Climate commitments and the energy crisis in China have accelerated decision-making on the future of nuclear power in China. The new plan calls for the construction of 150 new nuclear reactors in the country over the next 15 years. This inspired mining companies around the world, but immediately led to signs of uranium shortages. In fact, China will double the number of nuclear reactors built worldwide since the 1980s.
It's not hard to guess that uranium consumption will more than double in the next 15 years, as nuclear power plants begin to re-enter fashion in all countries. China, of course, will set the tone and become the new world leader in this area, but very, very many new nuclear power plants will begin to build, including, judging by the latest news, even Japan and Germany. The ghost of Fukushima still hovers over Japan, and Germany continues to be under pressure from "green" initiatives, but the energy crisis erodes both the first and the second.
The mining and uranium-processing industries have received news from China with enthusiasm. The fact is that recently the spot price for uranium began to decline and fell to $ 43.2 per pound (0.453 kg). To keep prices down, a number of mining companies, such as Canada's Cameco and Kazakhstan's Kazatomprom, reported lower forecasts for uranium production due to lockdown and supply chain problems. Moreover, these and other companies in the production and supply chain have begun to build reserves of raw materials, holding them until “good” prices emerge.
Finally, stock speculators came into play. Numerous hedge funds began to resell bids for the purchase of uranium and, along the way, caused an increase in the value of shares of mining and processing companies. Since the news came from Australia, where uranium mining has been practiced for a long time and widely (although it is still forbidden to build nuclear power plants in Australia itself), shares of Australian companies quickly went up, and mining companies began to announce plans to reactivate closed mines and to increase uranium production in the future.
Everything goes to the fact that the nuclear power industry will expand very, very quickly in a fairly short time. No matter how terrible the peaceful atom may be for the townsfolk, it is corny that no one can lag behind China. Even in a simple economic equation, the bias towards China's energy power is fraught with dire consequences for all other economies in the world. There is nothing you can do about it with solar panels and windmills. For at least 15 years. To fend off the atomic efforts of the Chinese is possible only with thermonuclear reactors, which can become a reality during this time. But this is an unknown component of the equation, and NPP is a reality and there is no escape from it.
By the way, against this background, Rosatom's efforts to create a closed cycle for reprocessing and using spent nuclear fuel sparkled with new colors. If thermonuclear fusion does not appear in the next 50-100 years, there may not be enough pure uranium for everyone. And if enough is enough, the deficit threatens to penetrate nuclear energy much earlier than expected.
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