Current Trends in the Nuclear Power Global Market

Abstract

The review of the nuclear energy technologies market, namely the main processes of the initial and final stages of the nuclear fuel cycle (NTC) was shown. The authors reveal key players in the markets of natural uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, fabrication of nuclear fuel, direct disposal, and reprocessing as well as determine their market shares. The article shows the fundamental factors influencing the development trends of the global nuclear power market such as: units’ commissioning in China, India, the Republic of Korea and other countries, the restart of the Japanese nuclear power plants, growth of uranium supplies long-term contracting planned for the period up to 2025, volatility of world prices of the NFC initial and final stages, political, economic and environmental reasons for the nuclear power generation choice. The article presents the results of analyses of Russian and world prices on the NFC initial and final stages main processes’ allowing to draw a conclusion about the current competitiveness of Russian nuclear energy technologies

Keywords

• uranium
• nuclear fuel cycle
• conversion
• enrichment
• fabrication
• spent nuclear fuel
• price
• competitiveness
• nuclear power plants