The world may experience a shortage of uranium to fuel nuclear power plants in the next decade or so, according to international energy experts as reported in the Economist magazine. The problem is that 40% of the world supply comes from recycling uranium from weapons and other sources, that are being quickly depleted. [right, highly enriched uranium recycled from scraps. Credit. US Dept. of Energy]
But as demand for new uranium resources increase, different groups predict higher prices, innovative mining techniques, unconventional sources or some combination of them all. Pessimists argue that prices will go so high as to shut down any nuclear renaissance that develops to offer carbon dioxide-free power.