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Michel's bullishness is spreading through the industry. Even with 12 million lbs. of U3O8 coming out of Russia each year, there is talk of a shortfall after 2010. While few people expect a new reactor to be built in the U.S. in the next decade, the Browns Ferry reactor in Alabama, idle since 1985, might be restarted in the next few years. Though Germany and Sweden have announced plans to phase out their 30 nuclear-power plants, Finland and Russia are planning four new reactors. In much of the developing world, a nuclear plant is the only viable alternative to a coal-fired plant. China is moving forward with an aggressive nuclear program, and India has announced plans for eight new reactors by 2008. The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry association, forecasts that worldwide uranium demand could reach, optimistically, 250 million lbs. a year by 2020--far beyond the predicted supplies.
Even if the opening of new nuclear plants should falter, uranium could still become a scarce commodity. According to Julian Steyn, a uranium expert at Energy Resources International, a Washington consulting firm, if world demand remains flat at about 170 million lbs. a year over the next 20 years, uranium supplies will fall below that level sometime around 2013. That's why Michel calls uranium's current low price "unsustainable." And it's why, like it or not, uranium is going to play a growing role in the world's power supply. At a rate of 140 tons a day, the energy future is being unearthed at McArthur River.