U3O8 Uranium.

[stolwyk]

Important development as this could speed up the uptake of Uranium; also, the lead time of this smaller reactor is shorter. Perhaps Queensland wants some as well, LOL:
_____________________________

Russia to Build World’s First Floating Nuclear Power Station for $200,000
Created: 09.09.2005 11:54 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:00 MSK, 15 hours 52 minutes ago

MosNews

Russia’s Federal Nuclear Energy Agency has made a decision to build a low capacity floating nuclear power plant (FNPP), the first project of its kind in the world. The plant will be small and will produce roughly 1/150th of the power produced by a standard Russian nuclear power plant. Construction could begin in 2006 if the project finds financing.

The mini-station will be located in the White Sea, off the coast of the town of Severodvinsk (in the Arkhangelsk region in northern Russia). It will be moored near the Sevmash plant, which is the main facility of the State Nuclear Shipbuilding Center. The FNPP will be equipped with two power units using KLT-40S reactors. The plant will meet all of Sevmash’s energy requirements for just 5 or 6 cents per kilowatt. If necessary, the plant will also be able to supply heat and desalinate seawater.

“If conditions are favorable, the floating plant could be operational in four to five years’ time,” said Yevgeny Kuzin, general director of the joint-stock company Malaya Energetika. By “conditions” Kuzin, who is the project leader, means funding. The small nuclear power station will cost about $200,000. Kuzin says that it will be hard to secure the necessary money. Russian businessmen have become used to making quick returns on their investments, and few are prepared to wait for long-term returns. Yet there are still some businessmen who break the mold and are aware of the benefits of taking a longer-term perspective.

And the concept of the FNPP is very promising. Small FNPPs would be a blessing for the Russian regions adjoining the Arctic Ocean. These areas lack centralized energy supplies, and an FNPP would be an independent source of energy. It is specifically this feature of the Russian technological innovation that is attracting attention abroad: Indonesia, Malaysia, and China have all shown interest in the project. The plant off the coast of Severodvinsk will therefore also act as a prototype that can be seen by potential foreign customers.

The steps for implementing FNPP project are as follows. A site for the floating power unit has to be selected in coastal waters, not far from the recipient of the power supply (be it a town, village or enterprise). The unit, which is powered by two reactors and accommodates engineering and amenity services, is then towed out to this site by a tug. The unit should be supported by compact onshore infrastructure — transformers, pumps, heat supply units, etc. Then the plant is commissioned. It will have the capacity to supply energy to a town with a population of 200,000. If the entire capacity of the plant is switched over to desalinization of sea water, it will be able to produce 240,000 cubic meters of fresh water a day. “When the plant is decommissioned and pulled out, it leaves absolutely no pollution,” Kuzin said, quoted by RIA Novosti.

Potential terrorist threats were also taken into account when designing the plant’s security system. The latest scientific and technological advances in this field have been incorporated to prevent unauthorized access to fissile materials aboard the plant. Among other things, fingerprint and iris identification technologies will be used. The plant will also be protected against possible subversive attempts by terrorist divers. Much thought has been given to protecting the plant from external factors. For example, if an airliner, even one as big as a Boeing, were to fall on the plant, there is no way it would destroy the reactor.

The project head also maintained that Russia would not sell the floating nuclear plants to other countries, should a number of them be made in the future. “Russia will only sell its products — e

[Geoff7]

http://www.mineweb.net/sections/whats_new/483199.htm

U.S., Australia may allow new uranium mines
By: Dorothy Kosich
Posted: '09-SEP-05 05:00' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2004

LAS VEGAS--(Mineweb.com) Uranium experts asserted Thursday that, like it or not, the United States is moving toward a nuclear society, and Australia is on the verge of allowing new uranium mines.

In a panel at the Las Vegas Gold & Precious Metals Conference, Dave Miller, Chief Geologist for Strathmore Minerals, predicted that a century from now, "90% of our energy will come from nuclear power." He suggested that uranium prices are high enough to stimulate new mine production.

Mineweb columnist Doug Casey, Chairman of Casey Research, claimed that nuclear power is the safest form of mass power generation, the cleanest form of mass energy generation, and the cheapest source of power.

Miller predicted that New Mexico, which has a long history of uranium mining for government purposes, will again allow the mining of uranium.

Marc Henderson, President of Laramide Resources, suggested mining investors "watch what the politicians of the world are doing, not what they are saying" when it comes to nuclear energy." For instance, one of the most environmentally conscious nations in the world, Sweden, gets half its power from nuclear energy, he noted.

Casey asserted that the real problem for uranium miners "is the politics of permitting," resulting in decade-long permitting timetables for project approval. Nevertheless, as oil continues to get more expensive, Casey feels interest in nuclear energy will become even stronger in the United States.

Miller noted that only one state, Virginia, has actually banned uranium mining. He also suggested that former uranium producer New Mexico will resume uranium mining,

Even Australia, which Henderson called the "Saudi Arabia of uranium," is rethinking its position against new uranium mines, thanks to economic and political pressures from China. In fact, he added, "we are quite surprised with the speed that the political winds are changing in Australia." Stewart Taylor, Vice President, International Operations for Maple Minerals, said he feels that "there is absolutely no problem with developing new mines in Australia. ...The situation, we feel, is going to change very quickly to be very favorable to uranium mining."

The panelists said they were more concerned about the multitude of junior companies which have jumped into uranium exploration and development, rather than the question of whether nuclear energy will become a major power source. Nevertheless, Henderson asserted that while "uranium is very abundant," it does not "aggregate well into deposits that are economic."

Taylor estimated that at least 230 junior exploration and major mining companies are currently looking for uranium. Nevertheless, he claimed only about 50 of these companies actually have uranium resources. Casey suggested that of the 140 publicly-traded companies in North America who say they are looking for uranium, "most of them aren't serious."

Casey declared that "I am not big on companies spending a lot of money finding new deposits," adding that he prefers companies that have identified historic uranium deposits. He also discounts "most of the juniors who are newbies to the game." Casey also speculated that most competent uranium mining and exploration professionals have "already been scooped up" by junior companies.

In response to a question by panel moderator Jim Dines, Casey refused to recommend any uranium exploration or mining stocks, noting that he examined 35 companies six months ago. "If you buy a stock based on a recommendation from a podium," he said, "that's a recipe for disaster."

Taylor suggested that there are a lot of uranium resources out there "that will never be mined." Maple is searching for resources "that can be mined at current prices." Therefore, "when prices go up, they make a lot of money," he added.

Taylor does not give much credence to predictions hat uranium supplies will meet demand

[laurie]

Price changed upto US$30.75/lb


cheers laurie

[stolwyk]

India unveils safest thorium reactor (Thanks Katy28)

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/1...5,00040006.htm

TEXT:
New Delhi, August 25, 2005

India on Thursday unveiled before the international community its revolutionary design of "A Thorium Breeder Reactor (ATBR)" that can produce 600 MW of electricity for two years "with no refuelling and practically no control manoeuvres."

Designed by scientists of Mumbai-based Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), ATBR is claimed to be far more economical and safer than any power reactor in the world.

Most significantly for India, ATBR does not require natural or enriched uranium which the country is finding difficult to import. It uses thorium -- which India has in plenty -- and only requires plutonium as "seed" to ignite the reactor core initially.

Eventually, ATBR can be running entirely with thorium and fissile uranium-233 bred inside the reactor (or obtained externally by converting fertile thorium into fissile Uranium-233 by neutron bombardment).

BARC scientists V Jagannathan and Usha Pal revealed the ATBR design in their paper presented on Thursday at the week-long "international conference on emerging nuclear energy systems" in Brussels. The design has been in the making for over seven years.

According to the scientists, the ATBR while annually consuming 880 kg of plutonium for energy production from "seed" rods, converts 1100 kg of thorium into fissionable uranium-233. "This differential gain in fissile formation makes ATBR a kind of thorium breeder."

The uniqueness of the ATBR design is that there is almost a perfect "balance" between fissile depletion and production that allows in-bred U-233 to take part in energy generation thereby extending the core life to two years.

This does not happen in the present-day power reactors because the fissile depletion takes place much faster than production of new fissile ones.

BARC scientists say that "ATBR with plutonium feed can be regarded as plutonium incinerator and it produces the intrinsically proliferation resistant U-233 for sustenance of future reactor programme."

They say that long fuel cycle length of two years with no external absorber management or control manoeuvres "does not exist in any operating reactor."

The ATBR annually requires 2.2 tonnes of plutonium as "seed." Although India has facilities to recover plutonium by reprocessing spent fuel, it requires plutonium for its Fast Breeder Reactor programme as well. Nuclear analysts say that it may be possible for India to obtain plutonium from friendly countries wanting to dismantle their weapons or dispose of their stockpiled plutonium.



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[stolwyk]

Sorry, no reference.

Life cycle analysis: external costs and greenhouse gases

A principal concern of life cycle analysis for energy systems today is their likely contribution to global warming. This is a major external cost.

If all energy inputs are assumed to be from coal-fired plants, at about one tonne of carbon dioxide per MWh, it is possible to derive a greenhouse contribution from the energy ratio. With major inputs, this is worth investigating further.

Uranium enrichment in USA is by diffusion and some of this capacity is supplied by coal-fired plants. If a national average, allowing for different sources of power, is applied, this input has a value of around 650 kg CO2/MWh. This gives a greenhouse contribution for nuclear power of about 40kg/MWh overall. In France, however, which has the world's largest diffusion enrichment plant, electricity is supplied by on-site nuclear reactors (which also supply the grid). Because of this, the greenhouse contribution from any nuclear reactor using French-enriched uranium is similar to a reactor using centrifuge-enriched uranium -- less than 1kg/MWh for the enrichment input, and less than 20 kg/MWh overall.

Rashad & Hammad conclude that the life cycle CO2 emission coefficient for nuclear power, on the basis of centrifuge enrichment, is 2.7% of that for coal-fired generation. This is consistent with other figures based on fossil fuel inputs.

The ExternE study (1995) attempted to provide an expert assessment of life cycle external costs for Europe including greenhouse gases, other pollution and accident potential. The European Commission launched the project in 1991 in collaboration with the US Dept of Energy (which subsequently dropped out), and it was the first research project of its kind "to put plausible financial figures against damage resulting from different forms of electricity production for the entire EU". A further report, focusing on coal and nuclear, was released in 2001.

The external costs are defined as those actually incurred in relation to health and the environment and quantifiable but not built into the cost of the electricity to the consumer and therefore which are borne by society at large. They include particularly the effects of air pollution on human health, crop yields and buildings, as well as occupational disease and accidents. In ExternE they exclude effects on ecosystems and the impact of global warming, which could not adequately be quantified and evaluated economically.

The methodology measures emissions, their dispersion and ultimate impact. With nuclear energy the (low) risk of accidents is factored in along with high estimates of radiological impacts from mine tailings and carbon-14 emissions from reprocessing (waste management and decommissioning being already within the cost to the consumer).

The report shows that in clear cash terms nuclear energy incurs about one tenth of the costs of coal. In particular, the external costs for coal-fired power were a very high proportion (50-70%) of the internal costs, while the external costs for nuclear energy were a very small proportion of internal costs, even after factoring in hypothetical nuclear catastrophes. This is because all waste costs in the nuclear fuel cycle are internalised, which reduces the competitiveness of nuclear power when only internal costs are considered. The external costs of nuclear energy averages 0.4 euro cents/kWh, much the same as hydro, coal is over 4.0 cents (4.1 - 7.3 cent averages in different countries), gas ranges 1.3-2.3 cents and only wind shows up better than nuclear, at 0.1-0.2 cents/kWh average.

The EU cost of electricity generation without these external costs averages about 4 cents/kWh. If these external costs were in fact included, the EU price of electricity from coal would double and that from gas would increase 30%. These particular estimates are without attempting to include possible impacts of fossil fuels on global warming. See also ExternE web site.

Adding further confirmation to figures already published from Scand

[stolwyk]

After India's Thorium Reactor (See a couple of posts back, we now have another would be contender:

Public release date: 24-Aug-2004
[ Print Article | E-mail Article | Close Window ]

Contact: Mary O'Malley
m.omalley@unsw.edu.au
61-2-4388-81124
University of New South Wales

Vast new energy source almost here
Solar hydrogen fuel dream will soon be a reality
Australian scientists predict that a revolutionary new way to harness the power of the sun to extract clean and almost unlimited energy supplies from water will be a reality within seven years.
Using special titanium oxide ceramics that harvest sunlight and split water to produce hydrogen fuel, the researchers say it will then be a simple engineering exercise to make an energy-harvesting device with no moving parts and emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants.

It would be the cheapest, cleanest and most abundant energy source ever developed: the main by-products would be oxygen and water.

"This is potentially huge, with a market the size of all the existing markets for coal, oil and gas combined," says Professor Janusz Nowotny, who with Professor Chris Sorrell is leading a solar hydrogen research project at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Centre for Materials and Energy Conversion. The team is thought to be the most advanced in developing the cheap, light-sensitive materials that will be the basis of the technology.

"Based on our research results, we know we are on the right track and with the right support we now estimate that we can deliver a new material within seven years," says Nowotny.

Sorrell says Australia is ideally placed to take advantage of the enormous potential of this new technology: "We have abundant sunlight, huge reserves of titanium and we're close to the burgeoning energy markets of the Asia-Pacific region. But this technology could be used anywhere in the world. It's been the dream of many people for a long time to develop it and it's exciting to know that it is now within such close reach."

The results of the team's work will be presented in Sydney on 27 August to delegates from Japan, Germany, the United States and Australia at a one-day International Conference on Materials for Hydrogen Energy at UNSW.

Among them will be the inventors of the solar hydrogen process, Professors Akira Fujishima and Kenichi Honda. Both are frontrunners for the Nobel Prize in chemistry and are the laureates of the 2004 Japan Prize.

Since the Japanese researchers' 1971 discoveries, science has made major advances in achieving one of the ultimate goals of science and technology – the design of materials required to split water using solar light.

The UNSW team opted to use titania ceramic photoelectrodes because they have the right semiconducting properties and the highest resistance to water corrosion.

Solar hydrogen, Professor Sorrell argues, is not incompatible with coal. It can be used to produce solar methanol, which produces less carbon dioxide than conventional methods. "As a mid-term energy carrier it has a lot to say for it," he says.

[Moonshine]

Price of U308 up USD$0.50 overnight to USD$31.25/lb.

Keeps on keeping on...

Good news for all U stocks... the boom coninues/gains momentum!

[stolwyk]

U price: +75 cents to $US32.00

[laurie]

$8 short of 1980 high price of $40

cheers laurie

[laurie]

quote:The South Australian Labor Party has watered down a motion to tighten regulations for uranium mining.

The ALP's state convention yesterday agreed to urge the Government to apply the strictest environmental conditions on uranium mining.

But delegates stopped short of endorsing a motion by Labor MP Frances Bedford to tighten the regulation of uranium mining.

Premier Mike Rann and Treasurer Kevin Foley have indicated their support for increased uranium mining in South Australia but Ms Bedford is cautious.

"We understand that uranium mining is going to be expanded, there's not a lot we can do about that, but what we need to make sure is that it's done in the most responsible and sustainable way possible," she said.

cheers laurie