3 ms·
Funding for the source is interesting: > "The Alliance for Science is a global communications initiative based at the Boyce Thompson Institute, an independent
by photochemsyn 4y ago
Funding for the source is interesting:
> "The Alliance for Science is a global communications initiative based at the Boyce Thompson Institute, an independent nonprofit research institute affiliated with Cornell University. Our primary source of support is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."
The article does gloss over where Finland would source its uranium from. A GW-scale nuclear power plant burns through ~200 tons of fuel rods per year, and Finland's supplier seems to have been the Russian state-owned uranium outfit Rosatom:
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/rosatoms-unit-seeks-compensation-finlands-fennovoima-2022-05-06/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/rosatoms-unit-seeks-...
Finland does have plans to start mining and refining uranium ore, but it looks like they'll produce only enough for one reactor:
> "Last year, 35% of Finnish electricity production came from the country’s four nuclear reactors, whose owners Fortum and TVO buy their nuclear fuel from other countries including Russia, France and Canada."
Anyone holding ownership in Canada's high-grade uranium ores is likely going to do well by this move. About that...
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/25/bill-gates-nuclear-power-will-absolutely-be-politically-acceptable.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/25/bill-gates-nuclear-power-wil...
Regardless, countries like Finland which are solar-limited for much of the year are the obvious place for nuclear. Whether they can make their domestic uranium mining operations 'clean and fossil-fuel free', and secure reasonably priced contracts for importing the rest of their required reactor fuel, remains to be seen.
- belorn 4y ago> Finland's supplier seems to have been the Russian state-owned uranium outfit Rosatom "TVO has bought uranium from Canada, Australia and Africa, had it converted to UF6 in Canada and France, and enriched in Russia. Fuel fabrication has been in Germany, Sweden and Spain. Fortum predecessor company IVOl contracted for a complete fuel supply service from Russia for the Loviisa plant." (https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/finland.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...) For a bit more numbers, wikipedia has this: "In 2009, Finland imported nuclear fuel from Sweden (40%), Russia (18%), Germany (2%) and other countries (40%)." Fortum is those 18%. The Swedish plant is to my knowledge American owned, and from the numbers I have seen, the biggest source of uranium that it processes comes from Niger. Canada, Australia and Kazakstan isn't that far however, each sitting around 20%.