The Daily IIJ

Uranium which is a key component in production of nuclear is increasingly attracting high prices and over extraction due to a growing demand by energy hungry countries both in developed and emerging economies. Countries such as France and China are key players in prospecting these resources that could see steep growth in the economies of African countries that are relatively endowed with the mineral such as Namibia and Niger boom as much as it lasts.

Initially thought to be relatively common metal, found in rocks and seawater, the rise in the world’s nuclear power facilities is set to lead to over extraction of available uranium reserves cause irreversible damage to the environment and affect the health of thousands of mine workers more so in poor nation where it is extracted.

Thomas Heff, a research affiliate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says that uranium reserves are dwindling fast, and that there is a slackening in investment in securing future supplies.
Worse still the nuclear industry seems to have been caught off guard as future supplies of uranium are concerned.  “Just as large numbers of new reactors are being planned, we are only starting to emerge from 20 years of underinvestment in the production capacity for the nuclear fuel to operate them. There has been a nuclear industry myopia; they didn’t take a long-term view,” Says Heff.

But the World Nuclear Association, (WNA) argues that quantities of the mineral are greater than commonly perceived deposits can supply world energy needs and more so if the technology of extraction is improved.