Frederik Reitsma

On the Sustainability and Progress of Energy Neutral Mineral Processing

A number of primary ores such as phosphate rock, gold-, copper- and rare earth ores contain considerable amounts of accompanying uranium and other critical materials. Energy neutral mineral processing is the extraction of unconventional uranium during primary ore processing to use it, after enrichment and fuel production, to generate greenhouse gas lean energy in a nuclear reactor. Energy neutrality is reached if the energy produced from the extracted uranium is equal to or larger than the energy required for primary ore processing, uranium extraction, -conversion, -enrichment and -fuel production. This work discusses the sustainability of energy neutral mineral processing and provides an overview of the current progress of a multinational research project on that topic conducted under the umbrella of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Using high temperature reactors for energy neutral phosphate fertilizer and phosphogypsum processing

This paper presents the conception to employ High Temperature Reactors (HTRs) to power a combined phosphate fertilizer/phosphogypsum (PG) processing plant that produces phosphate fertilizer by the wet acid process while treating the main associated waste product PG to sulfuric acid/Portland cement. The idea is based on a past plant design proposed by Consolidated Minerals Inc. (CMI) and promotes the usage of a lean greenhouse gas emission energy source instead of the previously suggested coal-fired plant.