Part 2 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
Chavers of Southern Nuclear also covered the transportation involved in the nuclear fuel supply chain. “Historically, utilities have not paid that much attention to the logistics. We depended on the suppliers just to ensure that things were moving as it needed to and got to the deliveries that we needed,” however, uranium mined out of an asset in North America “may cross the Atlantic multiple times before it's in a final fabricated fuel assembly that's put into our nuclear reactors”. This indicates that inventories have been built higher to ensure cover for any supply chain disruption “so frankly today we're getting by and we're creating some insurance policies, for lack of a better word” for any logistics disruptions. “If we really have this demand growth and build-out of nuclear capacity do we have the logistics infrastructure in place to support that additional volume that's going to be needed to go back and forth, especially between Europe and the US to ultimately get us to a final fabricated assembly?”
When asked if there was a single thing to help in terms of the tripling nuclear capacity goal, he said that all those involved in the symposium discussion in London were from different companies and parts of the industry, but were all nuclear professionals, and “we're always just one bad news story away from losing the momentum that we have” so the priority was “safety first and superior performance - as long as we execute on those, all the rest of it will work out”.
Boris Schucht is the CEO of Urenco. He said that the momentum “which is now expressed in the tripling of nuclear is fantastic - that is something we have not seen”. There were questions about whether or not the goal was realistic but, considering the example of China today and France between 1970 and 2000, it should be possible to triple capacity. However the current momentum needed to be maintained, he said and “it should not be a straw fire”. It was also necessary for political ambitions to be translated into political action with respect to people and education, nuclear regulations, financial regulation, supporting the supply chain, “and I think a lot of countries are working on that”. The other issue was that the nuclear industry had to deliver projects on time and on budget.
Schucht referenced the chicken and egg situation, saying that when it comes to HALEU supplies, Urenco was prepared to sign contracts with advanced and small modular reactor projects. “I want to use the opportunity to motivate our potential new customers in the room and to go ahead ... it's about the whole ecosystem. You need transport packages, you need a lot of things, a lot of regulatory questions ... a lot still that we have to develop ... that needs to be based on real contracts on real projects so that we really understand what is needed. So I'm optimistic on it, but we are not yet fully there. We have done the first, I think important step, but that needs to continue.”
Please read Part 3 next