  During 2009 nuclear power plants, with a capacity of 370 GWe, will produce
roughly 14% of the worldwide electric energy. About 65000 tons of natural
uranium equivalent are required to operate these reactors. For 15 years on
average only 2/3 of this fuel is provided by the uranium mines and 1/3 comes
from secondary resources. In this paper the situation concerning the secondary
resources at the beginning of the year 2009 is presented. The data used are
from the IAEA/NEA 2007 Red Book, "Uranium Resources, Production and Demand",
and from the World Nuclear Association (WNA).
  Our analysis shows that these civilian stocks will be essentially exhausted
within the next 5 years. This coincides roughly with the year 2013, when the
delivery of the 10000 tons of natural uranium equivalent from russian military
stocks to the USA will end. As the majority of the remaining civilian stocks,
about 30000 tons, are believed to be under the control of the US government and
american companies, it seems rather unlikely that the USA will share their own
strategic uranium reserves with other large nuclear energy users. All data
indicate that a uranium supply shortage in many OECD countries can only be
avoided if the remaining military uranium stocks from Russia and the USA,
estimated to be roughly 500000 tons are made available to the other countries.
