5.1 Nuclear fuel

Coal is a mixture of organic substances and each deposit has its own characteristics of carbon and water content, along with widely varying proportions of other substances such as sulphur. It undergoes little processing until it reaches the power plant, where it will be ground and prepared for feeding into the plant. The operator must balance coal from different sources with different characteristics, to get the best possible burning qualities, with the most acceptable mix of residues in the resulting smoke and ash.

Uranium fuel, in contrast, is made from a chemically simple metal salt denoted UO ₂ (meaning that there are two atoms of oxygen for each atom of uranium), contained in a complex metal framework. All the processing to prepare the uranium is done ahead of its arrival at the plant. The fuel preparation is a complex and sometimes energy-intensive process.

5.2 Mining uranium

Uranium is not a scarce resource. There are many deposits that can be mined economically, even at the very low uranium prices that were offered in the 1990s, and extensive reserves available at higher cost.

As with other mineral resources, known reserves generally increase in a cycle of several decades, moving in step with the market for the mineral. As current sources are exploited and the remaining well-characterised sources become progressively more expensive to mine, the market price of the product increases. The increasing price prompts mining and exploration companies to seek out new sources of the mineral.

At present,...