EMBRACING new generation nuclear generation technology is vital if Australia’s vast reserves of uranium are not to be wasted, according to one of the world’s leading nuclear energy research scientists.
EMBRACING new generation nuclear generation technology is vital if Australia’s vast reserves of uranium are not to be wasted, according to one of the world’s leading nuclear energy research scientists.
Conventional nuclear fission reactors only recover about one fiftieth of the total energy contained in their uranium fuel, because they rely on just one uranium isotope, which makes up less than 1 per cent of naturally occurring uranium.
While existing reprocessing technology can extract 25 per cent more energy from spent fuels, civilian reprocessing and enrichment has been limited due to fears about the potential proliferation of bomb-grade radioactive materials.
But fourth generation “breeder” reactors, which are expected to be deployed commercially from around 2025, will be able to make use of the other 99 per cent of the uranium that is currently wasted.
Importantly, these breeder reactors will be able to burn spent fuel from conventional reactors, thereby reducing both the amount of waste produced and the volume of uranium required to generate power.
Australian physicist Dr Barry Green, a world expert on nuclear energy, said embracing this next generation of nuclear power generation technology was therefore vital if Australia’s uranium industry was to become more sustainable.
A senior nuclear energy researcher in the US, Europe and Japan for the last 40 years, specialising in nuclear fusion, Dr Green is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Western Australia’s School of Physics.
“What we are doing today with nuclear power is not very sensible,” Dr Green said. “We put the uranium through once, and we don’t burn very much of it, because of the fear that in the reprocessing of fuel, we’ll make bomb material available.
“While Australia sits on a lot of uranium, I suppose we don’t care. But it is not a very sensible way.
“Unless we go to ‘generation four’ or advanced fission reactors we are going to squander the uranium resources we have, and it won’t be seen as a sustainable resource.”
Dr Green said he believed nuclear power could play a significant future role in providing low-emissions base-load power where other alternatives were not available.
But it appeared there was little “stomach” in Australia to seriously evaluate the potential of nuclear power.
Dr Green’s comments come as international competition for control of Australia’s uranium reserves reaches unprecedented levels.
China’s biggest nuclear power company, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co, this week finalised its acquisition of a 66 per cent stake in local uranium play Energy Metals, giving it key stakes in the Bigyrli and Manyingee uranium projects in the Northern Territory and WA respectively.
Japanese players have also moved aggressively into Australia in recent times. In 2008, Mitsubishi Corporation and Canada’s Cameco Corp bought the Kintyre uranium project in the Pilbara for $500 million, while a consortium of Japanese utilities have acquired a 35 per cent stake in the advanced Lake Maitland project near Wiluna.
