Today In Energy reveals a stunning vulnerability with our use of nuclear energy and one that needs to be corrected as soon as possible if nuclear is to be part of our energy foundation in this country, as it must.
Just my 2c, I’m an operator, not a miner or economist, but it seems to me that the reason we don’t do more is six letters. EPA and NRC. Until we get a grip on out of control bureaucracies, we will be stifled.
When I was getting ready to start my career I could have done diesel electric haul trucks instead of generators. One place I looked at was a uranium mine outside of Rawlins Wyoming. Apparently that mine shut down because the price of uranium collapsed, the ore is still there. This was true of several mines across the US. All the US enrichment facilities shut down at the same time. We also need a spent fuel reclamation processing facilities. There is a ton to do to reclaim the industry.
Big drop then was a combination of things including 3 Mile Island accident. Also in that time frame was the beginning of SALT nuclear disarmament which MOX. MOX was a blend of uranium and plutonium oxides derived from Russian warheads. In addition, the US government got out of reprocessing used fuel, which shut down MOX from that feed. This forced utilities to add spent fuel storage to their costs, since it takes a few decades to go from high to lower level radioactivity. This also quashed breeder reactor development since there was no way to extract the plutonium “bred”. Now, of course the Russians have captured the reprocessed fuel market. And, of course, mining uranium is messy business, especially since the case of using mine tailings to make bricks caused a big stir out west. The bricks were slightly radioactive and gave off radon gas.
Just my 2c, I’m an operator, not a miner or economist, but it seems to me that the reason we don’t do more is six letters. EPA and NRC. Until we get a grip on out of control bureaucracies, we will be stifled.
When I was getting ready to start my career I could have done diesel electric haul trucks instead of generators. One place I looked at was a uranium mine outside of Rawlins Wyoming. Apparently that mine shut down because the price of uranium collapsed, the ore is still there. This was true of several mines across the US. All the US enrichment facilities shut down at the same time. We also need a spent fuel reclamation processing facilities. There is a ton to do to reclaim the industry.
What happened in the 80s, why the big drop then?
Big drop then was a combination of things including 3 Mile Island accident. Also in that time frame was the beginning of SALT nuclear disarmament which MOX. MOX was a blend of uranium and plutonium oxides derived from Russian warheads. In addition, the US government got out of reprocessing used fuel, which shut down MOX from that feed. This forced utilities to add spent fuel storage to their costs, since it takes a few decades to go from high to lower level radioactivity. This also quashed breeder reactor development since there was no way to extract the plutonium “bred”. Now, of course the Russians have captured the reprocessed fuel market. And, of course, mining uranium is messy business, especially since the case of using mine tailings to make bricks caused a big stir out west. The bricks were slightly radioactive and gave off radon gas.
Oh the deleterious impact of billary’s ineptness and corruptness still lingers. Time to quit the madness and reverse course.