Great article. As a chemical engineer I can appreciate that this makes Uranium hard to justify especialy if the UF6 come into the equation.

I've had a tube of yellowcake (U3O8) in my shed for more than 20 years. I ain't dead yet.

I think this is a an article which should be widely read.
The problem is that our leaders seem to have no vision past the next election.
What do they care about the legacy that we leave for future generations?
I hope that many people will contact their elected members and remind them that the uranium is an election issue as well as an environmental issue.

An addendum to my own post, because you can never say too much about this.

Here are some industry movies from earlier days, when they were less secretive about the messy difficulties. There is still a kind of naive optimism about the whole deal.

I don't think nuclear would have got a guernsey if it hadn't been for the perceived need to create weapons grade uranium and plutonium.

Although I am heartily against the bullying of Iran (who have handy uranium deposits of their own), dare I say that the Yank's refusal to fully buy the Iranian story of nukes for peace, stems in part from an unspoken admission that nuclear is pretty shonky as a practical long-term power source?

This is the first US plant for power generation. Note the massive concrete shields which must surround each unit-operation.

Part 1:

http://www.archive.org/details/AtomicPo1958

Part 2:

http://www.archive.org/details/AtomicPo1958_2

This is a must-watch. A DoE film about the cleanup of the large old Hannaford installation. They are big on talk, but short on achievements. Note the time-frame - 2035 (and counting). Cost = $90 billion (and counting). Download direct from here (36 mb):

http://www.archive.org/download/acc300/acc300.wmv

Lastly, the cleanup from plutonium production (26 mb):

http://ia300214.us.archive.org/1/items/5decades1997/5decades1997.asf

Despite the bright and shiny beginnings, all the facilities ultimately turn into a rotting technicolour mess, because the chemical and radiological environment is so detrimental to the structures and equipment. Likewise to humans. The old gear cannot be recycled if it is irradiated too badly. All must be buried - somewhere.

I suggest that the pictures we see of the sad and mournful end of nuclear facilities in the old USSR are not exceptional - that their disrepair is not due not only to lack of zeal, but is the inevitable thermodynamic end of an economic cul de sac.

Chris

Thank you for this informative article and for the additional links.

As usual, so much of what what we hear smacks of short term thinking, so yes, lets bring on an informed debate.

Are you able to comment on the use of Thorium as an alternative to Uranium? I am not a scientist, but my lay understanding could be summarised as:
- it has a much shorter half-life than uraniuam;
- thus has less residual risk to future generations;
- it can be used for electicity generation;
- Australia has deposits of some 340,000 tonnes, and;
- Thorium cannot be used as a weapons grade material.

Any information you can contribute, or comparison you could make, would be helpful.

Thanks again.

Peter F

I find this article disappointing because although the technical argument is well presented the idea that 9t DU is produced for every ton of fuel is not enough to prove that uranium energy is not cost-effective. There are no comparative figures with other energy sources in terms of overall energy efficiency, including facility construction costs.

Secondly, the Sellafield plant in the UK is designed to take DU and further refine it to extract more fuel - so the idea that spent fuel and the 9t waste is of no use is not entirely true. Having said that the recycling plant has not been particularly effective to date.

regards
dave rawlinson