Energy Source Uranium – Resources, Production and Adequacy

Germany is one of the first developed industrialized countries that is leaving the peaceful use of nuclear energy. It is important to note that other industrialized countries, such as Austria and Australia, did not start and Italy confirmed its exit after Fukushima (Figure 1). In addition to the risk technology nuclear power, two other factors have been and are still being argued against the use of nuclear energy; the lack of long-term disposal facilities, in particular for the spent nuclear fuels and the waste from the reprocessing process, as well as the lack of resource security for the nuclear fuel uranium (thorium). In this article the second question is to be considered which focuses the resource security for the energy raw material uranium. For the energy source uranium it is clarified as to what extent natural resources are known, what results coming from further exploration are to be expected, and under which boundary conditions the resulting adequacy can be quantified and assessed. In addition the extent will be discussed to which the amount of known resources has so far developed and the time dependency, from which forecast a discussion of adequacy should be based. The author explicitly refers to the contribution to the same problem, which appeared in Glückauf 144 No. 3 (2008). © 2017, Bergbau-Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH. All rights reserved.