Shaun Fletcher
Declining uranium supplies suggest nuclear power is not the magic bullet some might have hoped for to replace fossil fuels.
By burning fossil fuels, conventional power plants and vehicles factor in to global warming by emitting carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat from the sun.
Advocates of nuclear power suggest it could help prevent global warming, since nuclear plants generate electricity without releasing carbon dioxide.
But critics of nuclear power have for decades linked it with dangers such as radioactive waste and nuclear weapons. There also remain fears that nuclear plants could undergo catastrophes such as a meltdown, as seen with Chernobyl, or a terrorist attack.
Now it seems that mining uranium, which nuclear power depends on, could be even less environmentally friendly and more costly than critics say, according to a new analysis led by Gavin Mudd, an environmental engineer at Monash University in Australia.
On average, supplies of high-quality uranium ore have been steadily declining worldwide for the past 50 years, and will likely to continue to wane in the mid- to long-term, Mudd said. Any new uranium deposit is likely to be deeper and harder to extract, and getting uranium from lower-quality deposits involves digging up and refining more ore, according to their analysis of government and industry reports.
uranium supply
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