4 ms·

> I would say that comparing the purchase of gas to the purchase of uranium is uninformed, if not dishonest, for two reasons: - Fuel costs for nuclear is only 1

by jhgb 4y ago

> I would say that comparing the purchase of gas to the purchase of uranium is uninformed, if not dishonest, for two reasons: - Fuel costs for nuclear is only 15-20% of the total cost, half of which is the uranium itself [1]. For natural gas, the majority of the cost is the fuel, even during "normal" times What seems "uninformed, if not dishonest" to me is the argument that fuel price matters here. Imagine this: Your country needs seven doohickeys per year to run. What exactly those doohickeys are is unimportant; the only important thing is that you need then. Russia can provide you with four doohickeys per year. The rest of the world can provide you with only five doohickeys per year, and for many years they won't be able to provide any more than that. So you need at least two doohickeys per year from Russia, no matter what, otherwise your country stops running. So Russia can stop your country from running at any moment. Did you notice how price never entered this discussion? > The reserves of Uranium across the globa are still huge, much of which can be found in (relatively) politically stable places such as Australia and Canada. Reserves of uranium matter here much less than enrichment and fuel assembly production capacity. Russia has over 40% of enriched fuel production capacity (as per https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/conversion-enrichment-and-fabrication/uranium-enrichment.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu...). Until you build new plants for this, it doesn't matter that you can get natural uranium from Australia or Canada. You won't be able to do anything useful with it (unless your reactor is CANDU).

trashtester 4y ago
For Germany's risk, the the price doesn't make a big differencem, should Russia decide to cut off the supply. As long as the supply is NOT cut off, it matters quite a lot what Germany is paying for it. If the choice (for a set period of energy supply) is to pay either 100 billion euros for natural gas, or 20 billion euroes for uranium, the difference is 80 billion euroes less that Russia could spend to keep their war machine running. That's as much as their peacetime yearly military budget. As for Russia's enrichment capacity, that is something any advanced country could set up, just as several countries have deposites they could start mining. Ones mining and enrichment has started, it could be kept running for as long as needed. For natural gas, on the other hand, there are fewer good sources. By far the cheapest source is from wherever it can be transported in pipes. Other countries can convert their gas to LNG for transport to Germany, but that also requires expansion of LNG facilities in both ends, and perhaps construction of more LNG ships. I don't know which take longer, between LNG from other sources or uranium from other sources. And even when the transfer has been made, natural gas is a more limited resource than uranium, so even if it is purchased from, say, Saudi Arabia, the global supply and demand situation isn't changed much, so Russia will still be able to find buyers for their gas. (For instance, Germany may start to buy up gas that would otherwise be exported to China. If so, China can just buy from Russia.) This doesn't even start to go into having dependencies on fundamentalist islamic monarchies in the middle east. I would think it would be preferrable for Germany to import their energy from Canada and Australia, countries they that share most of Germany's values. Finally, with nuclear there is always the option of setting up strategic fuel reserves. This would be analogous to strategic oil reserves, except with massively lower storage costs. Nuclear fuel is stable for 100s of years, and so dense that reserves able to last a few years could probably be fit in a single warehouse (or several small ones): [1] http://lnsp.mit.edu/strategic-fuel-reserves http://lnsp.mit.edu/strategic-fuel-reserves
- jhgb 4y ago
  > If the choice (for a set period of energy supply) is to pay either 100 billion euros for natural gas, or 20 billion euroes for uranium Except that's NOT the choice that Germany is faced with. In the short term, the cheapest way for Germany to cover for any decrease in nuclear generation is to increase her lignite mining, not to buy more gas, which has grown even more expensive. And also notice that this decreases the money Russia would get from 100 billion in your hypothetical example not to 20 billion but rather to 0 billion, all while being even cheaper for Germany. > As for Russia's enrichment capacity, that is something any advanced country could set up It would take many years to replace the 46% [1] Russian share of the global enrichment capacity. Maybe more than a few years -- a decade perhaps. After all, this is all highly controlled, specialized equipment. You can't just go and buy it in a supermarket. > I don't know which take longer, between LNG from other sources or uranium from other sources. It would absolutely take longer for the world to replace Russian uranium fuel production. They've built is up as a Cold War Project-Manhattan-level strategic project over more than a decade. > Finally, with nuclear there is always the option of setting up strategic fuel reserves. As I already responded to someone else, you can't set up a fuel reserve if your expected value of fuel consumption is higher than your expected value of of fuel production (or, acquisition in this case, really). [1] https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/commentary/reducing-russian-involvement-western-nuclear-power-markets https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/commentary/re...
  - trashtester 4y ago
    > It would absolutely take longer for the world to replace Russian uranium fuel production. They've built is up as a Cold War Project-Manhattan-level strategic project over more than a decade. As I said, I don't know. (EDIT, meaning that I don't know, not that I dispute your claim. It would be nice to have actual numbers.) It does also take years to set up transportation capacity for LNG, including the tankers, terminals and other infrastructure. Anyway, had the west realized this exposure for real in 2014, I would have expected that at least some increased capacity would be available outside of Russia already, with an increase in capacity every month as we go forward. And had the output of that capacity been put into strategic reserves, one would have some level of reserve while building up more capacity. What it looks like from your link, is that there was an initative started last year to reduce dependancy on Russian fuel. I suppose time will tell how long it takes to reach reasonable production volumes. And one thing is obvious. Storing and transporting nuclear fuel is orders of magnutudes cheaper than storing and transporting natural gas.

by jhgb 4y ago

trashtester 4y ago

For Germany's risk, the the price doesn't make a big differencem, should Russia decide to cut off the supply. As long as the supply is NOT cut off, it matters quite a lot what Germany is paying for it. If the choice (for a set period of energy supply) is to pay either 100 billion euros for natural gas, or 20 billion euroes for uranium, the difference is 80 billion euroes less that Russia could spend to keep their war machine running. That's as much as their peacetime yearly military budget. As for Russia's enrichment capacity, that is something any advanced country could set up, just as several countries have deposites they could start mining. Ones mining and enrichment has started, it could be kept running for as long as needed. For natural gas, on the other hand, there are fewer good sources. By far the cheapest source is from wherever it can be transported in pipes. Other countries can convert their gas to LNG for transport to Germany, but that also requires expansion of LNG facilities in both ends, and perhaps construction of more LNG ships. I don't know which take longer, between LNG from other sources or uranium from other sources. And even when the transfer has been made, natural gas is a more limited resource than uranium, so even if it is purchased from, say, Saudi Arabia, the global supply and demand situation isn't changed much, so Russia will still be able to find buyers for their gas. (For instance, Germany may start to buy up gas that would otherwise be exported to China. If so, China can just buy from Russia.) This doesn't even start to go into having dependencies on fundamentalist islamic monarchies in the middle east. I would think it would be preferrable for Germany to import their energy from Canada and Australia, countries they that share most of Germany's values. Finally, with nuclear there is always the option of setting up strategic fuel reserves. This would be analogous to strategic oil reserves, except with massively lower storage costs. Nuclear fuel is stable for 100s of years, and so dense that reserves able to last a few years could probably be fit in a single warehouse (or several small ones): [1] http://lnsp.mit.edu/strategic-fuel-reserves http://lnsp.mit.edu/strategic-fuel-reserves

jhgb 4y ago
> If the choice (for a set period of energy supply) is to pay either 100 billion euros for natural gas, or 20 billion euroes for uranium Except that's NOT the choice that Germany is faced with. In the short term, the cheapest way for Germany to cover for any decrease in nuclear generation is to increase her lignite mining, not to buy more gas, which has grown even more expensive. And also notice that this decreases the money Russia would get from 100 billion in your hypothetical example not to 20 billion but rather to 0 billion, all while being even cheaper for Germany. > As for Russia's enrichment capacity, that is something any advanced country could set up It would take many years to replace the 46% [1] Russian share of the global enrichment capacity. Maybe more than a few years -- a decade perhaps. After all, this is all highly controlled, specialized equipment. You can't just go and buy it in a supermarket. > I don't know which take longer, between LNG from other sources or uranium from other sources. It would absolutely take longer for the world to replace Russian uranium fuel production. They've built is up as a Cold War Project-Manhattan-level strategic project over more than a decade. > Finally, with nuclear there is always the option of setting up strategic fuel reserves. As I already responded to someone else, you can't set up a fuel reserve if your expected value of fuel consumption is higher than your expected value of of fuel production (or, acquisition in this case, really). [1] https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/commentary/reducing-russian-involvement-western-nuclear-power-markets https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/research/commentary/re...
- trashtester 4y ago
  > It would absolutely take longer for the world to replace Russian uranium fuel production. They've built is up as a Cold War Project-Manhattan-level strategic project over more than a decade. As I said, I don't know. (EDIT, meaning that I don't know, not that I dispute your claim. It would be nice to have actual numbers.) It does also take years to set up transportation capacity for LNG, including the tankers, terminals and other infrastructure. Anyway, had the west realized this exposure for real in 2014, I would have expected that at least some increased capacity would be available outside of Russia already, with an increase in capacity every month as we go forward. And had the output of that capacity been put into strategic reserves, one would have some level of reserve while building up more capacity. What it looks like from your link, is that there was an initative started last year to reduce dependancy on Russian fuel. I suppose time will tell how long it takes to reach reasonable production volumes. And one thing is obvious. Storing and transporting nuclear fuel is orders of magnutudes cheaper than storing and transporting natural gas.