Kanada ist auf dem Weg zur nuklearen „Supermacht“ mit genügend Uran, um China und Russland zu schlagen | Bei der Urananreicherung aus Kasachstan sind die Länder auf Russland und China angewiesen. Kanada kann Uran aus seinen eigenen Minen anreichern.
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/uranium-nuclear-fuel-supply-canada
31 Comments
From the article: The Athabasca Basin in the northern Saskatchewan region of Canada is a reserve of high-grade uranium that could help the North American country play a vital role as a fuel supplier in the decades to come. Unlike other nuclear fuel suppliers, Canada can be one-stop, extracting uranium from the mines and enriching it for nuclear fission reactors, a BBC report said.
The recent increase in demand for clean energy has brought attention back to nuclear fission technology as a potential approach to generating low-carbon energy. Unlike other technologies being developed, nuclear fission technology has demonstrated itself as a scalable and cost-effective solution to meet energy needs.
Canada is the world’s second-largest producer of uranium. According to 2022 figures, the country recorded 7,400 tonnes of uranium production from its mines. However, this figure is still about a third of what Kazhakistan produced in the same year. This can, however, change in the next few years.
As countries aim for net-zero emissions in the coming decades, there is an urgent need to move away from fossil fuels. While renewable energy projects are rising, countries are also doubling their efforts by investing in nuclear energy.
Interesting Engineering has previously reported that China is looking to build over 100 new nuclear reactors in the coming decade, while the EU and the US also favor newer nuclear installations.
At the COP28 conducted last year, two dozen nations declared they would triple their nuclear energy output by 2050, creating a demand for nuclear fuel. Since Kazakhstan does not enrich the uranium it mines, countries are dependent on Russia and China for enriched uranium for their nuclear reactors.
Canada has the technological know-how to supply enriched uranium. It also provides an alternative to countries that do not wish to trade with Russia or China but still secure their nuclear fuel.
So now when the US invades they’ll take our water AND our uranium? Great news.
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No one wants nuclear, and few countries have plans to build it any more. It’s a dying industry.
In the developing world – decentralized, micro-grid friendly renewables are resistant to the worsening effects of climate change AND vastly cheaper and quicker to deploy.
In the developed world, consumers and taxpayers don’t have the trillions of dollars in bailouts and higher prices that nuclear power comes with. Not to mention, western countries grids will be near 100% renewable, by the time any new nuclear started now would come online.
I live in this province, here’s the plan so far.
https://www.saskpower.com/our-power-future/our-electricity/electrical-system/balancing-supply-options/nuclear-power-from-small-modular-reactors
Also here’s the mining company that does it all
https://www.cameco.com/
We did this before during the creation of enough nuclear weapons to destroy the Earth 10 times over. For example Uranium City, Saskatchewan is a ghost town that existed from the 50s to 80s to operation the mines until it wasn’t economically viable to mine the ore at that scale. The USA had enough bombs. So in conclusion, yes we have lots of uranium ore and no this is not news and there is probably still some lonely soles sitting in Uranium City waiting for it is rise up from it’s slumber.
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I personally would like to know whether or not a glut of Canadian uranium will help the nuclear industry at the expense of increasing the nuclear waste problem. As long as uranium remains cheap (from whatever source), there is no incentive to use it more than once in a conventional nuclear reactor, leaving behind a lot of nuclear waste that has to be stored for millions of years.
On the other hand, if fast advanced breeder reactors (like the [Integral Fast Reactor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor) that was on the cusp of being built by the US but was cancelled for more money than it would have cost to complete it) that could breed more nuclear fuel than they use as well as reuse nuclear waste came online, the uranium supply could be greatly extended, and those advanced reactors could transmute nuclear waste into new elements that are radioactive only for centuries, not millions of years. The problem remains that it doesn’t make economic sense to build those advanced reactors if fresh, never-used uranium is cheap, hence my concern.
Canada could enrich enough uranium quickly enough to have a nuclear weapon in months. We must do something to stop this rogue state. If we are smart, and move quickly enough, we can eliminate their nuclear scientists through assassination and kidnapping. Perhaps we can destroy their centrifuges with some manner of malware or computer virus.
Regardless the method, Canada must be stopped at all costs.
Lookup Dennison mines. Ticker is DNN. They are in an excellent position to benefit from future uranium use.
The deposit they own is vast and ultra pure. They have been developing the infrastructure to mine it for several years now.
As a Canadian, I can confirm that our leaders cannot enrich themselves out of a reusable bag.
Resource Curse? If Canada does try to emerge with this, I immediately see US businesses and US government stepping to take advantage of this.
For the record we have no ambitions to build bombs.
With all the corruption, people of power will continue to undersell and rake millions in bonus and future favours.
Hmmm starting to look like Canada might have weapons of mass destruction or might be hosting terrorists or something. The US military may need to go save them and bring some American democracy.
Misleading title and bs claim, because everyone knows uranium is absolutely terrible for energy generation, and everyone is trying to move off it to other forms of safer generation methods.
An advantage that goes the way of the dinosaur once we, as a species, shift to a thorium cycle…
Uranium has been mined in Canada for decades. This is not new information. Fuck journalism is just straight up shit these days.
Canada also has enough cobalt to supply the battery boom but we can’t produce it as cheaply as child labor using Congo. Ethically sourced takes a back seat to cheap.
Uranium is so power dense that the entire industries ton-ages is the rough equivalent to a one of the 1000s of copper mines. Glad another country is able to participate in the market and a generally friendly country but its not gonna make them multiply their GDP.
Only if we use it for power. Enough of weapons already.
I am totally ok with Canada having nukes. Some of our allies need to start doing some of the heavy lifting for our mutual defense. Trump has proven the US might not always be there for them.
The Canadian nuclear industry goes all the way back to the Manhattan Project. We were the only foreign country on board, and the nuclear fuel used in the Atomic bombs dropped on Japan came from Canada.
We never had our own nukes but US nukes were stationed in Canada, but we kicked them out late 50s or early 60s.
In addition to this news about Uranium production, we are also looking into long term used nuclear fuel storage deep underground in the Canadian Shield, which is the oldest and most stable rock on earth. 4 billion years old! We plan on storing other nations fuel as well. This is part of how we plan on helping with global warming. Sell you safe Candu reactors, sell you the new fuel, and then charge you again for its disposal. That also leaves less spent fuel kicking around for unethical research.
wild how the universe gave a mine full of nuke fuel to the people who used to treat the geneva convention as a checklist
And I’m sure like always, Canada will let itself get scammed of its natural resources. Selling off its gold, lumber, mining industry, water, etc. to foreign countries for extremely low prices! Seriously one of the dumbest countries of all time.
We had enough, now it’s time for the rest of the world to be sorry!
What about thorium? It’s about as rare as copper and all of it can be used to create energy instead of the 1% of uranium that can…
What’s also neat is Canada may be set to become a shipping superpower, with global warming melting the northern passage for large portions of the year. Hello super massive shipping freighters!
You know what the biggest problem about this is?
Canadians. Good luck getting buy-in from the most snowflake government on the planet.
The real game-changer isn’t just the uranium – it’s Canada’s stable political environment. Western nations are desperate for reliable nuclear fuel partners right now.
Please
Don’t
Give
The
Nuclear
Codes
To
The
Geese
Honk
Honk