How much of total US electricity production is used by the nuclear power industry for uranium mining fuel fabrication electric generation and waste storage?

Answer 1

Since asking the questions I have had more luck with my research and found a terrific paper directly on point. I knew that as of 1980 three percent of total US electric production (25% of total nuclear electric generation) was used simply to run the country's three nuclear fuel processing labs. So adding in the cost of mining, construction, operation and waste storage had to add significantly to the total power cost. However, the statistics to which I had access were 28 years old. I decided it was time to find something more recent. It is remarkable how little information there is on this point on the internet. You can find a lot of information regarding the carbon footprint of nuclear power. The industry (and certain politicians) want us to believe that nuclear power plants have a much smaller carbon footprint than fossil fuel electric plants. The truth is that nuclear power plants do generate fewer carbon emissions than coal, gas or oil emissions; however, if you take into account the carbon emissions of the entire nuclear cycle (i.e. mining, refining, processing, fabricating & storage of the fuel, and construction, decommissioning and storage of the plant, the carbon footprint is about the same for both the nuclear and the fossil fuel industry).

In any event, Nuclear power - The Energy Balance, a report by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen, Senior Scientist, Ceedata Consultancy, Chaam, Netherlands, and Philip Smith, and updated as of February 2008, is available at http://www.stormsmith.nl/ This report concludes that after taking into account mining, refining, processing, fabricating, recycling and storing nuclear fuel, constructing, operating, decommissioning and storing nuclear power plants, and the quantity and guality of known and suspected world-wide deposits of uranium ore, that the net electric output of the nuclear cycle is profoundly negative. In particular the report concludes that the industry while marginally positive now, will drop sustantially into the negative between the years 2030 and 2050 as minable uranium deposits decline in quality. (fn. The carbon footprint of the nuclear industry increases in inverse proportion to the quantity and quality of minable uranium deposits. The world's known and suspected supplies of uranium ore are expected to be wholly depleted by 2050 or earlier).

Personally, I think the author has made some assumptions that are more favorable to the nuclear industry than is deserved. For example, he assumes every nuclear power plant will have a useful life of 50 years, though not a single reactor has reached that grand old age and several have been retired prematurely (Chernobyl and Three Mile Island are two well known examples. The Enrico Fermi plant in Detroit, less well known than the other two, melted down on it's first day of operation and was encased in concrete. The story is the subject of the book "We Almost Lost Detroit.", so-titled after a quote by one of the emergency service workers, and Gil Scot Heron's song of the same name.

But little quibbles aside, the report's unmistakable conclusion is that investment in nuclear energy is a losing proposition, that on balance the nuclear industry CONSUMES more electricity than it produces.

To the person who answered "A small proportion," your answer though short and pithy, lacked citation to any sources, provided no background information regarding your own qualifications to make such a statement, or any information concerning the analysis you undertook, or read, to support your answer. I would be happy to see an open debate on this issue, supported by citation to evidence or credible research. This is an important issue of energy policy and there is almost no discussion of it on the internet.