Fracking for Yellowcake: The Next Frontier?

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Fracking for Yellowcake: The Next Frontier?

It works for oil and natural gas, so why not frack for uranium too? After all, America relies on foreign uranium just like it depends on foreign oil. In the U.S. these days, it seems like you can sell almost anything if you spin it as part of the pursuit of energy independence. Enter Uranium [...]

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Fracking for Yellowcake: The Next Frontier?

Posted by Jeff Rubin on February 4th, 2013 under SmallerWorldTags: Eagle Ford, fracking, Uranium, Water • 12 Comments

It works for oil and natural gas, so why not frack for uranium too? After all, America relies on foreign uranium just like it depends on foreign oil.

In the U.S. these days, it seems like you can sell almost anything if you spin it as part of the pursuit of energy independence. Enter Uranium Energy Corp. A junior mining company with Canadian roots, UEC is developing the newest uranium mine in the U.S. And it’s counting on fracking to do it.

Texans, in general, are no strangers to fracking. UEC is operating in the heart of fracking country, south Texas’s Eagle Ford basin, one of the most prolific shale plays in the country. Instead of oil and gas, though, UEC (recently profiled by Forbes Magazine) is fracking for yellowcake.

The technology is basically the same. It involves injecting a mixture of highly pressurized water and sand into an underground formation in order to break open fissures in the rock that allow the energy riches within to be extracted. In this case, it’s a slurry of uranium ore that’s then dried and processed into powdery yellowcake, an intermediate product that eventually becomes fuel for nuclear reactors.

Of course, the very idea of fracking for yellowcake begs the question—just because you can do something, should you?

The world isn’t exactly running short of uranium. Prices tell you that much. Uranium prices have plunged from more than $90 a pound before the last recession to just more than $40 a pound following the Fukushima disaster. Friendly countries like Canada and Australia are able to ramp up supply, as can less friendly countries like Kazakhstan. Yellowcake is also exported by Niger (part of the reason, according to some, that nuclear-powered France is taking such an interest in neighbouring Mali right now.)

What’s more, the emergence of cheap natural gas from shale plays is making nuclear energy less attractive to U.S. power utilities. Many are considering shuttering some high cost nuclear stations and switching to cheaper natural gas, just as they’ve been doing with a number of coal plants in recent years.

When it comes to fracking for yellowcake, even more pressing than shaky economics is the obvious potential for environmental contamination. The process is not only extremely water intensive, as is typical of fracking, but it’s also happening at a shallow depth. Unlike the Eagle Ford’s oil and gas reserves, which are miles underground, the in situ uranium mining is taking place at the same level as local groundwater supplies.

According to the International Energy Agency, the amount of fresh water used for global energy production will double over the next twenty-five years. Whether it’s Alberta’s oil sands that run on water from the Athabasca River or the countless gallons used to frack underground stores of oil, gas and now even uranium, it’s easy to see why.

http://iiscn.wordpress.com/about/ yt75

When will Mister Rubin encorporate in his talks the fact that the first oil shock was the direct consequence of US 1970 production peak, and the “embargo” an almost complete non event ? That is the first oil shock was in no way an “OPEC oil shock” but should be called “US peak oil shock” (or something)
Summary about this, end of below post (but in french) :
http://iiscn.wordpress.com/2011/05/06/bataille-et-lenergie/
(with in particular James Akins interviews, US ambassador in KSA of the time in the documentary)
Gettting over this myth could maybe help a bit in current situation …
Arctic_Fox

Jeff, you’ve been suckered by that dumb Forbes article. You’re making an invalid argument, based on reading an incorrect account of UEC and what it does. In fact, the Forbes article is very “un-Forbes,” considering the magazine’s business-friendly image.

UEC is not “fracking” for uranium in any sense of the word. The process is slightly more than, say, mere water-pumping, but nothing remotely like fracking. UEC injects hydrogen peroxide & carbon dioxide into permeable sandstones, at a pressure under 100 psi — far below fracking pressures. There’s no way at all that any rock gets fractured by a pressure pulse — and the Texas mining permit forbids UEC from doing anything even remotely like hydraulic fracturing in the sandstones.

The peroxide-CO2 mixture essentially washes out uranium mineralization from the rock — it’s a “roll front” type of mineralization. The end result is a solution, from which the U3O8 minerals can be removed. There’s no harm to the pre-existing formation water, and in any event that water is already brackish — you wouldn’t drink it. All that UEC is doing is removing the uranium minerals from the sandstone, without other formation damage.

For some reason (idiocy?), the Forbes writer saw this as “fracking,” and is trying to make some sort of scandal out of it. But it’s a false alarm. Forbes is, frankly, AFU. All that UEC is doing is recovering uranium — without formation damage — and then processing yellowcake, for sale to willing buyers — of which there are many.
EVHappy

It all comes down to EROEI. The Japanese already figured out how to extract uranium from sea water and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory figured out a way to make that process more efficient.

So, the question becomes, when all is said and done, is the entire system sustainable and cost effective?

We must remember that the entire nuclear industry is heavily subsidized in everything from uranium refinement, security and insurance to disposal of waste and decommissioning activities.

As fossil fuel production volumes ride down the back side of the fossil fuel bell curve, every other alternative will be continuously weighed as to what can be substituted and how.

For now, fossil fuels are king of the hill and nothing even comes close to how cheap they are. Of course, that cost will continuously increase as we move from the conventional resources to the unconventional.

Until men change their way of thinking from yeast-like to sustainable resource use, we will continue to burn everything, everywhere, extract every resource and kill everything just to keep business as usual and then just to survive.

The next 150 years are not going to be as much fun as the last 150 years where we enjoyed exponential growth of net energy production thanks to fossil fuels.

It is going to get a whole lot uglier and dirtier, that’s for sure. Civility is likely to be tossed out the window.
Energyecon

Sad to see how far you’ve fallen, Jeff.
DrFunk

Jeff, have you looked at how much of the uranium market is supplied by decommissioned Russian nukes under the Megatons for Megawatts agreement that ends this year and Russia has hinted it will not renew?Probably not because you have to spend so much time explaining why oil never made it to $200.
Someone who can do math

Jeff, using price is a stupid thing for you to do. In 2001 U308 prices were $8/lb. The price rose to $90, up 1050%, then dropped to $45. Since 2001 prices are up 500%.

In 2001 the price of WTI was $24/bbl, rose to $147 up 500%, an currenlty up $95, or up 400%.

Using price appreciation it looks like the world is more short of U308 than crude…
Steve

Jeff did you do the math on the price appreciation of uranium vs. crude since 2001? If you do you would realize uranium is up on a percentage basis more than crude. If price appreciation equals supply constraints, then crude is more abundant than uranium. Personally I think you are you still trying to defend your $200 oil call.

If France is intervening in Mali to protect uranium supplies that means it is shorter supply than crude otherwise why is France not intervening in Sudan or Chad? You have made illogical arguments. Please address them if you are not a fool.Did you do any research into the uranium market supply chain? Did you find out that 30% is from decommisioned ex-Soviet nukes and not new supply? Did you find out there is no stock pile like the crude reserves around the world?Obviously not.The worst mistake you ever made was leaving CIBC, only now to become irrelevant. I hope you realize this is the article that makes you a laughing stock and ends any minor influence you had.Good luck trying to come back. Nobody, and I mean nobody respects you anymore.

PS – wheres the $200 oil, your prediction marked the peak in the market.

You realize your are David Elias…google the name if you do not know. Sad…very sad.
Rigpigpetey

self analysis kinda what happens when you don’t live in the trenches, there are some “learned” individuals down here and they speak common sense. the world still needs to support itself and will continue to “slumber and slide along”. It gets tough in those ivory towers, loss of identity,…………………..for starters.

Jeff,………there is help for that i hear?
dave houston

There is no shortage of oil, which is why the author is uranium focused

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100450133
Smoisanberry

dork
Douglas Jack

Jeff, I’d like to share with you research & experience on humanity’s worldwide universal ‘indigenous’ (Latin ‘self-generating’) ‘economy’ (Greek ‘oikos’ = ‘home’). Our Indigenous accounting & governance traditions are directly applicable to our present day system. Examples are the Keiretsu of Japan, Chaebol of Korea, Associative Economies of Europe & Participation worldwide. While these most profitable enterprises in the world stem from indigenous roots, they can be made even more efficient when we include even more aspects of humanity’s heritage. Here’s one section to start with but I have a presentation which has been given as a keynote speech to the founding of the Canadian Society for Ecological-Economics, International Association for Public Participation, EF Schumacher Society’s Local Currencies in the 21st Century, Strategies St-Laurent, Zone d’intervention prioritaire, Eco-city Builders, Environment Canada, Montreal Biosphere, Canadian Environmental Network & more. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/relational-economy
Douglas Jack

Jeff, Thanks for this description of Fracking for Yellow-Cake Uranium. What you most importantly point out is the volumes of water involved carrying isotopes which can’t be effectively separated & returned to the environment without radiation damage for all living creatures including humans. We now know that no amount of artificial ionizing radiation, all low-level radio-active contamination comes without epidemiological & public health consequences.

Those below who perceive this issue through 2-dimensional mechanical / chemical / nuclear engineering perspectives must complement these with study of natural health, epidemiological & biostatistical studies from around the world, which have been compiled over the past 70 years showing no safe way of separating atomic scale isotopes from vast volumes of water. Leaving such material in supposed containment ponds ponds which inevitably leak & then for future generations to ‘deal-with’ are irresponsible beyond all human values. There is absolutely no ecological history (histories of human & biosphere development) for such radio-active materials which accumulate in the food-chain & biosphere. Radio-active materials are designed to be rare in the biosphere & meant to be left deeply deposited into the earth’s crust. Through media of long-standing community memory story tellers & graphic character writing systems, humanity’s ‘indigenous’ (Latin ‘self-generating’) ancestors know about & avoid the relatively few contaminated areas of the earth. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/home/9-undoing-false-science