European utilities building up uranium inventories

Thursday, 3 July 2008

Utilities in the 27 European Union states have started to rebuild their inventories of uranium, according to the Euratom Supply Agency. Plutonium recycled in European reactors saved the equivalent of over 1000 tonnes of natural uranium.

 

The Euratom Supply Agency (ESA), set up under the Euratom Treaty in 1960, ensures that all European Community countries who use them receive a "regular and equitable" supply of ores and nuclear fuels, and aims to ensure EU countries obtain their uranium from a diverse range of suppliers without being overly dependent on any one source. All EC supply contracts are legally required to be completed through the ESA.

 

In its newly released annual report, the ESA notes that over the year, 21,932 tonnes of natural uranium (tU) delivered to the EU was well above the 19,774 tU loaded into reactors, meaning that inventories are being rebuilt. ESA says that the rebuilding of inventory is in response to security of supply concerns and rising prices, and is being done almost entirely under long-term contracts at an average price of €41/kgU ($21.60/lb U₃O₈) in 2007. Supplying 25% of the EU's uranium, Russia total overtook Canada to become the largest supplier to the region, although the ESA notes that some of the Russian supply of fabricated fuel may have come from Kazakhstan or elsewhere. Canada's share was 18%; Niger's, 17%; and Australia's, 15%.

 

Conversion, enrichment

 

As well as the supply of natural uranium, nuclear fuel supplies also depend on the availability of conversion and enrichment services for processing and increasing the level of fissile uranium-235 for use in a power reactor.

 

For the time being, ESA said, European conversion capacity is sufficient to meet EU requirements. EU enrichers can currently meet demand and will need to increase their capacities only by 2013 in order to satisfy the needs of EU utilities. A shortfall in capacity would not at the moment appear to be likely: France's Georges Besse II enrichment plant is on scehdule to start up before the end of 2009 and its first two modules could reach full capacity of 7.5 million SWU capacity in 2016. By 2012, Urenco intends to increase its total production capacity to about 15 million SWU - an increase of about 50% over current capacity, the agency noted. Some 31% of enrichment services used by the EU in 2007 came from Russia.

 

Reduce, reuse, recycle

 

Recovering plutonium from spent nuclear fuel and then recycling it by using it in mixed oxide (MOX) fuel can further contribute to reducing requirements for natural uranium and energy-hungry uranium enrichment. Each tonne of plutonium saves the equivalent of 120 tonnes of natural uranium and 80 tSWU. Some 40 European nuclear reactors are licensed to use MOX fuel, and about 30 reactors in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany currently include MOX in their fuel loads. Dutch utility EPZ has also recently applied to use MOX in its Borssele plant. In 2007, the ESA reported, 8.6 tonnes of plutonium were loaded into European reactors in MOX fuel, displacing some 1035 tonnes of natural uranium in 2007 and 690 tSWU. In total, 104 tonnes of plutonium has been used in MOX fuel in the EU since 1996.