Uranium Shortage Expected

What this tells us is that without the arrival of the new LENR Heat Engine thanks to the work of Rossi and Focardi, the power industry was finally running ahead of the globally available uranium supplies.

The present scenario suggests that a period of shortfall will still play out and those replacements including new reserves and other technologies will be hard put to come on line fast enough.

Yet the LENR reactor will strand all of this just as soon as they begin industrial mass production.  This makes investment around this sector rather dangerous.  The fact that the public is not unto this and that no one quite believes their eyes yet is no excuse for throwing caution to the winds.  This industry is entering a dramatic period of massive change with price signal volatility and headlines.

I suspect that the bomb industry will continue to disgorge its inventories for some time yet.  In a world in which these devices retain no conceivable use and in which all concur except a couple of fools, unloading the inventory is attractive.

History will likely show that the next five years will turn out to be the best time ever to sell uranium inventories.

After that, if such heat engines are still desired, we can switch to thorium to concurrently mop up the remaining inventories of uranium and other nasties.

Shortage Expected in Next Two Years

By Nick Hodge | Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

As everyone gushes about America's newfound abundance of oil and natural gas, another energy dilemma has slipped our collective minds.

I mentioned it as a possibility several months ago.

Now, with more information coming to light daily, it's looking more and more like a uranium supply crunch is going to be a reality.

Consider this: In 2010, the world needed about 65,000 tonnes of uranium to power its 433 operating reactors. But globally, only 53,663 tonnes were mined in 2010.

So where'd the remaining 11,337 tonnes of uranium come from? 

A tiny bit of it came from commercial reprocessing in France.

But the bulk of it — 10,600 tonnes — came from weapons repurposing via an agreement between the United States and Russia.

The warheads you were supposed to hide under your desk from are now powering the same cities they were once meant to destroy.

The Russians have already announced they are withdrawing from the program, called Megatons to Megawatts, at the end of 2013.

When that happens, the world will instantly lose over 10,000 tonnes of uranium supply per year... and the amount mined won't be enough to cover the amount needed.

In other words, there's a high probability the world will face a uranium supply shortfall by 2014.

And given that we're less than three weeks away from 2012, the time to start considering this investment scenario is now.

So What's the Scenario?

There are 433 working reactors already in existence, 62 under construction, 156 planned, and 343 proposed.

"Planned" means they'll be operable in 8-10 years; "proposed" means operation within 15 years. (Click here for a full list.)

And even with Germany planning to decommission its nine remaining reactors by 2022, there will still be net 93 new reactors by the end of this decade.

China alone — with 26 reactors under construction — will offset the German loss nearly three times over.

Tim Gitzel, CEO of Cameco (NYSE: CCJ), the largest uranium producer in the world, took to the airwaves this week to help explain the looming threat to uranium supply, saying on Bloomberg TV:

"The game these days, the growth game at least, is over in Asia. And that's a change for everyone. China has not blinked an eye. They have today 14 reactors in operation, 26 under construction, and then another 20 in addition to that, planned by 2020. That's growth we haven't seen, oh boy, since the 1970s."

It isn't hard to see the growing supply gap, which will only be worsened after we stop repurposing warheads...