Uranium

Kovisars estimates that these delays in start-up of reactors in the USA and Europe may keep the nuclear power plant capacity of the world outside the communist areas down from earlier expectations of 320 GWe for 1990 and 400 GWe for the year 2000, to 278 GWe and 371 GWe, respectively. Current world reactor requirements for uranium total about 32.199 t annually. Kovisar's study sees these requirements increasing to 57.596 t in 1990, and to 61.224 t in 2000. However, he notes that these figures could be significantly changed by reprocessing. Reprocessing spent fuel could reduce the cumulative demand for the period 1983 to 2000 by as much as 18%. Although Kovisars considers this much reprocessing unlikely, he does point, however, out that it is a favored option in France, Japan, and several other countries. Newly commissioned Australian and Canadian projects will prove to be fierce competitors with low operating costs (relative to the industry average) and a considerable scope for expansion. Kovisars forecasts the supply excess to persist well into the 1980s, then gradually come into balance with demand as a result of increased reactor requirements and declining output from depleted mines. This progress will be slowed by factors such as new projects, reprocessing, and redesigning reactors to use less uranium. In the long run, however, Kovisars states that the prices will have to increase to the levels required to provide incentives for new production, which is expected to be far above the current price levels