Weekly Reports |Sep 18 2018
The spot uranium price is now 50% above its 12-year low.
-IAEA warns of nuclear capacity decline-Spot price continues uptrend-Toro Energy excited by test results
By Greg Peel
A report released last week by the International Atomic Energy Agency warns that global nuclear power generating capacity is at risk of declining over coming decades as ageing reactors are retired and the industry struggles with diminished competitiveness. The report presents what a stock analyst would call bear and bull cases.
The bear case has global nuclear capacity falling by -10% to 2030 from 392GW in 2017. The bull case has capacity increasing 30% to 511GW, but this is -45GW less than the same report projected last year. In 2017, nuclear power represented 10% of global electricity generation and around a third of "green" power.
One wonders to what extent of a "warning" the IAEA is providing with a -10% to +30% range of possibility over 12 years. At the end of the day it will be a battle of the swings and roundabouts as the developed world leads the decline in nuclear capacity (Germany and South Korea phasing out, for example, the US at risk of a commercially driven decline, Australia steadfastly anti despite being one of the world's biggest uranium producers) while the emerging world leads the charge in new reactor builds (China in particular, but India, South Africa and other EMs on board).
And Japan in the middle, having to date restarted a mere nine of its 40 plus operating reactors over the past seven years.