Uranium supply analysis: Evolution of concepts

Considerable effort has been expended during the last 15 years to develop improved methods of analysing current and future mineral supply, with the objectives of providing illustrations of mineral supply possibilities that are more meaningful and easily understood. Significant contributions toward these objectives have been made in the course of studies on world uranium supply, which took place in the 1970s prompted by concern about the future availability of mineral fuels. The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have played a key role in these efforts, through their biennial assessments of world uranium supply. There has been a pronounced shift in emphasis in the NEA/IAEA assessments away from resource estimates by themselves as a measure of supply, because of a growing awareness that, in isolation, resource estimates cannot provide a truly meaningful illustration of uranium availability. Indeed, resource estimates taken out of context can lead to false conclusions about resource adequacy. Successive NEA/IAEA studies have made increasing use of projections of production capability that show the possible availability of uranium from different categories of resources and production centres over specified time-frames. It is believed that such supply scenarios provide a much more meaningful illustration of uranium availability for both short and long-term planning purposes. As part of the effort to introduce such an approach to NEA/IAEA uranium supply analyses, the IAEA has prepared a manual which provides general guidelines for preparing projections of production capability. It is hoped that these efforts will contribute to a better understanding of the constraints on uranium supply and to the wider acceptance of projections of production capability as measures of resource adequacy. (author)