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The EU gets 20% of its uranium from Russia, and another 20% from Kazakhstan which, despite its recent refusal to participate in the war, is still deeply tied wi
by Tade0 5y ago
The EU gets 20% of its uranium from Russia, and another 20% from Kazakhstan which, despite its recent refusal to participate in the war, is still deeply tied with Russia.
- masklinn 5y agoUnlike natural gas though, uranium is easy to stockpile and doing so is pretty standard (IIRC france keeps 2~3 years worth of fuel stockpiled, plus a 5 years strategic reserve), and there are no new pipelines to build and install if you look for a new supplier, it's "just" a question of that supplier ramping up production or opening mines for whatever price they are interested in. The steps inbetween are pretty much standard international shipping in intermodal containers.
- smotah 5y agoThe main difference is that: - the weight of uranium compared to the weight of coal needed for the same amount of energy produced is absolutely ridiculous: 2.5 metric tons vs. 7 grams of uranium 235. That make it easy to stockpile it for years to come - Some "waste" are already being recycled and used again - uranium is uniformly distributed on earth, there's not the same geopolitical issues that we experience for fossil energy sources such as oil and gas - I'm not sure whether those 20%/20% proportions are true since some EU countries does not disclose the part of uranium imported from each countries - Australia, Niger and Canada are also some major players for EU uranium import, none of which want to back Russian war, quite the contrary according to the UN vote.