In a report entitled Uranium and Plutonium: Macro-economic Study, the stockpiles of uranium held by the United Kingdom, is enough to fuel three 1000 MWe reactors for their entire 60-year lives

However, how many nuclear reactors does the UK have? Its a lot more than three!

The UK currently has a grand total of 19 nuclear reactors in operations, providing about one fifth of its electricity. The combined power of all of these reactors is 10,982 MWe so the UK may have enough uranium in their stockpiles to supply about 27% of what is needed over the next sixty years.

That still leaves a large gap of 73% in supply that needs to be filled, and this will require the buying of more uranium or the acquisition of uranium mining companies (perhaps some of our favourite uranium stocks) to fill the supply gap.

THE UK STOCKPILE

25,000 tonnes of depleted uranium from enrichment activities in the form of uranium hexafluoride. This is solid and stored in steel cylinders.
30,000 tonnes of depleted uranium powder from the recycling of used fuel from the Magnox power reactors.
5000 tonnes of ‘Thorp product uranium’ powder resulting from the recycling of used fuel from Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGRs).
100 tonnes of plutonium dioxide from the recycling of Magnox and AGR used nuclear fuel.

In addition to this the UK will have to buy more uranium if it is to expand its nuclear industry, in a effort to combat global warming and reduce the reliance on middle eastern or political unstable fossil fuel supplies. (Support for the nuclear programme was again reiterated by Gordon Brown, the new British Prime Minister, in the House of Commons yesterday, as part of Britains Energy Security policy)

This will lead to more uranium buying by governments and utilities and perhaps the buying of uranium mining companies, as it the case of Areva buying Uramin (a uranium stock that was on our BUY list), to ensure the supply of U3O8 to the nuclear power plants.

One of the biggest mistakes a government could make right now is sell their uranium stockpiles to raise some quick cash to buy some popularity in the opinion polls. They should be buying up uranium and uranium mining companies yesterday.