Uranium Supply Crunch By 2016

Published on Saturday January 29 2012 (AEST).

A nuclear expert gave uranium supply three more years at most before it seriously falls behind demand from the nuclear power industry.

Mr Thomas Drolet president of Drolet and Associates Energy Services said during a presentation at Cambridge House's Vancouver Resource Investment conference that "2016 We have to have supply in the market or the lights will gradually go out in the nuclear system."

A uranium supply crunch is widely anticipated to hit the nuclear industry starting next year as Cold War era sources of uranium dry up. To illustrate the severity of the shortage that the nuclear industry faces, Drolet highlighted 2010 uranium production from mining 118 million pounds versus consumption 190 million pounds.

Mr Drolet said that you can do the delta difference yourself referring to how much of a supply gap miners will have to make up for in coming years. That uranium is going to have to come from somewhere.

Mr Drolet argued that the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, only delayed the onset of the coming pinch on uranium supply. But even in his downside analysis the uranium deficit still comes by 2015.

While Japan has idled most of its 50 nuclear reactors in the wake of Fukushima, Mr Drolet wagered that the country would have no choice but to bring online at least 30 of the reactors or suffer brutal economic consequences. If it did not do so industry in Japan would start to fail.

(Sourced from www.mineweb.com)