5 ms·

Italy neither has the engineers to build a nuclear power plant, they would have to ask another nation, like Russia, Canada or France, to build it for them. And

• cinntaile 2y ago
  The fuel comes primarily from Kazachstan, Canada and Australia. Edit: Parent meant enriched uranium, not ore so this comment is not relevant.
• agumonkey 2y ago
  Aren't there other ore sources ? I think nuclear powered countries diversified inputs.
• llm_nerd 2y ago
  >And where does the nuclear fuel come from? Canada, Khazakhstan, Namibi, and so on. Russia is pretty far down the list. Australia has the largest known reserves of uranium they just haven pushed to extensively extract it.
  • throw0101a 2y ago
    > Canada, Khazakhstan, Namibi, and so on. Russia is pretty far down the list. Not wrong, but Russia controls about half of the world's enrichment capacity. If you want to avoid possible lock-in, then you may want to look at reactors that do not need enriched uranium (like CANDU: it does have an extra up-front cost for 'heavy water' though).
    • rhubinak 2y ago
      There's no need for Russia to get involved. As per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium > The following countries are known to operate enrichment facilities: Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
      • throw0101a 2y ago
        Great: but how much spare capacity do they have? A lot of these are primarily serving domestic needs. Heck, >25% of the US's uranium comes from Russia: * https://www.visualcapitalist.com/where-the-u-s-gets-its-enriched-uranium/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/where-the-u-s-gets-its-enri... Being able to use "plain" uranium greatly expands your supplier options.
        • rhubinak 2y ago
          Because it's cheap. Russia needs money to wage war so it sells stuff. Again, nobody is wholly dependent on Russia.
          • throw0101a 2y ago
            > Because it's cheap. I doubt that the US is buying from Russia—you know, the country/government which it threw sanctions on in all sorts of ways—because "it's cheap". Recently a ban on importation was started, and it included a couple of billion for more processing facilities in the US: * https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/climate/russia-nuclear-uranium-import-ban.html https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/climat... It's a supply chain issue that took some time to sort out: * https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-nuclear-fuel-agreement-alongside-g7-seeks-to-isolate-putins-russia https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-nuclear-fuel-agreemen...
            • rhubinak 2y ago
              Also, that uranium could have come from pre-war contracts. Anyway, I think we're in agreement: * There are uranium enrichment facilities outside Russia, even in Europe * There's uranium outside Russia, even in Europe (look at Czechia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_r...) So, let's build a plant.
• slavik81 2y ago
  Why not get the nuclear fuel from Canada? There's plenty of uranium in Saskatchewan.
• GaggiX 2y ago
  Italy has highly skilled nuclear engineers. >And where does the nuclear fuel come from? Russia. Nonsense.
  • rcxdude 2y ago
    What are those engineers doing currently, then? It takes time to actually build a technology base for somethin like nuclear, and it generally requires that you are building and running nuclear power plants. And even after years of the war in Ukraine, Russia is still the second largest source of uranium for the EU, making up a quarter of imports
    • GaggiX 2y ago
      >What are those engineers doing currently, then? Italian companies that work on reactor design, decommissioning and technology commissioned by foreign countries, for example. >Russia is still the second largest source of uranium for the EU, making up a quarter of imports The vast majority of contracts are multiannual, the EU will rely much less on Russian uranium export once they expire. Italy has no reason to sign them with Russia.
  • deleted 2y ago
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• lelag 2y ago
  > And where does the nuclear fuel come from? Russia. Not true at all. Russia is producing 5% of the world Uranium, and they probably use quite a lot of that domestically given they produce 8% of all nuclear power in the world with their own plant. Kazakhstan + Uzbekistan is 50% of the word production. Canada is second and will be happy to start selling to the EU. Namibia and Australia both produce twice as much as Russia. Not to say that supply of natural Uranium is not a concern because you do depends of a small list of countries but we don't need to buy any from Russia. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country
  • est31 2y ago
    Russia's large market share is rather in uranium enrichment than uranium mining. That's what I meant when I wrote "nuclear fuel".
  • legulere 2y ago
    That’s raw uranium ore. Uranium undergoes several refinement steps. In each Russia has an enormous market share.
    • account42 2y ago
      So? Refinement doesn't have a dependency on a particular location. This is like saying nuclear energy in Germany is dependent on France and other countries. Currently it is but only because we choose to not do it locally - it doesn't have to be this way.
    • rhubinak 2y ago
      Not true by skimming the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium > The following countries are known to operate enrichment facilities: Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, the Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
• deleted 2y ago
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• Fragoel2 2y ago
  That is simply incorrect, Italian companies are already building nuclear reactors/power plants abroad. Enel has built/is managing nuclear plants in Spain and Slovakia: https://www.enel.com/media/explore/search-press-releases/press/2023/03/enel-and-newcleo-sign-partnership-to-cooperate-on-generation-iv-nuclear-technology https://www.enel.com/media/explore/search-press-releases/pre... Eni is involved in building the first fusion plant: https://www.ansa.it/english/news/science_tecnology/2024/04/09/eni-says-to-build-1st-nuclear-fusion-plant-in-early-30s_ed21cb3f-3155-4be4-bb35-8721f139b276.html https://www.ansa.it/english/news/science_tecnology/2024/04/0...
  • est31 2y ago
    I would classify ITER as basic research instead of a commercial nuclear power plant. I didn't know that Enel operates nuclear power plants, that's interesting, but they seem to come from an acquisition of Endesa and have been constructed way before that acquisition, and from designs of foreign places. So they aren't modern generation reactors that one would want to build from scratch. As for the Slovakian nuclear power plant, it's a russian design as well. I don't doubt that Enel could operate nuclear reactors of foreign design, where Canada, Russia and France have strong capabilities, but if the design comes from a different country, do you really achieve the independence goal?
    • wkat4242 2y ago
      > I would classify ITER as basic research instead of a commercial nuclear power plant. Absolutely correct. It will never serve as a power plant. It's a giant experiment, that's what the E stands for. We should be so lucky that one day it will generate a few minutes of power :)
• Caius-Cosades 2y ago
  And that's because western nations are run by idiots that can't do long term planning to save their lives.