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How dependent is France on Niger's uranium?
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this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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The question is more like: "How dependent is France on uranium which is a finite resource?"
"The demand for uranium continues to increase, but the supply is not keeping up. Current uranium reserves are expected to be depleted by the end of the century, and new sources of uranium are hard to find. As a result, uranium prices have been steadily rising, with some estimates predicting a doubling of prices by 2030. This is causing a global uranium squeeze, where the demand for the resource is outstripping the supply."
France: Let's build more nuclear plants, also do not invest into renewable energy, also since we are used to wars for oil, why not having wars for uranium in the future too?
Well, "By the end of the century" is almost 80 years away, that is significantly longer than any normal nuclear power plant lasts.
Also it is very difficult to know which exact price someone pays for uranium because they normal dont buy on the spot market, but via long lasting contracts.
So from my point of view we don't have sufficient information for a proper estimation of the situation.
The real key factor is as the cost of uranium continues to go up and suffers potential shortages and supply issues the cost of installing solar and wind continues to drop - they got planning permission for a solar farm near me about a year ago and it's already half way through having pannels installed, the speed they can do it is only going to keep increasing especially as more automated tools get developed. Then there's the almost certainty of a breakthrough in chemistry reaching market which significant reduces cost and increases the range of locations suitable which would again drastically lower price per kWh while the price of running nukes continues to rise and they're locked into decades of economic loss or they'll choose to close them and all that investment and effort will be for nothing.