[denton-scratch]

> an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered

If it's "undiscovered", presumably that 0.5 metric tons amounts to spurious precision. Call it ten million, and it becomes clear that it's a wild guesstimate.

Also: the location of these Uranium deposits is not evenly distributed. I understand that substantially all of France's Uranium, for example, comes from Niger, a politically-unstable country where much of the mining is controlled by the Wagner Group.

[defrost]

Niger has been on the wane for some time as two of the three Orano (formerly Areva) group mines hit near exhaustion.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/08/04/h...

( Or, if you prefer, the Nuclear Energy "Red Book":

https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_79960/uranium-2022-resource...

    In France, although no domestic uranium exploration and mine development activities have been carried out since 1999, majority government-owned Orano (formerly Areva) and its subsidiaries remain active abroad.

    As of 2020, Orano S.A. has been working outside France, focusing on discovery of exploitable resources in Canada, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Namibia and Niger. In Canada, Kazakhstan and Niger, Orano is also involved in uranium mining operations.

    In addition, as a non-operator, Orano holds shares in several mining operations and research projects in different countries. In 2020, Orano started exploration in Uzbekistan.

    Total nondomestic exploration expenditures remained relatively steady from 2017 to 2018 at about USD 30 million per year, before declining by 17% to around USD 25 million in 2019 and 2020.

)