Increased demand for mineral commodities is growing exponentially and high-grade, easily extractable resources are being depleted rapidly. This shifts the global production to low-grade or, in certain cases, unconventional mineral resources, the production of which depends on the availability of large amounts of energy, since thermal processes are the most appropriate in such cases. These processes can be sustainable only if low-cost, carbon free, reliable energy is available for comprehensive extraction of all valuable commodities, for the entire lifetime of the project. The availability of energy in many cases will also promote value addition and provide higher purity end products, which will improve the overall economics of the project. These processes are usually cleaner and generate lower quantities of wastes. Thermal processes using high temperature gas cooled reactors (HTGRs) could be a sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative to the presently used various conventional chemical processes. As most of the suggested mineral deposits contain low concentrations of uranium and thorium, these could be recovered by a thermal process and used as fuel in the HTGRs. The proposed CRP is intended to generate basic data on the availability and characteristics of such mineral resources as phosphates, copper, rare-earth elements, gold ores and coal, as well as process residues such as phosphogypsum and gold tailings, and to conduct conceptual and feasibility level studies on appropriate energy neutral thermal processes in which thorium/uranium fuelled HTGRs will provide the required energy.
Techno-economic investigations on the use of HTGRs as heat/electricity supplier for minerals and uranium/thorium recovery from unconventional resources; phosphate rock using the thermal process during phosphate fertilizer production; copper and gold ores during copper and gold mining/extraction; by-products from rare earth elements mining; coal and lignite in coal-to-liquid (CTL) projects.
Establish a techno-economic analyses method and apply it to clarify if the identified needs (see Specific Objective 1) can be met technically and economically using High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGRs).
Identify and characterise the heat/steam/electricity requirements of various thermal processing methods (e.g. thermal phosphate rock processing, thermal copper/gold/REE processing, etc.).
Obtain research outcomes of the environmental net benefits (e.g. prevented waste, amount of accessed unconventional resources), the overall power balance of the system (reactor fuel recovered vs. reactor fuel spend) and the overall environmental footprint of the processes.
The CRP had a considerable impact on (1) the view of nuclear power plants, particularly SMRs, as potential energy sources for mineral processing and (2) the recovery of uranium as a byproduct from unconventional resources, particularly phosphate ores.
It is unlikely that “energy neutral mineral processing” as it was envisioned in the CRP will be realized in full, but it is very likely that the two crucial parts of it (i.e. using nuclear power plants to provide process heat for more sustainable mineral processing operations, and byproduct uranium recovery that results in a cleaner primary ore product and can foster a more diverse uranium supply) will be realized in the very near future.
In addition to the TECDOC that summarizes the results of the CRP and the considerable scientific literature published by the participating experts, the CRP also managed to attract the attention of the nuclear community at large with “Word Nuclear News” covering the results of the CRP in a widely publicized article: https://world-nuclear-news.org/UF-High-temperature-reactors-for-energy-….
The CRP was relevant since it allowed a wide range of different experts, from different scientific disciplines (mineral processing, applied geology and nuclear engineering) and different Member States (i.e., Argentina, China, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, United Republic of Tanzania, Tunisia, Bolivian Republic of Venezuela) to effectively work together. Participating experts emphasized continuously that no other format would have provided for such a cooperation to thrive.