A critical assessment of global uranium resources, including uranium in phosphate rocks, and the possible impact of uranium shortages on nuclear power fleets

Future energy demand scenarios elaborated by international organisations tend to be ambitious in terms of the installed nuclear power capacity, particularly when trying to absorb the effects of a growing world population, to account for GDPs and to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Current light water reactors use thermal neutrons and burn uranium (a natural, finite resource), whereas some future Generation IV reactors using fast neutrons (starting with an initial fissile load) will be capable of recycling their own plutonium and already-extracted depleted uranium (self-sufficient or breeder fast reactors). The availability of uranium therefore has a direct impact on the capacity of the reactors that we can build. It is therefore important to have an accurate estimate of the available uranium resources in order to plan for the world’s future nuclear reactor fleet. This paper discusses the correspondence between the resources (uranium and plutonium) and the nuclear power demand as estimated by various international organisations. Furthermore, the estimate of how much uranium can be recovered from phosphate rocks is questioned and the impact of our down