26 January 2009

Between 200 and 20,000 Years' Worth of Uranium

The Earth holds over 200 years of uranium for nuclear power plants at current rates of consumption. But we know that more nuclear plants are being built, so humans will need to develop more ingenious ways of tapping the planet's uranium supply. The real supply of nuclear fuel is closer to 100,000 years.
If the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet's economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.

...Two technologies could greatly extend the uranium supply itself. Neither is economical now, but both could be in the future if the price of uranium increases substantially. First, the extraction of uranium from seawater would make available 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium—a 60,000-year supply at present rates. Second, fuel-recycling fast-breeder reactors, which generate more fuel than they consume, would use less than 1 percent of the uranium needed for current LWRs. Breeder reactors could match today's nuclear output for 30,000 years using only the NEA-estimated supplies. _SciAm
And then there are several ways of re-cycling nuclear fuel to double and triple fuel supplies. And then there is Thorium, which provides more nuclear energy yet.

Nuclear fusion will be available long before we run out of fissionable fuels for advanced generation nuclear reactors. The only shortage we have is a shortage of intelligent imagination coupled with a smart and competent workforce. We can thank government schools for dumbing down the workforce and voting population.

You may think there is a shortage of capital investment, but that is only in relative terms. As the proper technologies come along, they will be funded. Even with the NIC (narcissist in chief) "in control".

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2 Comments:

Blogger neil craig said...

Some years ago Professor Cohen calculated that taking uranium from seawater would give us power at current levels for 5 billion years.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html
Seawater would be expensive & it is relying on the rivers keeping bringing more in. However the calculations are not disputable which is why he chose this as a good baseline when debating with anti-nuclearists.

Tuesday, 27 January, 2009  
Blogger al fin said...

Interesting. I read something like that on Brian Wang's blog several months ago.

Something really fascinating in the news is the fusion-fission hybrid reactor, meant to utilise "the other 70 to 90%" of nuclear fuel that is generally cast aside as nuclear waste.

I am all in favour of milking every gram of fuel for all the energy it is worht.

Thursday, 29 January, 2009  

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