy Act of 2020 authorized the department to establish and carry out such a program to supply HALEU for civilian domestic research, development, demonstration, and commercial use. The comment period for the RFI closed on February 14.
Established in 2020, the DOE’s ARDP seeks to help domestic private industry demonstrate advanced nuclear reactors. The cost-sharing program has three components: advanced reactor demonstrations, risk reduction for future demonstrations, and advanced reactor concepts 2020 (ARC-20).
In October 2020, the DOE selected TerraPower and X-energy as top-tier ARDP award recipients for $160 million in initial cost-shared funding to develop and construct two advanced nuclear reactors that could be operational within seven years. In November of last year, President Biden signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which fully funded and appropriated $3.2 billion through 2027 for the top-tier ARDP awards and an additional $2.4 billion through 2025 for the risk reduction and ARC-20 awards.

 

[Moosey]

This article/blog is thought provoking but it is factually incorrect, there are new ways of using used nuclear fuel in some fast reactors that are coming and I suspect that the SILEX technology may play some part in that.
This was posted on the other site.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/28/...active-waste-climate-ipcc-hockenos/index.html

Does Silex technology have a role in preprocessing spent nuclear fuel to then be used in newer SMR designs?

My reply to the poster (Whytee) was this-:

"I believe" it could have a role Whytee, GEH were going to separate the Plutonium and Uranium bundle at one point, and in their literature about the PRISM reactor they said that the uranium bundle could be either used in a CANDU reactor or re-enriched for use in their PRISM reactors, I believe this was why the Silex process was originally licensed to GEH for that reason,
But later a decision was made, not to separate the Plutonium and Uranium bundles for proliferation reasons, that would make re-enrichment more difficult but there is another way of enriching the Uranium in the U, Pu mix, they could remove the nuclear poisons by targeting that specific Isotope which would effectively bring back to life the Uranium again i.e target a specific Isotope and remove it from the mix, this task would be extremely hard to do with centrifuge if not impossible, but I do think a Laser Isotope Separation method like the SILEX process would work for this purpose and would be an ideal contender?

The US are working on this right now, and if they can burn the used fuel in some generation IV fast reactors they will eliminate 80% of the waste, burn it as a fuel to produce electricity, create Hydrogen or use it for Desalination or process heat as well, and the waste material left from that will only be radioactive around 300 to 400 years , that is a huge difference to over a million years radioactive in some cases today if they just buried it.

What is not to like about that!

Some anti nuker people are way over the top about nuclear waste, not one person has died from the storage of UNF and it is more an asset, it's not a liability! not a problem and one that could provide the US with electricity from a method that does not produce GHG's for 900 years using the existing nuclear waste sitting in the US today.
This whole area needs education to teach these people the truth and stop spreading untruths.

 

[Moosey]

https://www.tri-cityherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article258874093.html

Small Modular nuclear Reactors are safer than the consequences of climate change​

By Richard Badalamente, PhD

February 28, 2022 8:21 AM


Small modular nuclear reactors could transform the nuclear industry, said Ed McGinnis, when he was the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Energy. By Department of Energy


I’m going to argue in this short commentary that producing electricity from nuclear energy is safer than waiting for the consequences of climate change to kill us. Let me start by relating a story.

I was discussing with a group of friends concerned about climate change the possibility of using Small Modular nuclear Reactors (SMRs) as a carbon-free source of base-load energy. Someone asked, “But is nuclear power really safe?”

I was reminded of being asked much the same question after a presentation I gave in Los Angeles on human factors aspects of the Three Mile Island accident. A reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle asked me, “Are nuclear power plants really safe?” That ground had already been plowed in a number of the day’s presentations, so I asked him how he’d traveled from San Francisco to LA for the meeting. “On Highway 101,” he said. “Yeah;” I said, “they’re safer than that.”


Safety is freedom from risk and no major means of energy production is free of risk; nuclear power is no exception. Still, studies have shown that per kilowatt hour, nuclear power is safer than other means of generating electricity (James Conca, 2012).

By far the deadliest way to produce energy is by burning coal, which has been killing us ever since the Industrial Revolution began its march in 1750. New research has shown that burning fossil fuels were responsible for 8.7 million deaths globally in 2018 (Karn Vohra, et al., 2021). That’s an astounding 20% of all people who died that year. Coal is the worst offender.

Two concerns often raised about nuclear power are the front and back end of the nuclear cycle — uranium mining and nuclear waste. Yet mining coal is not only the most dangerous industrial occupation, but it and the extraction of other fossil fuels are worse insults to both health and the environment. The waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that produced by a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy (Mara Hvistendahl, 2007).


Of course as we now know, the deadliest waste of burning coal and other fossil fuels is the CO2 and CH4 (Methane) we’re spewing into the atmosphere. Scientists have been telling us for decades that continuing on our current path will lead to regions of the Earth being uninhabitable. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been labeled a “code red” for humanity (United Nations, 8/9/2021).


The unrelenting warming of the Earth caused by human activities (a cause the IPCC states is “unequivocal”) has by now, well known consequences: sea level rise, deadly heat waves, more frequent and fierce wildfires, drought and desertification. As much as a quarter of the World’s population faces severe water shortages (Anastasia Moloney, 2020).


These are the “known knowns,” as a former Secretary of Defense once put it while discussing the Iraq War. The “known unknowns” include the degree to which humans can continue to warm the planet without triggering abrupt and/or irreversible climate change. This can occur when a small amount of additional warming triggers a qualitative change in part of the climate system. According to Professor Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter, these “tipping points” occur when “reinforcing (positive) feedbacks within a system take over from stabilizing (negative) feedbacks and propel change from one state to another” (Timothy M. Lenton, 2021).

The state we’ll be in at that point is anybody’s guess.

Small Modular nuclear Reactors have been used safely and reliably for decades in the Nuclear Navy (James Conca, 2019). They can be built in a quarter of the time it takes to build a traditional nuclear power plant at a fraction of the up-front cost. SMRs modular design allows users to scale up plants to meet current and future energy needs, and gives utilities strategic latitude in financial exposure. But their most important advantage relative to fossil fuels, as well as to wind and solar energy, is that they are a carbon-free source of dispatchable energy.

Some argue that fossil fuels have helped lift humanity out of poverty. If so, it’s been a bargain with the devil. Isn’t it time that we recognize the folly of rejecting nuclear power out of a failure to understand relative risks? Small Modular nuclear Reactors and other next generation advanced reactors must serve as an essential step forward in the challenge to reach NetZero.

 

[Moosey]

Climate Change Is Harming the Planet Faster Than We Can Adapt, U.N. Warns

Countries aren’t doing nearly enough to protect against the disasters to come as the planet keeps heating up, a major new scientific report concludes.

www.nytimes.com

​

Climate Change Is Harming the Planet Faster Than We Can Adapt, U.N. Warns​

Countries aren’t doing nearly enough to protect against the disasters to come as the planet keeps heating up, a major new scientific report concludes.

A seawall construction in low-lying metropolitan Manila, Philippines. Many developing countries lack the resources to prepare for the more serious climate-related threats still to come.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

By Brad Plumer and Raymond Zhong
Feb. 28, 2022
The dangers of climate change are mounting so rapidly that they could soon overwhelm the ability of both nature and humanity to adapt unless greenhouse gas emissions are quickly reduced, according to a major new scientific report released on Monday.
The report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the United Nations, is the most detailed look yet at the threats posed by global warming. It concludes that nations aren’t doing nearly enough to protect cities, farms and coastlines from the hazards that climate change has unleashed so far, such as record droughts and rising seas, let alone from the even greater disasters in store as the planet continues to warm.
Written by 270 researchers from 67 countries, the report is “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership,” said António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general. “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.”
The perils are already visible across the globe, the report said. In 2019, storms, floods and other extreme weather events displaced more than 13 million people across Asia and Africa. Rising heat and drought are killing crops and trees, putting millions worldwide at increased risk of hunger and malnutrition, while mosquitoes carrying diseases like malaria and dengue are spreading into new areas. Roughly half the world’s population currently faces severe water scarcity at least part of the year.

Few nations are escaping unscathed. Blistering heat waves made worse by global warming have killed hundreds of people in the United States and Canada, ferocious floods have devastated Germany and China, and wildfires have raged out of control in Australia and Siberia.
“One of the most striking conclusions in our report is that we’re seeing adverse impacts that are much more widespread and much more negative than expected,” said Camille Parmesan, an ecologist at the University of Texas, Austin, and one of the researchers who prepared the report.
To date, many nations have been able to partly limit the damage by spending billions of dollars each year on adaptation measures like flood barriers, air-conditioning or early-warning systems for tropical cyclones.
But those efforts are too often “incremental,” the report said. Preparing for future threats, like dwindling freshwater supplies or irreversible ecosystem damage, will require “transformational” changes that involve rethinking how people build homes, grow food, produce energy and protect nature.

​

Smoke and steam billowing from Belchatow Power Station in Poland, Europe's largest coal-fired power plant.Credit...Kacper Pempel/Reuters
The report also carries a stark warning: If temperatures keep rising, many parts of the world could soon face limits in how much they can adapt to a changing environment. If nations don’t act quickly to slash fossil fuel emissions and halt global warming, more and more people will suffer unavoidable loss or be forced to flee their homes, creating dislocation on a global scale.

“There has been the assumption that, ‘Well, if we cannot control climate change, we’ll just let it go and adapt to it,’” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a marine biologist in Germany who helped coordinate the report. But given the expected risks as the planet keeps warming, he said, “this is certainly a very illusionary approach.”

Global temperatures have already increased by an average of 1.1 degrees Celsius, or 2 degrees Fahrenheit, since the 19th century, as humans have pumped heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by burning coal, oil and gas for energy, and cutting down forests.
Many leaders, including President Biden, have vowed to limit total global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels. That’s the threshold beyond which scientists say the likelihood of catastrophic climate impacts increases significantly.

A home surrounded by floodwaters after rainstorms caused flooding and landslides in Chilliwack, British Columbia, in November 2021.Credit...Jesse Winter/Reuters
But achieving that goal would require nations to all but eliminate their fossil-fuel emissions by 2050, and most are far off-track. The world is currently on pace to warm somewhere between 2 degrees and 3 degrees Celsius this century, experts have estimated.
“Unchecked carbon pollution is forcing the world’s most vulnerable on a frog march to destruction — now,” Mr. Guterres said. “This abdication of leadership is criminal.”

If average warming passes 1.5 degrees Celsius, even humanity’s best efforts to adapt could falter, the report warns. The cost of defending coastal communities against rising seas could exceed what many nations can afford. In some regions, including parts of North America, livestock and outdoor workers could face rising levels of heat stress that make farming increasingly difficult, said Rachel Bezner Kerr, an agricultural expert at Cornell University who contributed to the report.
“Beyond 1.5, we’re not going to manage on a lot of fronts,” said Maarten van Aalst, the director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center and another author of the report. “If we don’t implement changes now in terms of how we deal with physical infrastructure, but also how we organize our societies, it’s going to be bad.”
Poor nations are far more exposed to climate risks than rich countries. Between 2010 and 2020, droughts, floods and storms killed 15 times as many people in highly vulnerable countries, including those in Africa and Asia, as in the wealthiest countries, the report said.
That disparity has fueled a contentious debate: what the industrialized nations most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions owe developing countries. Low-income nations want financial help, both to defend against future threats and to compensate for damages they can’t avoid. The issue will be a focus when governments meet for the next United Nations climate summit in Egypt in November.
“Climate change is the ultimate injustice,” said Ani Dasgupta, the president of the World Resources Institute, an environmental group. “People with the fewest resources, those least responsible for the climate crisis, bear the brunt of climate impacts.” He added, “If you don’t live in a hot spot, imagine instead a roof blown away, a village well overwhelmed by salt water, a failed crop, a job lost, a meal skipped — all at once, again and again.”
The report, which was approved by 195 governments, makes clear that risks to humans and nature accelerate with every additional fraction of a degree of warming.
At current levels of warming, for example, humanity’s ability to feed itself is already coming under strain. While the world is still producing more food each year, thanks to improvements in farming and crop technology, climate change has begun slowing the rate of growth, the report said, an ominous trend that puts future food supplies at risk as the world’s population soars past 8 billion people.

If global warming reaches 1.5 degrees Celsius — as is now likely within the next few decades — roughly 8 percent of the world’s farmland could become unsuitable for growing food, the authors wrote. Coral reefs, which buffer coastlines against storms and sustain fisheries for millions of people, will face more frequent bleaching from ocean heat waves and decline by 70 to 90 percent. The number of people around the world exposed to severe coastal flooding could increase by more than one-fifth without new protections.

Embers flew as the Caldor fire burned in the Eldorado National Forest near Pollock Pines, Calif., in 2021. Credit...Max Whittaker for The New York Times

A father holding his child waded through a flooded neighborhood following heavy rains, in Chennai, India last year.Credit...Idrees Mohammed/EPA, via Shutterstock
At 2 degrees Celsius of warming, between 800 million and 3 billion people globally could face chronic water scarcity because of drought, including more than one-third of the population in southern Europe. Crop yields and fish harvests in many places could start declining. An additional 1.4 million children in Africa could face severe malnutrition, stunting their growth.

Understand the Latest News on Climate Change​

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Card 1 of 5
Struggling to adapt. The dangers of climate change are mounting so rapidly that they could soon overwhelm the ability of both nature and humanity to adapt unless greenhouse gas emissions are quickly reduced, according to a major U.N. report. Here are five takeaways from the report.
The biggest climate case in a decade. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a dispute that could restrict or even eliminate the E.P.A.’s authority to control the pollution that is heating the planet. A decision by the court, with its conservative supermajority, could shred President Biden’s climate agenda.
A world on fire. A United Nations report has concluded that the risk of devastating wildfires around the world could increase by up to 57 percent by the end of the century, as climate change further intensifies what the authors of the document described as a “global wildfire crisis.”
Melting away. Sea ice around Antarctica has reached a record low in four decades of observations, a new analysis of satellite images shows. While warmer ocean temperatures may have played a role, the precise effect of climate change on Antarctic sea ice remains unclear.
A megadrought and rising sea levels. An intense drought in the American Southwest has become so severe that it’s now the driest 22-year period in the region in 1,200 years. Scientists are also warning that coastal sea levels in the U.S. will rise by about a foot or more on average by 2050.

At 3 degrees of warming, the risk of extreme weather events could increase fivefold by century’s end. Flooding from sea-level rise and heavier rainstorms could cause four times as much economic damage worldwide as they do today. As many as 29 percent of known plant and animal species on land could face a high risk of extinction.
The report lays out strategies that nations can pursue to protect themselves, such as elevating homes above rising floodwaters or developing new crop varieties that can better tolerate heat and drought.
Humanity has already managed to reduce some of the harms from climate dangers. Over the past half-century, the number of deaths worldwide from storms, floods and other extreme weather events has fallen by more than half because of improved early warning systems and disaster management, the World Meteorological Organization has found. Investments in public health have meant fewer people are succumbing to diseases like cholera, even as rising temperatures and heavier rainfall have facilitated their spread.

But if global temperatures keep rising, adapting to climate change will become increasingly difficult, especially for poorer countries, the report said.
“If we are able to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, then the likelihood of large areas or specific islands becoming uninhabitable will be relatively low,” although they will remain vulnerable to storms and sea-level rise, said Adelle Thomas, an adaptation researcher at the University of the Bahamas and a report author. But higher levels of warming “could lead to those areas becoming uninhabitable,” she said.
A decade ago, wealthy nations pledged to deliver $100 billion per year to the developing world by 2020 to shift to cleaner sources of energy and adapt to climate change. But they have fallen short by tens of billions of dollars, with only a fraction of the funds spent on adaptation.
Meanwhile, many communities are acting in ways that increase their vulnerability, the report said. One reason flood risk is growing along the coasts, for instance, is that millions of people are moving to low-lying areas that are endangered by sea level rise. And some adaptation measures have unintended consequences. For instance, sea walls protect certain places but can also redirect flooding into populated areas elsewhere. Irrigation can help protect crops against drought but can also deplete groundwater resources.

Supreme Court Will Hear Biggest Climate Change Case in a Decade
Feb. 27, 2022
“Despite the fact that we have been talking about climate change for a long period of time,” many regions are still developing in ways that make their people and ecosystems more exposed to the hazards, not less, said Ibidun O. Adelekan, a professor of geography at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria who worked on the report.

An ox carcass from a drone image in the Seridó region of Brazil, which is heavily impacted by drought and desertification. Brazil has the largest number of people living in areas that are becoming deserts.Credit...Victor Moriyama for The New York Times

Instead, the report recommends that leaders pursue more farsighted strategies. As oceans rise, coastal communities could relocate inland while additional development along vulnerable shorelines could be discouraged. Improvements in basic services like health, roads, electricity and water could help make poor and rural communities more resilient against climate shocks.
“The choice is not between if we transform or not anymore,” said Edward R. Carr, a professor of international development at Clark University and an author of the report. “The choice is, do we choose transformations we like? Or do we get transformed by the world in which we live because of what we’ve done to it?”
The report is part of the sixth major assessment of climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was created in 1988. The first report in the series, released last August, examined the science behind how human activity is heating the planet. A separate report, expected this spring, will explore strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt warming.

 

[Moosey]

UN report: Climate change already so severe humans nearing adaptation limits

The report finds that climate change is affecting every person's physical and mental health.

www.axios.com

Updated Feb 28, 2022 - Energy & Environment

UN report: Climate change is so severe we're running out of time to adapt​

Floodwaters rise in Australia on Saturday. Photo: Patrick Hamilton/AFP via Getty Images
A comprehensive new United Nations-sponsored assessment of climate change finds that global warming is reshaping the world more rapidly and severely than was known several years ago.
Why it matters: The report finds that climate change is affecting every person's physical and mental health, and classifies nearly half of the global population as being "highly vulnerable" to climate impacts.

• Importantly, the report — part of the biggest update to climate science findings since 2014 — concludes it is no longer possible to fully adapt to some global warming impacts.
• It says irreversible losses are occurring among some warm water coral reefs, coastal wetlands and some rain forests.
• The international authors of the report note that once ecosystems reach their hard limits, people will be directly affected as they lose the benefits these natural systems provide.

Driving the news: The report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the most thorough look yet at the impacts of climate change and how communities can best adapt to these changes.

• It contains stark findings, including that warming is already contributing to humanitarian crises, and will increasingly imperil food security.
• U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres described the report in a statement as an "Atlas of human suffering."
• "Nearly half of humanity is living in the danger zone — now. Many ecosystems are at the point of no return — now," he said.

Zoom in: The report notes that we are past the point where "minor, marginal, reactive or incremental changes" will adequately prepare society for the climate impacts that are in store. Instead, it calls for larger-scale shifts "in most aspects of society" to reduce climate risks and enhance resilience, among other goals.

• The report warns that climate change impacts will occur simultaneously, magnifying their effects in ways that may be hard to predict.

Yes, but: The report is not all doom and gloom. It repeatedly emphasizes that if society takes steps to limit warming to 1.5°C, it would prevent many, though not all, of the worst impacts.

• However, even then, some changes may be irreversible — such as Arctic permafrost melt and glacier loss.
• The report provides blueprints for possible adaptation strategies. For example, it says, residents of a coastal community could implement measures to combat sea level rise, ranging from an early warning system for flooding events to raising the height of roads and homes along the water's edge.

Threat level: The new report clearly states that greater impacts of climate change will occur at lower levels of warming than previously thought, based in part on trends seen to date with just 1.1°C of warming since the preindustrial era.

• Scientists are already seeing highly consequential extreme weather events and marine heat waves, along with entire species dying off on land and sea.
• "1.1 degrees is way more dangerous than we thought it was," Erin Coughlan de Perez, a senior adviser to the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, told Axios.

The report finds that just as climate change has adversely affected physical health worldwide, it's also taking a toll on mental health.

• The mental health consequences are mainly coming from trauma related to extreme weather and climate events, such as wildfires, and loss of livelihoods and culture.
• The report notes that poorer societies with less robust infrastructure have been suffering more than the rest of the world.
• Between 2010 and 2020, the report found that deaths from floods, droughts and storms were 15 times higher in highly vulnerable regions — which tend to be in poorer, developing nations —compared to regions with very low vulnerability.

Between the lines: Emerging research in the report also warns against allowing warming to overshoot the 1.5°C temperature target that is baked into many of the scenarios for how the world shifts to clean energy.

• Scenarios that quickly bring temperatures back down by rapidly and significantly cutting greenhouse gas emissions would be associated with lower risks of triggering irreversible impacts.
• The report also warns of the possibility of speeding up global warming during overshoot by melting permafrost, which releases methane and carbon dioxide, further warming the planet.
• "You pass 1.5 and you come back, you've lost things that you will never get back," Coughlan de Perez said. Examples could include mountain glaciers, which are hard to stop melting once it begins.
• Sarah Cooley, director of climate science at the Ocean Conservancy and a contributor to the IPCC report, said marine kelp forests are likely to die off during overshoot, and irreversible changes could occur in other marine ecosystems.

What they're saying: According to Cooley, the typical reaction of the global community to IPCC reports, which come out every six or seven years, is to "hit the snooze button."

• "I think this report is when the parent screams up the stairs, "It's time to get out of bed or you're going to miss the bus,"" she told Axios. "We are really able to zero in now on the choices that are being foreclosed if we delay further."

s://www.axios.com/un-climate-change-ipcc-2022-053ce9eb-0ac4-4b2e-b8ef-554a92769c8b.html

 

[Moosey]

Seems to me that when the US places bans on Russian oil and gas, that the Russians may respond by banning sales of Uranium fuel to the US? who rely on that fuel to supply 20% of the US's electricity needs, some US nuclear companies are concerned with this, this is why I think GLE may be sitting in the box seat, it can supply natural grade Uranium made from the tails at Paducah, but it can also supply HALEU if they were given the go ahead? and it can do it way more efficiently and faster than centrifuge can and for less money.

War scrambles U.S. energy from oil to nuclear

The invasion by Russia has spurred the Biden administration to enact new restrictions on oil and created questions about uranium supplies.

www.eenews.net

War scrambles U.S. energy from oil to nuclear​

By Mike Lee, Carlos Anchondo, Kristi E. Swartz | 03/03/2022 07:08 AM EST
[IMG alt="Andrey Goncharuk, 68, a member of territorial defense, walks yesterday in the backyard of a house damaged by a Russian airstrike, according to locals, in Gorenka, outside the capital Kyiv, Ukraine.

"]https://static.politico.com/dims4/d...f1e855a/ew-0303-lee-ukraine-1160-01.jpg[/IMG]
Andrey Goncharuk, 68, a member of territorial defense, walks yesterday in the backyard of a house damaged by a Russian airstrike, according to locals, in Gorenka, outside the capital Kyiv, Ukraine. AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda





The Biden administration moved to restrict energy technology exports linked to Russia yesterday as fallout from the war in Ukraine widens and U.S. and European companies are forced to make high-stakes decisions about their assets.
The invasion by Russia has spurred oil supermajors to back out of deals and created questions about uranium supplies for nuclear power plants.
When asked if he would consider banning imports of Russian oil yesterday, President Biden said “nothing is off the table.” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is among those pushing a potential ban.

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The Commerce Department will “impose restrictions on technology exports that would support Russia’s refining capacity over the long term,” according to a fact sheet from the White House. That came a day after Biden, in his first State of the Union address, said “Russia’s economy is reeling” and Russian President Vladimir Putin “alone is to blame.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, White House principal deputy press secretary, told reporters aboard Air Force One yesterday that the Biden administration welcomes announcements from American companies that have decided to cut ties with Russia.
Jean-Pierre said the United States doesn’t have “a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy.”
“We and our allies and partners have a strong collective interest to degrade Russia’s status as a leading energy supplier over time,” Jean-Pierre said to reporters. “That’s why we’ve been talking about diversification … and that’s why we shut down Nord Stream 2.”
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was built to carry gas from Russia to Germany. The U.S. imposed sanctions on the company’s Russian owners when the war started and Germany refused to allow the pipe to begin operations.
While published reports suggested a bankruptcy filing, Bloomberg reported that a website associated with Nord Stream 2 said it couldn’t “confirm the media reports” of a bankruptcy filing.
U.S. and European countries have slapped economic sanctions on Russian banks and business leaders in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine, although they’ve taken pains to avoid directly stopping Russia’s exports of oil and natural gas.

Oil import ban?​

Oil prices have climbed steadily since the war broke out last month, with the benchmark for U.S. crude hitting more than $110 a barrel yesterday, up from about $91 a barrel before the war started. Natural gas prices in Europe, which gets about 35 percent of its supply from Russia, have climbed more than 60 percent during the same time.
Western oil companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp., have announced they’re walking away from oil and gas projects in Russia, under pressure from investors and out of concern that the sanctions could be widened to include energy development (Energywire, March 2).
A State Department spokesperson told E&E News yesterday that no option is off the table when it comes to the energy sector, but that U.S. sanctions are designed to harm the Russian economy, not the U.S. economy.
Also yesterday, Manchin’s office confirmed that he and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are planning to file a bill that would prohibit the import of Russian crude oil, petroleum products and liquefied natural gas into the United States.
POLITICO Pro first reported the news. Biden already has the authority to block imports using an executive order.
A one-page draft summary of the bill shared with E&E News said the legislation declares “a national emergency with respect to Russian aggression against Ukraine and the threat to our national security, foreign policy, and economy and directs the President to the authority he has had since 1917 to prohibit imports of crude oil, petroleum, petroleum products and [liquefied natural gas] from Russia.”
Meanwhile, more details are emerging after Exxon’s announcement this week that it is stepping back from its last operations in Russia. Texas-based Exxon owns 30 percent of the Sakhalin-1 project, which produces oil and gas from an island off Russia’s Far East coast, and operates it on behalf of a consortium of Russian, Japanese and Indian companies.
Exxon only gets 1 to 2 percent of its earnings from Russia, CEO Darren Woods said yesterday during the company’s 2022 investor day.
However, sanctions on Russian banks and limits on Russian exports mean the project will have to be shut down to keep its facilities from deteriorating, Woods said. Exxon, as the operator, will be responsible for that work.
“That will be a very thoughtful process, working with our [partners] to make sure that that operation is handed over successfully and without incident,” Woods said.
The American Petroleum Institute has urged the Biden administration to speed up approvals of U.S. export terminals, to help diversify Europe’s energy mix.

Uranium supplies​

War in Ukraine is affecting more than the oil and gas sector in the U.S.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the trade group for a number of nuclear plant operators, has urged the Biden administration to keep uranium sales exempt from sanctions, as Russian forces continue to move into Ukraine, according to a report this week from Reuters, which cited sources familiar with the matter.
NEI did not independently confirm that information with E&E News. In a statement, the organization said that U.S. electric companies get their nuclear fuel supply from a variety of companies and countries.
“While Russia is a significant global supplier of commercial nuclear fuel, U.S. utilities contract with a world-wide network of companies and countries for their fuel requirements to mitigate the risks of potential disruption,” Nima Ashkeboussi, senior director of fuel and radiation safety at NEI, said in a statement sent to E&E News. “We are closely monitoring the situation and are not aware of any impacts to U.S. utility fuel deliveries at this time.”
The United States relies on Russia and its allies Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for roughly half of the uranium powering its nuclear plants — about 22.8 million pounds in 2020 — which in turn produce about 20 percent of U.S. electricity, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the World Nuclear Association.
The issue is being framed as a pocketbook one. Rising energy costs have become a polarizing issue amid inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading some to argue that Russian imports of uranium are needed to keep electricity prices low.
But experts say the issue is not about prices or sanctions. It’s about fueling a longtime push from the U.S. nuclear industry to develop a domestic supply chain for commercial fuel and a uranium reserve.
In a statement, NEI said it supports such measures.
“Currently, conversion and enrichment capabilities in the US do not fully meet the needs of our fleet of reactors. We must import fuel from abroad to ensure communities across the country continue to have access to affordable and reliable energy,” Ashkeboussi said in a statement
The U.S. power sector has emphasized the importance of nuclear in meeting the nation’s net-zero carbon goals. This includes extending the operating life of existing reactors and developing next-generation technologies that can be used as early as the next decade.
The White House did not respond to E&E News’ request for comment about nuclear industry lobbying to prevent sanctions on Russian uranium imports.
“We are listening to all inquiries from industry and will continue to do so as we take measures to hold Russia accountable,” a White House official told Reuters when asked about the uranium lobbying.

Power companies and states​

Duke Energy Corp. and Constellation Energy Corp., two of the largest U.S. nuclear power operators, both provided statements to E&E News yesterday.
“Constellation is deeply saddened by the events in Ukraine and we support U.S. and international efforts to bring the war in Ukraine to a halt,” the company said in a statement.
Both electric companies said they, as well as other operators, have a portfolio of contracts to buy nuclear fuel from a variety of international suppliers. Reactors also are able to run for 18 to 24 months at a time before a refueling, which insulates them from any immediate impact on operations.
“We continue to work with federal policymakers to incentivize the expansion of domestic sources of nuclear fuel services and to improve programs to mitigate the potential impact of any supply disruptions,” Constellation said.
Duke said it continuously monitors policies and events that may impact nuclear fuel markets.
State regulators also are weighing in on the Ukraine crisis.
Mississippi utility regulators on Tuesday directed the electric and natural gas companies they oversee to disclose any ties they have with Russia as well as a plan to sever them.
Brandon Presley, a member of the Mississippi Public Service Commission, asked the electric and gas companies to prepare to confidentially explain to the regulators by March 8 what, if any, connections they have, acknowledging that none may exist.
The request comes after a request from the state’s lieutenant governor that businesses stop buying Russian products, whether Vodka or paper clips.
“Many of you are heavily reliant on natural gas, we know that gets exported at times, we want to know what that looks like,” Presley said at the conclusion of the Mississippi PSC’s meeting. “It’s incumbent upon regulated utilities that have a monopoly status [to] do it; you have a week to do it, it shouldn’t too much of a lift.”
Presley’s request followed the remarks of PSC Chair Dane Maxwell about taking increased cybersecurity measures.
“The threat for cyber intrusion from Russia is becoming more of a possibility; the energy grid is not the only vulnerable asset,” he said. “At the PSC, we are charged to do more. We must focus on efforts on mitigation of risks and vulnerabilities as they apply to the electric grid and natural gas pipelines.”
Reporter Mike Soraghan and the Associated Press contributed.

 

[Moosey]

FACT SHEET: The United States Continues to Impose Costs on Russia and Belarus for Putin’s War of Choice | The White House

Today, the United States, in coordination with Allies and partners, is imposing additional economic costs on Russia and Belarus in response to President

www.whitehouse.gov

The White House


Briefing Room

FACT SHEET: The United States Continues to Impose Costs on Russia and Belarus for Putin’s War of Choice​

March 02, 2022 • Statements and Releases


Today, the United States, in coordination with Allies and partners, is imposing additional economic costs on Russia and Belarus in response to President Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. The United States will take actions to hold Belarus accountable for enabling Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, weaken the Russian defense sector and its military power for years to come, target Russia’s most important sources of wealth, and ban Russian airlines from U.S. airspace.
As a result of our historic, multilateral coordination, Russia has become a global economic and financial pariah. Over 30 countries representing well over half the world’s economy have announced sanctions and export controls targeting Russia. Russia is further isolated from the international financial and trade system. We are preventing Putin from accessing his war chest to soften the blow of our actions and support his invasion of Ukraine. The United States and governments all over the world are going after Putin’s cronies and their families by identifying and freezing the assets they hold in our respective jurisdictions – their yachts, luxury apartments, money, and other ill-gotten gains. And the United States and our Allies are acting in concert to minimize the impact of these measures on our economies, including through a coordinated release of 60 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves. We will continue to impose costs with Allies and partners so long as Putin continues to escalate.
Today’s actions include:

• Sweeping restrictions on Belarus to choke off its import of technological goods in response to its support of Putin’s war of choice. The Department of Commerce will extend the stringent export control policies put in place for Russia to Belarus. This action will help prevent diversion of items, technologies, and software through Belarus to Russia and will significantly degrade both countries’ ability to sustain their military aggression and project power. This will severely limit the ability of Russia and Belarus to obtain the materials they need to support their military aggression against Ukraine, project power in ways that threaten regional stability and undermine global peace and security.
• Full blocking sanctions on Russian defense entities. The Department of State will impose sweeping sanctions that target Russia’s defense sector to further restrict Putin’s war machine. This action will impose significant costs on Russian weapon development and production companies. In total, 22 Russian defense-related entities will be designated, including firms that make combat aircraft, infantry fighting vehicles, electronic warfare systems, missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles for Russia’s military.
• Export Controls Targeting Oil Refining, a Key Revenue Source that Supports Russian Military. Through export controls on oil and gas extraction equipment, the Commerce Department will impose restrictions on technology exports that would support Russia’s refining capacity over the long term. The United States and our Allies and partners do not have a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy – which is why we have carved out energy payments from our financial sanctions. But we and our Allies and partners share a strong interest in degrading Russia’s status as a leading energy supplier over time. These actions will help further that goal, while protecting American consumers.
• Targeting Entities Supporting the Russian and Belarusian Military. The Commerce Department, in coordination with its interagency partners, will add entities that have been involved in, contributed to, or otherwise supported the Russian and Belarusian security services, military and defense sectors, and/or military and defense research and development efforts to the Entity List. These actions will ensure that the military as well as the aerospace, maritime and high-technology sectors do not obtain U.S. technology goods and technology that can be used to support Russian technical maintenance and innovation.
• Banning Russian aircraft from entering and using domestic U.S. airspace. As the President announced, the United States will close off American air space to all Russian flights – further isolating Russia – and adding an additional squeeze on its economy. This includes aircraft certified, operated, registered or controlled by any person connected with Russia. This includes revoking all Russian airlines’ – both passenger and cargo – ability to operate to and from U.S. destinations, as well as refusing entry of any Russian-operated aircraft into U.S. airspace. With this action, the United States stands with over 30 of the world’s most important aviation markets in denying Russian carriers the ability to conduct business.

 

[Moosey]

More Voices Saying More Nuclear

What do D.C. politicos and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, environmentalists and business leaders, conservatives and liberals, national security experts and celebrities agree on?

www.nei.org

More Voices Saying More Nuclear​

What do D.C. politicos and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, environmentalists and business leaders, conservatives and liberals, national security experts and celebrities agree on?


Clean, reliable nuclear energy.


In a highly polarized world, there are few things that still unite people. But one that stands out is carbon-free nuclear power as a climate solution. From Elon Musk to John Kerry to Bill Gates, we’ve seen support for nuclear energy from our world’s most important business leaders and political figures.


Nuclear power not only provides the always-on, affordable carbon-free energy critical to combatting climate change, it also creates jobs and boosts local economies. Advanced nuclear designs can do even more—providing carbon-free energy in new and innovative ways in areas that currently rely on carbon-emitting energy sources, producing hydrogen, and decarbonizing heavy industrial processes. These benefits extend far beyond electricity too, into areas such as medical treatments and space exploration.


For these reasons, nuclear has enjoyed decades of support across political parties, countries, and industries, and over the past year, we’ve seen even more growth in strong voices for nuclear.


Both the administration as well as governments across the country are committed to advancing nuclear power to meet our nation’s decarbonization goals.


An Associated Press survey found that two-thirds of U.S. states say that nuclear will play a role in the transition away from fossil fuels, and over the past year, there’s been significant movement in state policy to pursue nuclear.


The industry has also seen strong bipartisan support from Congress, translating to real commitments like the bipartisan infrastructure package’s major investments in nuclear energy.


“Realizing nuclear power’s full potential nationwide will not only protect air quality and mitigate the long-term effects of climate change, but can help low income households across the country save on their monthly energy bills,” said Representative Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).


The Biden Administration has signaled its “bullish” support of new nuclear, vocalizing the critical role nuclear will play in our clean energy transition.


“The United States views nuclear energy as a pivotal technology in the global effort to lower emissions, expand economic opportunity, and ultimately combat climate change,” said Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy Jennifer Granholm. “We have been supporting the development of SMRs for decades.”


The politicians who shape our nation, Democrats and Republicans alike, are raising their voices, pushing to advance nuclear technologies in efforts to reduce costs, increase reliability, and improve the environment.


Not only is there growing support in Congress, but there’s been increasing support from the business leaders who are at the forefront of technology and investing. From Elon Musk to Bill Gates, powerful people are backing nuclear energy.


“Nuclear power is the only carbon-free energy source we have that can deliver large amounts of power day and night through every season almost anywhere on earth. And it has been proven to work on a large scale,” said Bill Gates, Founder and Chairman of TerraPower, an American nuclear reactor innovation company.


Elon Musk has also publicly supported nuclear energy for many years, and when discussing making bitcoin mining sustainable at a conference last year, he asserted that he is “pro-nuclear.”


It’s not just in the U.S. that we are seeing pivotal figures emphasizing the importance of nuclear technology in decarbonizing the electricity sector. International organizations are recognizing that a global problem requires a global solution—a carbon-free energy source that is reliable, affordable, and can power both our metropolitan hubs as well as our remote communities. Nuclear is the source that can make it all work.


“I've never seen a credible energy transition strategy that does not include nuclear,” said Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance.


NGO’s, journalists, union leaders, and celebrities have also chimed in, asserting that we need more nuclear to save our climate and reach net zero.


To see what everyone is saying about America’s largest clean energy source, visit our new Voices for Nuclear page.

 

[Moosey]

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/envir...m-dominance-leaves-u-s-scrambling-to-catch-up

Environment & Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C. The DOE is moving forward with programs that could bolster the production of uranium that could be used for its existing nuclear fleet and for future reactors.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Russian Uranium Dominance Leaves U.S. Scrambling to Catch Up
March 11, 2022, 10:00 PM

• Russian invasion of Ukraine prompts import worries
• DOE uranium programs run into environmental concerns

The Biden administration is working to accelerate domestic uranium production despite environmental concerns, as the U.S. seeks to lessen reliance on Russia amid possible sanctions on the country’s atomic energy company.
The Energy Department is moving forward with two programs established in 2020—the Strategic Uranium Reserve and HALEU Availability Program—that could bolster fuel supplies for the existing nuclear fleet and for future reactors, a senior DOE official told Bloomberg Law.
The DOE is preparing requests for proposals for both programs as quickly as possible, including purchasing uranium from U.S. producers for a national reserve and spurring more enrichment facilities.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Western countries’ subsequent actions to impose economic pain on the energy-rich country have thrown a wrench into the nuclear fuel supply chain. That’s putting pressure on the department to act quickly.
“This is incredibly important,” Andrew Griffith, deputy assistant secretary for nuclear fuel cycle and supply chain, said in an interview. “If we don’t get this right, it’s going to slow down the really important deployment of this advanced reactor technology in the 2030s and 2040s.”
The agency is trying to address a mismatch in supply and demand: No U.S. facilities produce the fuel because they would need firm commitments from advanced reactors. Advanced reactors will need a steady fuel supply to demonstrate their designs.
Fueling Advanced Reactors

Nearly half of all U.S. imports of uranium come from Russia and its allies, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Russia was slated to supply a more energy-dense type of fuel, called high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, for DOE-funded next-generation reactors expected to begin operation before the end of the decade.
“If anything, the Russian invasion of Ukraine makes the importance of this long-term objective even clearer,” said Alan Ahn, senior resident fellow for nuclear policy for the think tank Third Way. “Right now, we’re trying to figure out alternative supply avenues.”


DOE has touted its Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, which currently funds 10 advanced reactor projects, as essential to achieving the administration’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. It plans to spend $2.5 billion on two projects that will be ready to deploy by 2028: X-energy in Washington State and TerraPower in Wyoming.
This week, Congress approved $45 million for the HALEU Availability Program for fiscal year 2022, an increase from DOE’s budget request of $33 million for the program.
The Build Back Better bill, Democrats’ climate and social spending package that’s stalled in the Senate, would allocate at least $500 million over five years for the program. Nuclear advocates, including the Nuclear Energy Institute and Third Way, have pressed for $200 million per fiscal year for the program.
This week’s funding allocation is hopefully “just the starting point,” Griffith said.
A Market Signal

Russia, prior to its invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions, was expected to provide the specialized energy-dense fuel that most of the smaller advanced reactor designs would require.


The HALEU Availability Program, established by the Energy Act of 2020, could provide incentives for production by committing the DOE to buy some of the first batches of fuel. That would give producers the certainty to build plants while providing advanced reactors more time to become reality, said Adam Stein, associate director for nuclear innovation at the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank.
“It’s intended mostly to be a market signal and a guaranteed buyer before developers are ready,” Stein said. If fuel producers begin to invest in facilities immediately, they would likely be online right as the first reactors are available, Stein said.
The department’s program could also share costs of development of a new HALEU enrichment facility. The DOE’s first HALEU demonstration project, run in partnership with Centrus Energy Corp., is finishing construction and heading toward operation this year.
Congressional support gives DOE a green light to pursue more facilities, said Jeremy Harrell, chief strategy officer for conservative clean-energy think tank ClearPath and chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council.
“It’s really in a spot where it can be scaled up,” Harrell said. “This bill was the key last step to get them to kick-start the program.”
Environmental Concerns

.The move forward on domestic supply will frustrate environmental advocates and tribes that have long stood in opposition to uranium mining and fuel development
Last fall, a coalition of 12 advocacy groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, and Grand Canyon Trust, urged Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to pull back from the idea of a Strategic Uranium Reserve.
The department would have to rely on facilities like the White Mesa Uranium Mill in Utah or the Pinyon Plain Mine in Arizona, near Grand Canyon National Park, harming the White Mesa Ute community and the Havasupai Tribe, the groups argued.
“Uranium mining and processing in the U.S. continues to have tragic consequences, particularly for Indigenous communities in the Southwest,” Amber Reimondo, energy director for the Grand Canyon Trust, said.
“Whatever policy direction the Biden administration takes with respect to Russia and Ukraine, we hope it will be nuanced enough not to subsidize environmental injustices” caused by those facilities, Reimondo said.
Democratic lawmakers have urged the department to reconsider the program and direct the funding to waste cleanup.
A uranium reserve “would almost certainly worsen environmental injustices,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter last September with five other lawmakers.

The recovery of the Uranium in the Paducah tails would have little impact on the environmental issues and in fact would help the enviroment while recovering the equivalent of a tier one mine producing Uranium, it is a win win and one that to my way of thinking is a given and the product from that is in UF6 form already and can easily be used to produce HALEU by a process thst is the best available and is by far a lot more efficient that older technologies, it is a given IMHO and world events are going to bring this forward.

 

[Moosey]

I was once told by another poster that this won't happen in the US?
Seems as if it will now, and it is my belief that the laser Isotope separation method used by Silex may play some part in this?
I would be a safer and cheaper option that other methods to remove unwanted radio actinides IMHO and Silex have stated that the process they use could be used to produce medical Isotopes!
Seems to me as if our oyster may be opening, current world events are starting to help us it seems?

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/New-US-programme-to-investigate-used-fuel-recycle

New US programme to investigate recycling of used fuel

16 March 2022
Share
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced funding of up to USD48 million for a new programme to recycle used nuclear fuel to produce feedstocks for advanced reactor fuel. Converting UNF Radioisotopes Into Energy (CURIE) will be run under the auspices of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E).

(Image: ARPA-E)
"CURIE will fuel advanced reactors and provide important clean energy elements, all while drastically reducing waste," Acting Director of ARPA-E Jennifer Gerbi said. "With this new programme, we're emphasising safeguards and lowered costs as we provide clean energy technology options for the future."
According to ARPA-E's funding opportunity announcement, CURIE's goal is to enable commercially viable reprocessing of used nuclear fuel - or UNF - from the current light water reactor fleet by resolving key gaps/barriers in reprocessing technologies, process monitoring, and facility design.
The actinides in the used fuel would ideally be reprocessed into feedstock that would be used to fuel advanced nuclear reactors, while other commercially valuable materials would be harvested for industrial and medical uses.
Projects funded under the programme will develop innovative separations technologies, process monitoring techniques for special nuclear material, and/or equipment designs that will significantly improve the economics and process monitoring of reprocessing technologies while dramatically reducing the volume of high-level waste from used fuel requiring disposal.
Recyling used nuclear fuel for use in advanced reactors would improve resource utilisation as well as reducing the volume of nuclear waste that requires permanent disposal, the agency said. The technologies could also substantially reduce the heat load and radiotoxicity of waste requiring permanent disposal while providing a valuable and sustainable fuel feedstock for advanced fast reactors.
Individual awards will be for amounts ranging from USD250,000 to USD10 million.
In addition to CURIE, ARPA-E's MEITNER, GEMINA and ONWARDS programmes also support advanced reactor development.
Researched and written by World Nuclear News

 

[Moosey]

"Uranium’s conversion into a gas is the other weak link in the supply chain. The only commercial uranium conversion plants outside of Russia operate in France and Canada."

The US has piles of Uranium waiting to be recovered in UF6 (converted to gas) form sitting at Paducah right now, all it will take is for the price to match what Global Laser see's as being enough to build the first enrichment using Silex technology there, that day is coming soon IMHO?




https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia...nctions-11647777600?mod=series_rusukrainenato
U.S. Rethinks Uranium Supply for Nuclear Plants After Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Much of the enriched uranium used to fuel plants globally is controlled by Russia; calls to increase domestic output

Uranium prices have jumped more than 30% since the start of the war; rocks containing uranium ore.

Photo: Bloomberg
By Jennifer Hiller
March 22, 2022 5:30 am ET



Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken the global market for uranium, a critical fuel for nuclear-power plants, prompting some in the U.S. to propose reviving domestic production.
Russia enriches more uranium for use in nuclear plants than any other country in the world. Its increasing economic isolation following its attack on Ukraine—and talk of potential added sanctions on Russian uranium—have exposed the fragility of global nuclear-fuel supplies, which are controlled by a handful of countries.




Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming—one of the main U.S. uranium-producing states—filed legislation on Thursday to ban Russian imports, calling the dependence on foreign uranium “simply unacceptable.”
Uranium prices have jumped more than 30% since the start of the war as a price hike hits commodities broadly and utilities try to lock down supplies on fears that sanctions could pinch some part of the specialized fuel cycle. A trade agreement limits U.S. dependence on Russian uranium to no more than around 20% of what domestic reactors need, but no other country could quickly fill Russia’s role in a complex supply chain that could take years to rejigger.

Russian uranium enrichment accounts for around 35% of the global market; containers with uranium at St. Petersburg in 2013.

Photo: AP
“U.S. utilities rely on Russia enough that you can’t replace Russia overnight,” said Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC LLC, a nuclear-industry market-research and analysis firm.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group, said it was assessing “the potential impacts of fuel disruption on the U.S. nuclear fleet.” But U.S. plants typically refuel every 18 to 24 months and plan refueling at least two to three years in advance, so there is little immediate concern of a short-term fuel shortage for existing plants, according to the group.
“I think that gives us time to react,” said Maria Korsnick, the group’s chief executive.
Still, uncertainty over securing future nuclear-fuel supplies raises questions for developers designing small modular reactors, or SMRs. Though none are under construction yet in the U.S., many proponents of nuclear generation consider SMRs the future of the industry. Russia was considered the chief supplier for those projects before the war.

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The U.S. has met Russia’s assault on Ukraine with economic penalties targeting Russia’s financial sector and a ban on oil imports into the U.S., but so far, uranium has avoided sanctions. The U.S. relied on Russia and its allies Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for about 46% of its needs in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Nick Akins, chief executive of the utility American Electric Power Co. , which operates the Cook Nuclear Plant in Michigan, said the war has prompted talk of onshoring uranium production and enrichment. “I think things like this are going to change that discussion, and they should,” Mr. Akins said. The Cook plant doesn’t use Russian uranium, he said.
Nuclear power provides about 20% of U.S. electricity generation and 10% of the global total, according to the World Nuclear Association.
While uranium can be mined in many parts of the world, the multistep processing that turns the heavy metal into a fuel is concentrated in a handful of places globally. Uranium must be mined and milled, converted into a gas, and enriched to increase the percentage of the isotope needed for nuclear reactors before fuel fabrication.

A reactor operator at work in a control room at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby, Md., now owned by Constellation Energy.

Photo: Alyssa Schukar for The Wall Street Journal
Each step occurs in specialized facilities, and with the nuclear-power industry in a yearslong decline, there has been little reason for companies in the supply chain to invest. Raw uranium prices haven’t been high enough to encourage U.S. mining over cheaper imports.
Russian uranium enrichment accounts for around 35% of the global market, according to UxC. Uranium’s conversion into a gas is the other weak link in the supply chain. The only commercial uranium conversion plants outside of Russia operate in France and Canada.
The sole U.S. plant in Illinois has been idled since 2017, though it is scheduled to come online again in 2023, according to owner Honeywell International Inc. China has uranium conversion and enrichment plants but tends to supply its own reactors instead of exporting to other countries.

The price of raw uranium is the most visible part of the market, but costs for each processing stage are rising, too, as power producers rethink supply chains and signing new deals with Russian companies.
Boosting domestic capacity would take several years, said Adam Rodman, founder of hedge fund Segra Capital Management LLC. “This market has become too comfortable despite a fragile supply chain,” he said.

The Calvert Cliffs plant’s turbine deck. Constellation operates the nation’s largest fleet of nuclear-power plants.

Photo: Alyssa Schukar for The Wall Street Journal
Natural disasters have taken plants or mines offline for periods before, and the market was hit by a demand shock and languished for a decade after the Fukushima disaster in 2011 led countries including Japan and Germany to close nuclear reactors. But the potential of a supply loss on the magnitude of Russia has no precedent.
“We’re going through a reshuffling that is entirely new since the second World War,” said Mycle Schneider, a Paris-based energy and nuclear-policy consultant who coordinates the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, an annual update compiled by researchers globally.
The Energy Department and some utilities or suppliers also keep small stockpiles, which could help offset potential disruptions. Constellation Energy Corp. , which operates the nation’s largest fleet of nuclear-power plants, said in a regulatory filing that it could meet refueling needs for several years regardless of potential sanctions.
Nevertheless, Constellation and some of its peers are pressing for greater domestic investment in the fuel process, noting long investment lead times are needed. “The reality is that there are a limited number of firms around the world that provide certain nuclear-fuel services,” said company spokesman Paul Adams.



Seems to me that GLOBAL LASER ENRICHMENT (GLE) is the perfect solution to the problems they foresee below?


https://www.spglobal.com/commodity-...-ec-energy-independence-container-rates-china

Replacing Russian uranium in case of ban might cost over $1 billion: DOE

• Author William Freebairn
• Editor Richard Rubin
• Commodity Coal, Electric Power, Natural Gas
• Tags United States
• Topic Russia-Ukraine conflict

Highlights
Legislators introduce bill banning Russian uranium, enriched uranium imports
US utilities rely on Russia for 20% of uranium enrichment
Incentives would be needed to increase conversion, enrichment capacity
Replacing Russian uranium and related nuclear fuel services if they are banned over that country's invasion of Ukraine would require government spending of $1 billion or more, the US Department of Energy's top nuclear energy official said March 17.

Kathryn Huff, the Biden administration's nominee to be assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said during a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that she believed the US supply chain for uranium mining, conversion and enrichment could be bolstered in case Russian nuclear fuel components are banned. However, this would carry a cost in federal appropriations that would be measured in hundreds of millions and could reach more than a billion dollars.
Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican and the ranking member of the committee, led a group of Republican senators introducing a bill March 17 to ban import of uranium ores and concentrates, as well as uranium compounds, either natural, enriched or depleted.
"Banning Russian uranium imports will further defund Russia's war machine, help revive American uranium production, and increase our national security," Barrasso said in a statement that day.
Russia is a significant supplier of uranium and enrichment services to US utilities, with up to 20% of reactor requirements met by uranium enriched in Russia. Sanctions against Russian companies have not affected those involved in nuclear fuel supply and an executive order barring oil, natural gas and coal imports did not include uranium.
The US nuclear industry has sought to protect utilities from disruption that could be brought by sanctions or import bans.
"I do believe that a solution to not only the current fleet's needs for uranium as well as high-assay low-enriched uranium for our advanced reactor fleet can be solved with sufficient support from appropriations and direction from the Department of Energy," Huff said in answer to a question. High-assay low-enriched uranium, known as HALEU, is enriched above normal commercial levels of 5% in the uranium-235 isotope but below the 20% threshold for high-enriched uranium, which raises non-proliferation concerns.
Uranium production will be needed, since the US no longer produces significant quantities of the material, but key needs are to be found in the conversion of uranium and subsequent enrichment to make it suitable for use in nuclear fuel, Huff said.

Incentives for new capacity

There is only one US uranium conversion facility, Honeywell's Metropolis plant in Illinois, and it has been shut since the end of 2017 because of low uranium conversion prices.
In February 2021, Honeywell decided to restart the plant in 2023 because of rising conversion prices and an expected supply shortage, company officials said.
Huff said restarting Metropolis would not be sufficient to fill the supply gap should Russian conversion not be available to US utilities.
Metropolis owners "and other entities could be incentivized to restart our conversion capability rapidly as long as there is a signal from the federal government and from the industry," she said.
DOE has been working with enriched uranium supplier Centrus to begin a supply of small quantities of HALEU at a facility in Piketon, Ohio, and the department has the ability to supply such material through downblending of defense nuclear material, but this would not be sufficient to supply enrichment needs of the existing fleet in case of a ban on Russian imports, Huff said.
"We need an aggressive forward-moving appropriation targeted toward a plan for availability of both low-enriched uranium and high-assay low-enriched uranium in order to support our existing and our future fleets," she said.
Huff, who has served as principal deputy assistant secretary of energy since May 2021, was nominated by Biden to the assistant secretary position in January.

 

[Moosey]

Are you invested in SLX? If so, what are the highlights and lowlights from your perspective?

Zeeb0t, I tried to find your site under the heading "asx share discussion chat sites" I see no mention of your site there, is there any way you could get something in there? As I am sure there are many posters who are fed up with the BS that is occurring on other sites such as HC, you need a greater following here and on more sites than just BRN, if people are looking for an alternative? they would find it very hard to find your site at the moment and HC bans you from even mentioning your site, there must be ways to get others to see your site surely?

Perhaps you could try contacting this person to add your site to their list?

Top stock discussion forums for 2021 | finder.com.au​

https://www.finder.com.au › Share Trading




26 Feb 2021 — We look at 7 popular stock discussion groups from Australia and overseas.