A revival of interest in nuclear energy has prompted the uranium fuel industry to consider mining new deposits across the globe to meet rising demand for the heavy metal, industry experts said on Monday.
"Dozens of (nuclear) reactors are being built or planned in Asia, several in Europe and there is talk of new reactors being built in much of the rest of the world," Gerald. Grandey, president of the Canadian uranium fuel supply firm Cameco Corp, said in the written text of a speech.
Grandey was speaking at an international conference on the future of supply and demand for nuclear fuel at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The revival of interest in nuclear power as a cost-effective and environmentally sound source of energy has also boosted the price of uranium, Grandey told a news conference.
The price of uranium in the 1970s was up around $43 per pound and then plummeted to around $7 as more as more countries began shutting down reactors, he said. But thanks to a renewed interest in atomic energy, it has recovered to $29, he added.
"Recently, with the price increase and the expectations of a renaissance, we've seen speculation. Speculators, hedge funds come in and buy fairly modest quantities of uranium," he said.
Around 180 million pounds of uranium are used each year, and over the last two years around 5 to 6 million pounds has been bought by speculators, Grandey said.
"I think their purchases have reinforced the market price," he said.
Although some experts have warned that the world is running out of uranium, Grandey and several other industry experts told reporters this was simply not true.
"There's uranium everywhere," Jay McMurray, a US-based uranium supply consultant, said. "We have vast areas of unexplored terrain but we know the geological framework."
"Right now people are focusing on Canada, because that's where the high-grade deposits are," he said, adding that they would move on to other lower-grade deposits across the globe.
Australia has the world's largest uranium reserves. Other countries with significant uranium deposits are Kazakhstan, Canada and South Africa.
The IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, says some countries are choosing nuclear energy over more traditional energy sources like oil, gas or coal due to a lack of resources.
North America has abundant coal and gas, but countries like Japan and South Korea do not, and so choose nuclear energy as the most economically viable energy source, the IAEA has said.
Atomic energy also produces almost no "greenhouse" gases, which many countries want to limit to help stem global warming, nuclear experts say.
Many European states began phasing out atomic programmes after the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine, which killed 30 people, caused thousands of children to develop cancer and has been blamed for thousands of other illnesses.
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