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Russia must double uranium output by 2020 - TVEL

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MOSCOW, November 24 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has to increase its annual uranium production nearly twofold from the current 3,200 metric tons to 7,500 metric tons by 2020, state-owned company TVEL said in a report Tuesday.

By 2050, the country needs to increase uranium production to 12,000 metric tons, according to TVEL, a nuclear fuel and uranium producer.

The company said, however, that fast neutron reactors that are scheduled to be phased in between 2030 and 2040 would considerably raise the efficiency of uranium burning, the conversion on nuclear fuel and uranium and plutonium fuel cycle closure.

Experts said this would allow for the gradual reduction of uranium production to an annual output of 50,000 metric tons worldwide and to 4,000 tons in Russia from 2010 to 2050-2060.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said countries with nuclear power plants would be building thermal neutron reactors before 2050, meaning their demand for uranium per year would grow from the current 68,000 metric tons to 142,000 by 2050.

TVEL also conducts research to improve fuel for BN-600 reactors and is developing new fuel production technology for fast reactors with closed fuel cycle.

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