Kazakhstan plans a 100-year uranium reserve for its reactors, 150,000 tonnes by 2050
Serguey Asael Shinder1 min readKazakhstan aims to build a strategic uranium reserve large enough to supply its planned nuclear power plants for more than 100 years, World Nuclear News reported on 4 November. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev set out the ambition in an address to the nation, calling a proposal for a state reserve for the next 100 years very reasonable and saying the country must think now about supplying its stations in 50 years and beyond.
According to the presidential press service, Kazatomprom chairman Meirzhan Yusupov briefed Tokayev on the measures. They include geological exploration in six areas with a total of more than 1,000 square kilometres and planned exploration of the 124 square kilometre Kyzyltu area. The chairman of the Atomic Energy Agency, Almassadam Satkaliyev, told a parliamentary committee that the development strategy calls for reserving at least 150,000 tonnes of uranium by 2050, and that a concept for the reserve is being prepared. He described it as a multi-level system across the fuel chain, from deposits held underground to physical stockpiles of natural uranium and ready-to-use fuel.
The reserve is meant for domestic plants. The first, the Balkhash plant with two Rosatom VVER-1200 reactors, has an intergovernmental agreement signed in May and an engineering, procurement and construction contract signed in September. Kazinform put the cost of the two units at about 14.4 billion dollars plus 2 billion for security and social infrastructure, with construction targeted for 2027 and first operation in 2034.
What it means
The reserve ties part of Kazakhstan's uranium to its own future reactors decades ahead of the first one running; the conceptual framework now being drafted will show how much is held back.