Uranium Shortage on the Horizon

MIT's campus newspaper, the Tech Talk, had a story this week about the looming uranium shortage.

Researcher Thomas Neff criticizes "20 years of underinvestment in the production capacity for...nuclear fuel."

"There has been a nuclear industry myopia; they didn't take a long-term view," Neff said. For example, only a few years ago uranium inventories were being sold at $10 per pound; the current price is $85 per pound.

Consequently new nuclear would entail an expansion of the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle. That's a dirty and expensive business with its own set of problems, bottlenecks, critics, regulations, and hidden costs.