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Long Term Trend of Uranium Production and Price KCI 등재 SCOPUS
- 언어ENG
- URLhttps://db.koreascholar.com/Article/Detail/423391
pp.295-301
To broaden the utilization of nuclear energy, uranium as a fuel should be mined indispensably. Mining accounts for the largest portion of the cost of producing the uranium assembly. Therefore, this study analyzes the trends of uranium prices, which have a significant impacts on the mining cost. Uranium production contributing to the price fluctuations is explained in five periods from 1945 to the present. Moreover, the series of events affecting uranium prices from the 1970s until the present are verified. Among them, the most recent incidents considered in this study are the following: COVID-19 pandemic, Kazakhstan unrest, and Russia-Ukraine war. European countries have started to reconsider the transition to nuclear power to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas, which has contributed to the surge in uranium prices. Based on the results of this study, various international issues have been closely associated with the nuclear power industry and uranium, affecting the production of uranium and its price.
2. Uranium Production History
2.1 Military Era (1945 to the Mid-1960s)
2.2 Nuclear Reactor Expansion (Mid-1960s toMid-1980s)
2.3 Cut Back of Nuclear Program (Mid-1980sto 2002)
2.4 Nuclear Renaissance and Fukushima Accident(Early 2000s to 2010s)
2.5 Post-Fukushima Era (2010s to Present)
3. Uranium Price History
3.1 Oil Crisis
3.2 Three Mile Islands (TMI) and ChernobylAccidents
3.3 Influx of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU)
3.4 Flooding
3.5 Global Financial Crisis
3.6 Fukushima Accident
4. Current Issues
4.1 COVID-19 Pandemic
4.2 Kazakhstan Unrest in 2022
4.3 Russia-Ukraine War
5. Conclusion
Acknowledgements
