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Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas. It is not like Germany has vast Uranium reserves. When the Green/Social Democrat coalition u

Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas. It is not like Germany has vast Uranium reserves. When the Green/Social Democrat coalition under Schröder decided on stopping nuclear the idea was to largely exchange that for renewables (and the German wind and solar industry was leading in the world at the time). This would have been a much bigger step toward energy independence. The coal, nuclear and gas lobby (note that they typically are the same lobbyists) strongly pushed to reverse that decision and the Conservative, free Liberal coalition under Merkel initially reversed the decision, but at the same time was generally pushing for the cheapest energy solutions, which was largely gas. The strong regulations put into place for wind and solar at the time largely destroyed Germanys wind and solar industry, because domestic demand Collapsed. It is important to remember that Germany has still very strong manufacturing industries who hold a lot of sway over the government. When Fukushima happened public sentiment went strongly towards quiting nuclear again. There was not really much opposition from industry either, because nuclear was more expensive than gas so we saw an even stronger push toward gas.

DrBazza 4y ago
Is that right? Almost 50% of the world’s uranium comes from Khazakstan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...
- ed_balls 4y ago
  Ukraine has a large deposit of uranium as well.
- x86x87 4y ago
  Does production == having the resource? Asking because I think it's possible that many places don't bother to mine it due to a combination of regulations and cost. LE: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium... So, Australia is where most of the uranium is :| Also, Russia does seem to have significant reserves that could be mined.
- alexott 4y ago
  My official study was in the area of uranium enrichment. The situation in Soviet Union was always following - mostly Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan mined the raw uranium and did first enrichment pass (I grew up in one of that areas), and then final enrichment was done in Russia. I’m not involved into that anymore for more than 20 years, but I doubt that situation has changed significantly as it requires significant capital investment, plus know-how…
schroeding 4y ago
> It is not like Germany has vast Uranium reserves. ... actually we do, around 130.000 tonnes of it[1,2]. Of course not as vast as some other countries, but still substantial. We just don't mine and refine it anymore. I don't know if this should be an actual argument pro nuclear, but we have it. The GDR / DDR even supplied the Soviet Union with Uranium via SDAG Wismut[2]. [1] https://infcis.iaea.org/UDEPO/Statistics/ResourceByCountryAndType https://infcis.iaea.org/UDEPO/Statistics/ResourceByCountryAn... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wismut_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wismut_(company)
- DrBazza 4y ago
  Best link I could find mentions Russia as well as all the other countries. See the uranium mining section. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    East Germany was the fourth largest producer of uranium ore. After the reunification we just closed those mines, just as we shut down East German nuclear plants. If there was a compelling reason we could presumably start mining and refining those deposits again.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  I recently read “Fall of Berlin” - spends several chapters describing how one of the USSRs main goals was seizing German uranium for weapons.
hef19898 4y ago
That, and gas is used for heating not for electricity generatuon. Which part of Germany's problem with high CO2 emmisions.
_n_b_ 4y ago
> Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas. Nope. Pre-Ukraine conflict, 55% of Germany's gas came from Russia [1]. In 2021, 19.69% of Europe's Uranium came from Russia [2]. And fundamentally, the relative energy density of enriched uranium means that it's much easier to shift from one source to another versus gas. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/how-reliant-is-germany-and-europe-russian-gas-nord-stream https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/how-reliant-is... [2] https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/activities/market-observatory_en https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/activities/market-observ...
kergonath 4y ago
> Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas. This is very misleading, comparing EU imports on one side and Germany on the other. The biggest uranium reserves are in Kazakhstan, Canada, and South Africa. At the moment, uranium used in Europe comes from Niger, Russia and Kazakhstan in about the same quantities (2500 tons each), followed by Canada (2300 tons) and Namibia (1600 tons). Overall, Russian uranium is ~20% of EU imports. For gas it was ~40% (~20% for Germany), and for oil ~30%. Also, both oil and uranium are easily imported by boat, whereas gas was so cheap because of the pipelines. So, not really comparable overall. Switching uranium suppliers costs nothing. Switching gas suppliers renders huge infrastructure investments worthless. It has been obvious for quite a while that structural dependency on Russian gas was a huge strategic mistake. Doing without will be much more painful than not doing it in the first place.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  I thought Germany and Czechia had large supplies of Uranium, is that not the case?
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    Czech uranium reserves were severely depleted in the 1950s in order to supply Soviet nuclear arms industry. (Political dissenters were forced to work in those mines in horrible conditions.)
  - kergonath 4y ago
    Not that I know of. I came across a more complete picture[1], with probably more accurate numbers than my recollection (Australia turns out to have much, much more uranium than I remembered, for example). They don’t really mention significant resources in Europe, but there might be a discrepancy between resources that can be mined, and just stuff that’s in the ground or something like that. Wikipedia mentions 119000 tonnes in Czechia, but I don’t know how reliable it is[2]. [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium...
amadeuspagel 4y ago
> Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas. That's not comparable because the energy density of Uraniam is much higher, sufficient Uraniam can be imported from anywhere with any kind of transportation, so wherever the Uraniam comes from now, it can easily be imported from many other countries and doesn't make us dependent on anyone.
gaius_baltar 4y ago
> It is important to remember that Germany has still very strong manufacturing industries who hold a lot of sway over the government. Good for them to not get rid of their industrial base otherwise they will depend on China more than the USA (that was (still?) proud of becoming a service economy) does.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  Germany has an enormous trade exchange with China and one of the Merkel policies was not to rock the boat too much.
Turing_Machine 4y ago
The situations aren't comparable. One charge of fuel for a nuclear reactor lasts for years, while natural gas gets burned more or less as fast as it is produced (there's some storage, but it's certainly not measured in years). If a bad actor cuts off the supply of uranium for your reactor, you have several years to find a new source. If a bad actor cuts off your supply of natural gas, you'll have a crisis in days or weeks at most.
panick21_ 4y ago
But Uranium can be found in many places and its very easy to transport. You are not actually dependent on Russia. > This would have been a much bigger step toward energy independence. You know what would have been a much, much, much bigger step? To keep nuclear and invest in nuclear instead of gas and coal.

DrBazza 4y ago

Is that right? Almost 50% of the world’s uranium comes from Khazakstan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...

ed_balls 4y ago
Ukraine has a large deposit of uranium as well.
x86x87 4y ago
Does production == having the resource? Asking because I think it's possible that many places don't bother to mine it due to a combination of regulations and cost. LE: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium... So, Australia is where most of the uranium is :| Also, Russia does seem to have significant reserves that could be mined.
alexott 4y ago
My official study was in the area of uranium enrichment. The situation in Soviet Union was always following - mostly Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan mined the raw uranium and did first enrichment pass (I grew up in one of that areas), and then final enrichment was done in Russia. I’m not involved into that anymore for more than 20 years, but I doubt that situation has changed significantly as it requires significant capital investment, plus know-how…

schroeding 4y ago

> It is not like Germany has vast Uranium reserves. ... actually we do, around 130.000 tonnes of it[1,2]. Of course not as vast as some other countries, but still substantial. We just don't mine and refine it anymore. I don't know if this should be an actual argument pro nuclear, but we have it. The GDR / DDR even supplied the Soviet Union with Uranium via SDAG Wismut[2]. [1] https://infcis.iaea.org/UDEPO/Statistics/ResourceByCountryAndType https://infcis.iaea.org/UDEPO/Statistics/ResourceByCountryAn... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wismut_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wismut_(company)

DrBazza 4y ago
Best link I could find mentions Russia as well as all the other countries. See the uranium mining section. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/germany.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...
- wongarsu 4y ago
  East Germany was the fourth largest producer of uranium ore. After the reunification we just closed those mines, just as we shut down East German nuclear plants. If there was a compelling reason we could presumably start mining and refining those deposits again.
pyuser583 4y ago
I recently read “Fall of Berlin” - spends several chapters describing how one of the USSRs main goals was seizing German uranium for weapons.

hef19898 4y ago

That, and gas is used for heating not for electricity generatuon. Which part of Germany's problem with high CO2 emmisions.

_n_b_ 4y ago

> Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas. Nope. Pre-Ukraine conflict, 55% of Germany's gas came from Russia [1]. In 2021, 19.69% of Europe's Uranium came from Russia [2]. And fundamentally, the relative energy density of enriched uranium means that it's much easier to shift from one source to another versus gas. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/how-reliant-is-germany-and-europe-russian-gas-nord-stream https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/21/how-reliant-is... [2] https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/activities/market-observatory_en https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/activities/market-observ...

kergonath 4y ago

> Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas. This is very misleading, comparing EU imports on one side and Germany on the other. The biggest uranium reserves are in Kazakhstan, Canada, and South Africa. At the moment, uranium used in Europe comes from Niger, Russia and Kazakhstan in about the same quantities (2500 tons each), followed by Canada (2300 tons) and Namibia (1600 tons). Overall, Russian uranium is ~20% of EU imports. For gas it was ~40% (~20% for Germany), and for oil ~30%. Also, both oil and uranium are easily imported by boat, whereas gas was so cheap because of the pipelines. So, not really comparable overall. Switching uranium suppliers costs nothing. Switching gas suppliers renders huge infrastructure investments worthless. It has been obvious for quite a while that structural dependency on Russian gas was a huge strategic mistake. Doing without will be much more painful than not doing it in the first place.

pyuser583 4y ago
I thought Germany and Czechia had large supplies of Uranium, is that not the case?
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  Czech uranium reserves were severely depleted in the 1950s in order to supply Soviet nuclear arms industry. (Political dissenters were forced to work in those mines in horrible conditions.)
- kergonath 4y ago
  Not that I know of. I came across a more complete picture[1], with probably more accurate numbers than my recollection (Australia turns out to have much, much more uranium than I remembered, for example). They don’t really mention significant resources in Europe, but there might be a discrepancy between resources that can be mined, and just stuff that’s in the ground or something like that. Wikipedia mentions 119000 tonnes in Czechia, but I don’t know how reliable it is[2]. [1] https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production.aspx https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fu... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium...

amadeuspagel 4y ago

> Well more of Europe's Uranium comes from Russia than Germanys gas. That's not comparable because the energy density of Uraniam is much higher, sufficient Uraniam can be imported from anywhere with any kind of transportation, so wherever the Uraniam comes from now, it can easily be imported from many other countries and doesn't make us dependent on anyone.

gaius_baltar 4y ago

> It is important to remember that Germany has still very strong manufacturing industries who hold a lot of sway over the government. Good for them to not get rid of their industrial base otherwise they will depend on China more than the USA (that was (still?) proud of becoming a service economy) does.

inglor_cz 4y ago
Germany has an enormous trade exchange with China and one of the Merkel policies was not to rock the boat too much.

Turing_Machine 4y ago

The situations aren't comparable. One charge of fuel for a nuclear reactor lasts for years, while natural gas gets burned more or less as fast as it is produced (there's some storage, but it's certainly not measured in years). If a bad actor cuts off the supply of uranium for your reactor, you have several years to find a new source. If a bad actor cuts off your supply of natural gas, you'll have a crisis in days or weeks at most.

panick21_ 4y ago

But Uranium can be found in many places and its very easy to transport. You are not actually dependent on Russia. > This would have been a much bigger step toward energy independence. You know what would have been a much, much, much bigger step? To keep nuclear and invest in nuclear instead of gas and coal.