Regardless of debates about the role of nuclear energy in Australia’s energy mix, uranium mining in Western Australia has huge potential to service the nuclear energy demands of other jurisdictions while also diversifying WA’s industrial base and creating jobs.
That was the message from CCIWA Policy Manager Dr Anthea Wesley at the WA Mining Conference in Perth on October 10, speaking on a panel about uranium mining and nuclear energy alongside Curtin University’s Dr Eric Lilford, Cauldron Energy’s Jonathon Fisher and facilitator Minerals Council of Australia’s David Parker.
Referring to CCIWA’s Uranium mining in WA report, released in March 2024, Wesley said “uranium demand is rising, driven by countries such as Japan, China and South Korea increasing their nuclear base”.
“This is coupled with uranium supply issues on the back of years of underinvestment in uranium mines which is all putting upward pressure on the spot price for uranium,” Wesley said.
She encouraged businesses, communities and government to start the conversation around uranium mining in WA, and the role of nuclear energy in decarbonising international jurisdictions, and questioned the State Government’s ban.
WA has the most to gain
Wesley said it’s an “exciting time” for countries, including Australia, that have large uranium deposits.
Australia has the world’s largest uranium deposits at about 28% or almost 1.7 million tonnes.
Yet it is only the fourth-largest producer (4,553t in 2022), behind Kazakhstan (21,227t), Canada (7,351t) and Namibia (5,613t).
WA is particularly uranium rich with 226,000t of known deposits, making the State the eighth-largest uranium jurisdiction globally.
CCIWA’s report identified that WA has the potential to export around $1 billion worth of uranium each year, creating around 9,000 direct and indirect jobs, based on the four projects that were approved in 2016 which have a collective output of 8,000t.
“With the right policy conditions in play, WA could be a major producer of uranium,” Wesley said.
“But unfortunately, the State Government has turned its back on these opportunities.”
In 2017 the WA Government enforced a ban on new uranium mining projects, but allowed the four existing mining approvals to progress, subject to certain progress conditions.
Deep Yellow Limited’s Mulga Rock mine is the only one in WA that made sufficient progress to meet the State Government requirements to retain its licence, with uranium production due to start in 2028. The three other mines approved in 2016, but stalled, were – Cameco’s Yeelirrie and Kintyre projects and Toro Energy’s Wiluna mine.
Piece in economic diversification puzzle
Speaking on the panel, Fisher emphasised the role uranium mining could have in diversifying WA’s economy.
“Lithium and nickel are problematic from a revenue perspective and the iron ore price over the next couple years is looking shaky,” he said.
“The 9,000 jobs CCIWA suggests that can be generated in the relative short-term in uranium [mining] could replace those job losses in lithium, nickel and iron ore.”
Nuclear economics and science stack up: Lilford
Lilford, an Associate Professor in engineering and economics, debunked claims from the CSIRO’s 2024 GenCost report, which estimated small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear plants to cost about two to four times as much as renewables in 2023, and more than twice as much by 2030.
He said the report did a “disservice” to the nuclear industry by considering the nuclear life cycle to be 30 years.
“A nuclear reactor lasts about 80 to 90 years and you may have huge upfront costs – I don’t dispute that – but your footprint is nowhere near the size of say a solar panel or wind farm with the same amount of energy,” he said.
“Nuclear power stations can fit into a fairly small footprint; they can fit into where you’ve got existing coal-fired power stations and your supporting infrastructure is already there.”
He said nuclear projects are now using generation three and four reactors which don’t pose the same cooling issue of generation two reactors, which were the main cause of the Fukushima (2011), Chernobyl (1986) and Three Mile Island (1979) nuclear meltdowns.
“You cannot rely on solar and wind to create the kind of power that this world is moving forward into in a safe and sustainable manner, and I think nuclear can be part of the solution,” Lilford said.
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