THE ECONOMICS OF URANIUM ENRICHMENT

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. The price of uranium is conventionally expressed in US dollars per pound of uranium oxide ($/1b U3O8), or per kilogram of uranium oxide ($/kg. U3O8), or per kilogram of uranium metal ($/kg.U), where $1/lb U3O8 = $2.2046/kg. U3O8 = $2.6128/kg.U.

2. Strictly speaking, there is no spot market for uranium. NUEXCO, the world's principal private uranium broker, issues a monthly ‘Exchange Value’ which represents their judgement of the price at which transactions for significant quantities of uranium could be concluded on the last day of the month. Whilst NUEXCO emphasises that their exchange value is not a ‘spot’ price in the usual sense of the word, nevertheless it is generally regarded as an indicator of uranium spot market price levels. About 10 per cent of uranium requirements in the USA are traded on spot or short-term. At the end of December 1982 the spot price was $20.15/lb U3O8. The average contract price for deliveries in 1982, however, was $38.00/lb U3O8. Thus the optimum tails assay for the bulk of US consumers would be considerably below that of those obtaining their uranium supplies on the spot market.

3. Four methods of enriching uranium are of current interest: gaseous diffusion, gas centrifuge, aerodynamic processes, laser processes. Gaseous diffusion is the established technology, having been in large-scale operation for nearly 30 years in the USA. The gas centrifuge process, a relatively recent addition to the commercial enrichment market, has two major advantages over gaseous diffusion: it is more flexible in matching capacity with demand and it is more energy efficient. Both South Africa and West Germany have been developing aerodynamic processes and the latter has sold its technology to Brazil. Laser enrichment is still largely experimental.

4. All references in this paper to data published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) refer to Nuclear Energy and its Fuel Cycle: Prospects to 2025, Nuclear Energy Agency, OECD, Paris, 1982.

5. Projected Costs of Electricity from Nuclear and Coal-fired Plants, DOE/EIA-035611, Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy, August 1982.

6. The actual power requirements of any Australian enrichment plant will depend upon the chosen technology. Centrifuge plants need only 5–10 per cent of diffusion plant power requirements.

7. The average annual SWU requirement for current technology LWRs (assuming a 70 per cent capacity factor, a 0.20 per cent tails assay and a 30 year life) is approximately 100,000. Details are from the publication cited in footnote 4.

8. Under the same assumptions made in footnote 7, the average annual fuel requirement for a current technology LWR of 1 GWe capacity is 186 tons U3O8. Details are from the publication cited in footnote 4.