Nuclear Energy Market – China

The Changing Geopolitics of the Nuclear Energy Market – China

The Epicenter of Nuclear Growth

The Ux Consulting Company (UxC) has released a new report on China as part of its series on The Changing Geopolitics of the Nuclear Energy Market. At 150+ pages, this report provides a comprehensive overview of China’s current and prospective nuclear power program and industry, and the role of nuclear in China’s total energy supply.

No country in the world comes close to matching China’s plans for nuclear power expansion. China’s latest official target of reaching 5% of total electricity from nuclear plants by 2020 means that around 78 gigawatts-electric (GWe) of new nuclear capacity should be built over the coming decade. In fact, given current trends, China is on track to potentially becoming the world’s largest user of nuclear power by the year 2030. China’s tremendous new reactor numbers speak for themselves:

• 11 reactors in operation (8,602 MWe)
• 16 reactors under construction today for a total of 15 GWe in new capacity
• 250+ planned new reactors
• 70+ identified reactor sites
• 5 main owner/operating companies and 32 secondary owners identified

Like others in our Geopolitical Series, this report aims to separate the hype from reality and get down to answering serious questions, including:

• How much nuclear capacity and when will they build?
• What technologies will they choose?
• Which companies will be involved?
• What are the factors helping and/or hindering in their development?
• Where will they get the fuel to power their reactors?
• What impact will their growth in nuclear power have on other countries in the region or the world?

Comprehensive Coverage

UxC has carefully sifted through all the available information on China’s nuclear power activities in order to produce the most fact-based, credible estimates for the country’s nuclear power expansion. We assess the economic and energy drivers pushing the nuclear program forward as well as the various challenges facing this accelerated program. In presenting China’s nuclear power prospects, the report examines all the nuclear plant projects, reactor designs, operating companies, suppliers, and investors involved as well as crucial international partnerships supporting the country’s long-term nuclear power objectives.

The report identifies all major details of China’s reactor program, including current reactors, those under construction, and plans for new units. UxC presents its proprietary forecasts for high, base, and low case nuclear power growth scenarios through 2030, examining the potential outcomes for China’s future. These scenarios are also used to present China’s likely requirements for uranium, conversion, enrichment, and fuel fabrication through 2030 as well as its reactor market size.

The report also looks at China’s nuclear fuel cycle program, including uranium production, conversion and enrichment plants all the way through the back end of the fuel cycle.

UxC’s Changing Geopolitics of the Nuclear Energy Market - China special report is available for immediate purchase. The standard price for this report is US$4,500.00 payable upon receipt of invoice by check, credit card, or wire transfer. Discounts are available for existing customers of UxC’s Market Outlook report products and a special discount is available to UxC Policy Watch subscribers.

Energy Resources Says 2009 Uranium Output May Be Flat

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Energy Resources of Australia Ltd., producer of about a 10th of the world’s mined uranium, said it expects 2009 output will be similar to the previous two years.

Third-quarter production increased 4 percent to 1,405 metric tons, or 3.1 million pounds, from 1,349 tons a year earlier, the Darwin-based company said in a statement today.

This was broadly in line with our expectations, David Paterson, general manager of communications and external relations, said by phone today from Darwin. We had some reduction in mining activity. At the same time, we had a positive performance in terms of ore milled.

The company, controlled by Rio Tinto Group, is expanding its Ranger mine in Northern Territory as it expects rising demand from power utilities. Energy Resources has climbed 40 percent in Sydney in 2009, compared with a gain of 30 percent for the S&P/ASX 200 Index.

“The world is entering a carbon-constrained period,” and Energy Resources expects strong long-term demand for uranium, Paterson said.

The company was trading at A$26.57 in Sydney, up 1.4 percent at 3:03 p.m. The S&P/ASX 200 Index was up 0.9 percent.

Energy Resources had production of 5,339 tons in 2008 and 5,412 tons in 2007, according to its Web site. The company expects 2009 output “in line” with those results, Paterson said.

‘Intermittent Interruptions’

The amount of material mined declined 12 percent in the quarter from the third quarter of 2008. Energy Resources cited “intermittent interruptions to operations to allow increased surveillance” of an area of instability on Ranger’s southern wall. “This is not expected to impact on uranium oxide production in 2009,” it said.

The company approved spending of A$37 million ($34 million) to study the development of its proposed “heap leach” facility, a process expected to continue through next year. Energy Resources said a draft of an environmental impact statement would be submitted by early next year to the Northern Territory government.

LINK

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=awPULipJv_OE

Nuclear Energy Key To Future

More than 50 years ago, Australia was set to become the first nation south of the equator to build and operate a nuclear power plant to generate electricity.

About 60 countries are preparing for the Copenhagen climate conference next December equipped with a unique measure of economic assurance and environmental confidence. These are the developed and developing nations that have embraced greenhouse friendly nuclear power as a significant part of their present and future energy policies. By so doing, they will have ensured low-cost and reliable energy security for their industries and private consumers. As well, they will be operating cost-effective emissions trading schemes and laughing all the way to a potential international "carbon bank". The world is bemused that Australia is not in this group.

More than 50 years ago, Australia was set to become the first nation south of the equator to build and operate a nuclear power plant to generate electricity. Sadly, this project and many other planned ventures connected with the technology and commercialisation of the global nuclear industry have not gone ahead. This incredible neglect has been largely due to poor education, the pressures of Australia's hydrocarbon lobby, the pseudo-science of the "renewables" special interest groups and the politics of fear and risk beloved by Australia's "radical greens".

On April 18, 1958, prime minister Robert Menzies opened the Australian Atomic Energy Commission's (AAEC) Research Laboratories at Lucas Heights near Sydney. He challenged the nation to "enter the nuclear age". His vision was shared by Sir Philip Baxter, the first vice-chancellor of the University of NSW and the first chairman of the AAEC. In 1964, Australia's first and only school of nuclear engineering was established at the University of NSW.

For three decades the staff of the school at Kensington and the nuclear engineering division of the AAEC at Lucas Heights were in the forefront of global nuclear research. The university group taught hundreds of Australian and overseas students and published peer-reviewed and internationally acclaimed technical papers, books and theses. In 1982 these included the role of nuclear power in averting global warming and its great importance to Australia to produce electrical energy, potable water and hydrogen.

In 1988, the mandate for civilian nuclear power development was withdrawn from the AAEC and the school of nuclear engineering was closed. This happened even though its staff had played a key role in developing Australia's superb uranium mining industry from the Ranger Uranium Inquiry (1976,) through to development of Olympic Dam and the Northern Territory and Queensland uranium resources.

A secure, clean and cheap energy future for Australia in which nuclear power plays a pivotal role is a categorical imperative. Uranium should be recognised in the Rudd Government's carbon pollution reduction scheme bill as the most valuable and cost-effective form of "carbon offset". And a national energy policy embracing the nuclear fuel cycle deserves bipartisan support. However, locking into a national emissions trading scheme before the international cap- and-trade insights that might be gained at Copenhagen is foolish. It could become a non-productive exercise irrespective of the econometric models used.

Professor Ross Garnaut's final report - released at the end of September 2008 - concedes that nuclear power could supply more than one-quarter of Australia's electricity needs by 2020 if a proposed policy based on "clean coal" and "renewables" fails. But he questions the technology on economic grounds and restates his earlier convictions that Australia is "not the logical first home of a new nuclear capacity". This is one of the many areas in which he and the Rudd Government are at odds with expert world opinion.

Recent data from the US Department of Energy underlines the huge advantages of uranium. The carbon production from coal-fired plants in the US was cited as 0.86 tonnes for one megawatt-hour of electricity production. The figure for gas-fired plants was 0.36 tonnes while that for nuclear plants was 0.005 tonnes. And the outstanding performance of the 104 nuclear power stations in the US during 2008 included a 98 per cent capacity factor and an unmatchable generating cost of 1.68 cents per kilowatt hour. No wonder regulatory processes are well in place for another 25 nuclear plants.

In April this year, Sydney hosted the World Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference. The Chinese delegation was led by the president of China Nuclear Energy Industry, Dr Chen Xinyang. China has an amazing energy and carbon reduction policy based largely on nuclear power. Eleven nuclear plants are already in operation. It is planned to have possibly 100 plants by 2030. China is developing an energy policy based on gradual replacement of its immensely polluting coal-fired plants with nuclear. At the same time it is ensuring its energy security with Australian uranium.

The Australian Government should heed the advice given at the December 2007 Bali climate conference.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, said: ''I have never seen a credible scenario for reducing emissions that did not include nuclear energy."

Australia's 15 uranium trading partners - including the world's "greatest polluters" China and the US - have already embraced nuclear energy and should be an example to follow for all Copenhagen delegates.

Professor Leslie Kemeny is Australian foundation member of the International Nuclear Energy Academy.

Source: The Age

More Uranium Mines Needed As Nuclear Grows ...... 10 September 2009

Nuclear energy's fuel supply infrastructure should be able to meet world demand in the short term, but expansion will be needed across the entire fuel cycle beyond 2020, warns the latest WNA market report.

The newly released report, The Global Nuclear Fuel Market Supply and Demand 2009-2030, is the fifteenth in a series which started in the mid-1970s. Produced by a drafting group drawn from member companies of the World Nuclear Association (WNA), the report is based on the knowledge and opinion of the whole industry. The report uses information gathered via questionnaires from WNA members representing all aspects of the fuel cycle across the globe. A computer model is then used to forecast nuclear fuel supply and demand to 2030.

Western world uranium production (coloured bands) and reactor requirements (red line), 1946-2008 (Image: WNA)

Of the three scenarios presented for world nuclear capacity up to 2030, only the lower scenario sees nuclear generation failing to increase above its 2008 level of 371 GWe. The reference scenario sees an overall 2.2% growth rate reaching 476 GWe by 2020 and 600 GWe by 2030, while the upper scenario sees 558 GWe by 2020 and 818 GWe by 2030. Both reference and upper scenarios are higher than in the 2007 edition of the report, reflecting the emergence of India and China as major nuclear nations.

In a new departure, the latest version of the report produces its three scenarios for nuclear generation to 2030 by country (as opposed to by region), and takes a closer look than ever before at the separate fuel cycle steps of enrichment, conversion and fuel fabrication.

Supplying the demand

Production of uranium from mines - primary production - has been far below the amount required to fuel the western world's power reactors since the mid-1908s, with so-called secondary supplies - inventories, stockpile drawdowns and use of recycled materials including uranium from decommissioned nuclear weapons - making up the shortfall. However, although secondary supplies will continue to play an important part, the report warns that the period of primary supply being so far below annual reactor requirements will have to come to an end with a substantial need for new primary production facilities in the longer term. "Uranium production needs to increase dramatically from its current level," Cameco's Penny Buye, co-chair of the drafting group, told the Symposium. The market must ensure that conditions be conducive for this to happen, she added.

The need for long term expansion to support reactor requirements also extends to fuel cycle services. Although conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication capacities appear to be sufficient to cope with demand up to 2020, new investment will be needed to meet demand under the upper and reference scenarios in the longer term.

New uranium mines take many years to plan and license before they start production. The same is true, to some extent, for new conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities, the report notes. Heavy reliance on secondary sources of uranium supply over recent years has resulted, the report notes, in the industry's supply infrastructure becoming somewhat neglected, and also potentially vulnerable to supply disruptions. "This damage must be repaired over the next period", the report concludes.