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Originally Posted by Rob_D  Uranium is a common element - there are low levels in just about everything including you and me. Current price & consumption rate means reserves lasting 100+ years. |
We're not discussing current consumption, we're discussing future energy needs in low carbon economies all over the world. Very few countries currently use a lot of nuclear power, if the world switches over to low carbon generation then more and more countries will have to switch to nuclear, so current price and consumption rates will go through the roof. Just look at oil prices and think of that kind of effect on uranium.
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Originally Posted by Rob_D Total uranium mining is only about 50,000 tonnes per year which is pretty small scale compared to other mineral extraction. World copper extraction is 15,000,000 tonne. Iron is over a Billion tonnes. The environmental impact of uranium mining isn't significant compared to other mining activities. |
Look at how the price of copper went sky high over the last few years when global demand went up. As i said above, apply that to uranium and then tell me that the UK is sensible building a power supply network that is dependent upon a supply over which we will have no control of either pricing or of supply itself.
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Originally Posted by Rob_D Of course there are issues around nuclear power, but the mining and continuity of uranium supply isn't going to be the key problem any time soon. |
Any time soon? You obviously have been on holiday to another planet the last few years. Just look at the news. As soon as a country begins to develop its own uranium processing facilities the countries who are currently controlling the processing market attack them - Iran is a very good example.
This isn't about Iran having nuclear weapons, it's about Iran becoming another player in the uranium enrichment marketplace. Those who currently have control want to retain complete control of the uranium market and they use the nonsense threats of WOMD to go and start wars against any country who threatens their stranglehold on the uranium market.