Madam, – Tom Kelly (June 16th) points out that supplies of uranium are limited. The Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently published (June 2006) the latest edition of its Red Book, a publication which has reported on uranium resources, production and demand over decades.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the United Nations also participates in the gathering of the data contained. The document states that the amount of uranium available today is 4.7 million tonnes, which is enough to fuel the present fleet of reactors for 85 years. However, it goes on to state that based on geological evidence some 35 million tonnes are available for exploitation.
By 2025 the world nuclear energy capacity is expected to grow to by between 22 per cent and 44 per cent, but the OECD believes the currently identified resources are adequate to meet this expansion.
In the longer term, continuing advances in nuclear technology will allow substantially better utilisation of these resources: reactors will be capable of extracting some 50 to 60 times as much energy from the uranium as present-day reactors do. There is sufficient uranium available to power nuclear reactors for the foreseeable future; also, it is expected that other elements such as thorium will be used to fuel fission reactors. In the long term fusion energy will provide virtually endless power. – Yours, etc,
