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 Deel van het artikel over ir Storm vL gekopieerd 

 Information from this source shows that using data from Storm van Leeuwen & Smith one gets annual energy costs for three major uranium mines of 5 PJ for Ranger, 60 PJ for Olympic Dam (both in Australia) and 69 PJ for Rossing in Namibia. These mines report their energy use as 0.8 PJ, 5 PJ and 1 PJ respectively, with that at Olympic Dam including copper production (only about 20% of value of output is uranium). Rossing mines very low-grade ores, but its energy cost is overestimated sixty-fold or more by Storm van Leeuwen & Smith and the figure they predict is more than that for the whole country (c 50 PJ). 

 Nuclearinfo.net concludes: ""Our work shows that this (Storm van Leeuwen & Smith) work is not reliable and in fact leads to outrageously high predictions for the energy cost of Uranium mining for modern mines and mills."" 

 Critique of 2001 paper by Storm van Leeuwen and Smith: Is Nuclear Power Sustainable? and its May 2002 successor: Can Nuclear Power Provide Energy for the Future; would it solve the CO2-emission problem? 
 with reference to a 2005 version entitled Nuclear Power, the Energy balance  

 A ""semi-technical"" document by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith with the title Is Nuclear Power Sustainable? was prepared for circulation during the meeting in April 2001of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, and also during the continuation in Bonn in July 2001 of the Climate Conference. An updated version appeared in mid August 2001, then a ""thoroughly-revised"" version in May 2002, together with a ""rebuttal"" of this critique. However, at no point do the authors engage or refer to the substantive WNA paper to which this is an appendix! - and which counters their position. This was partly rectified in the 2005 version. 

 The 2001 Storm van Leeuwen & Smith (SLS) paper dismisses arguments that nuclear energy is sustainable, either physically, environmentally or in terms of its energy costs, and this is repeated in the numerically-depleted May 2002 version. They purport to offer ""evidence"" that building, operating and producing fuel for a nuclear plant produces as much carbon dioxide as a similar sized gas-fired plant. The foregoing WNA paper, quoting all the reputable studies we are aware of, shows that this is demonstrably wrong - there is a 20 to 50-fold difference in favour of nuclear. 

 The SLS arguments regarding sustainability are based on a ""Limits to Growth"" perception of mineral resources and a misunderstanding of the notion of ore reserves. The fallacies of the ""Limits to Growth"" argument have been well canvassed since the 1970s, and their falsity best illustrated by declining mineral prices (in real terms). In respect to uranium, they are addressed in the WNA paper Supply of Uranium in this series. The SLS papers depend on outdated and invalid assumptions, largely because many of the figures used are taken from a study originally done in 1982. Much has changed since then and much more work has been done on quantifying the issue. 

     Only diffusion enrichment is considered, whereas centrifuge methods now widely used are up to 50 times more energy efficient (less than 50 instead of 2400 kWh/SWU operationally). There is no reason to suggest that the energy capital of centrifuge plants would be greater. About two thirds of current enrichment is by centrifuge. 
     The future use of new reactor designs, including fast reactors, is dismissed on the grounds that some research programs in Europe have been closed down. However, Russia has been operating a 600 MW commercial fast reactor at Beloyarsk in the Urals for decades and on the basis of its operating success is now building a new larger version on the same site. The main reason there are not more fast reactors is that they are uneconomic in an era of low uranium prices. SLS completely misrepresents the reason for fast reactors being sidelined: the abundance of cheap uranium fuel. Should uranium ever look like becoming scarce, there is over 200 reactor-years of operating experience, including some in breeder reactor mode, on which to base a new generation of fast breeder reactors. 
     Over the shorter term, no allowance is made for plant life extension of nuclear reactors, although this is now commonplace and extends operating life significantly, typically to 60 years. 
     In uranium mining, energy costs are now very well quantified, and no consideration is given to relatively new technologies such as in-situ leaching which is more efficient than traditional mining methods in terms of both cost and energy use. 

 One important point of agreement with Storm van Leeuwen and Smith, however, is that all relevant energy inputs throughout the fuel cycle need to be considered in any comparison with fossil fuels or other sources of electrici