By Tueripura Mundingi |
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, data centres and digital infrastructure is reshaping global electricity demand in ways that are both structural and irreversible.
According to the International Energy Agency, data centres consumed 415 TWh globally in 2024, or some 1.5% of total electricity, and are forecast to double to 945 TWh by 2030, with AI workloads claiming substantial share of that power.
Unlike previous waves of growth, this demand is continuous rather than cyclical: recent nuclear deals like Meta’s 1.1 GW agreement with Constellation and Amazon’s 1.92 GW agreement with Talen Energy highlight gigawatt-scale commitments that do not power down overnight, pause during calm weather, or ease during off-peak hours.
As a result, stable power availability has become a practical constraint on economic growth, rather than a distant planning concern.
This shift is forcing governments and utilities to reassess how electricity systems are built and balanced.
While renewable energy continues to expand, it has yet to provide reliable, large-scale baseload generation on its own. In this context, nuclear power has returned to long-term energy planning, valued not as a transition technology but as a dependable source of low-carbon electricity.
As nuclear capacity grows or is extended, attention inevitably moves upstream, towards the security and reliability of uranium supply.
Uranium is once again being treated as a strategic resource rather than a purely commercial commodity. This shift brings renewed scrutiny, not only of volumes and pricing, but of how uranium is produced.
Public acceptance, environmental oversight and regulatory confidence increasingly determine whether projects move forward at all. Mining methods that once attracted limited attention are now central to discussions about energy security and sustainability.
Recent developments underline this trend. In 2025, China National Nuclear Corporation brought its largest domestic uranium mining project, National Uranium No.1 in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, while the United States accelerated permitting procedures for projects like enCore Energy’s Dewey Burdock Project in South Dakota, approved for Fast-41 status in September.
In both cases, uranium is extracted using in-situ recovery (ISR) – a method long associated with sandstone-hosted deposits and now firmly established as a mainstream industrial practice.
According to the World Nuclear Association, in-situ recovery has accounted for more than half of global uranium production for over a decade. Its appeal lies in what it avoids. There are no open pits, no underground tunnels, and no large waste rock dumps. Uranium is dissolved underground and recovered through a controlled circulation process, significantly reducing surface disturbance.
For regulators and communities alike, this predictability matters. The method is not experimental; it is mature, well-understood and widely applied in countries with long uranium mining histories, including Kazakhstan, the United States, China, Russia, Uzbekistan and Australia.
The growing focus on optimisation rather than feasibility was evident in 2025, when experts gathered at the IAEA Technical Meeting on Advances and Innovations in the Exploration and Mining of Sandstone Uranium Deposits, held in Navoi, Uzbekistan in October.
The emphasis was not on whether in-situ recovery works, but on how it can be implemented responsibly: improving geological modelling, refining hydrogeological calculations, strengthening operational monitoring and ensuring effective restoration of aquifers after production ends.
Operational experience from established producers was used to illustrate how these principles are applied in practice.
Against this backdrop, Namibia offers a particularly instructive case. The country has a long history of uranium production and ranked third globally in 2025, producing over 8,000 (preliminary estimates) tonnes from major operations like Husab, Rössing and the restarted Langer Heinrich.
At the same time, it operates in an arid environment with fragile ecosystems, where land use, water management and environmental protection are closely scrutinised.
In such conditions, minimising surface disruption is not simply preferable, but essential.
Where geological conditions allow, in-situ recovery aligns with these constraints. It reflects established global practice rather than a departure from it, offering a way to reconcile uranium production with environmental oversight in sensitive regions.
For Namibia, this is not about adopting untested technologies, but about applying methods that regulators and operators elsewhere already regard as standard.
International operators are part of this landscape, including Uranium One (part of Russia’s Rosatom) with its Wings project. Their presence does not alter the fundamental equation: no external actor can substitute for robust regulation, transparent oversight and long-term capacity building at the national level.
In the end, the viability of uranium projects depends not on ownership, but on whether extraction methods meet regulatory expectations and earn social acceptance over decades of operation.
As global energy demand continues to rise, the debate around uranium is shifting. The question is no longer whether uranium will be mined, but how it will be mined in ways that regulators, communities and ecosystems can live with for the long term.
In a world increasingly dependent on uninterrupted electricity, how uranium is produced is becoming just as important as how much is produced.
The current phase therefore offers an opportunity to align uranium production more closely with long-term regulatory, environmental and societal expectations.
In the photo: A VITAL COMMODITY … As uranium is being treated as a strategic resource rather than a purely commercial commodity, the shift brings renewed scrutiny, not only of volumes and pricing, but of how uranium is produced. (Photo contributed).
