8 ms·

We've got 300k years of fissile material, at current usage rates, which is only a small fraction of our current energy usage. If we magically went to 100% nucle

We've got 300k years of fissile material, at current usage rates, which is only a small fraction of our current energy usage. If we magically went to 100% nuclear fission for energy (which is not reasonable for personal transportation, at least), and continued to increase energy consumption per business as usual (developed economies not reducing, and developing economies rapidly catching up to developed usage per capita), then it would not last nearly as long, by 2 orders of magnitude. Also I think that estimate imagines efficient breeder reactors and "complete burning" of the material, and does not take into account our current incredibly wasteful techniques of using 5% of the available energy and burying the rest in an unrecoverable mountain sludge. I know that a few thousand years still feels like a long time, but with nuclear fission, it is truly the most non-renewable resource, being formed only in stellar explosions. Let's put aside the science fiction of asteroid mining nuclear fuel for now; I think a reasonable argument could be made to not spend nuclear fuel for our primary energy needs. If we have dreams of ever being able to do mass interstellar travel, nuclear material is the only fuel we have so far with reasonable energy density for the speeds and distances involved. (Of course some will say "nuclear fusion" or "light sails", to which I say, we should defer mass consumption of fissile material until we have a reasonable expectation that those methods are viable).

Rylinks 7y ago
it's the most non-renewable resource, but it also goes away whether we use it or not.
- Retric 7y ago
  It’s going away on the scale of billions of years. Personally, I think it’s much better to use it for space exploration than unusually expensive electrical power. Now if was even vaguely cost competitive with battery backed up wind and solar then that’s a reasonable argument, but until then I just don’t see the point.
- nanomonkey 7y ago
  For all intents and purposes it is a renewable resource. Breeder reactors allow us to utilize our fissible materials for an absurd amount of time.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Yup. Just like the finite but immense fusion fuel in our nearest star.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  With seawater extraction and breeders there's enough uranium to power the entire world many times over for hundreds of millions of years. Thus, just like the fusion fuel in the sun, uranium fission fuel is effectively as renewable as it gets. http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2016/10/03/nuclear-power-becomes-completely-renewable-with-extraction-of-uranium-from-seawater/#sthash.RI5SGSBc.dpbs http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2016/10/03/nuclear-power-becomes-c...
yostrovs 7y ago
"We" now and "we" ten thousand years from now are very different people. Those in the future will laugh at your concerns for them. It's as if ancient Egyptians would worry about whether we, now, have enough flood plain space to harvest crops.
- oliwarner 7y ago
  This assumes we don't screw ourselves into another dark age via societal breakdown climate disasters. Both events seem increasingly likely within 100 years, let alone 10,000 years. Humanity in Y12019 might be exactly where we are now.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    In that case there's no problem with fuel.
    - ben_w 7y ago
      Exactly where we are, but without all of the easily available petrochemical and coal deposits.
- rabidrat 7y ago
  Those in the near- and medium- future are already lamenting our lack of concern for them :(
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  >Those in the future will laugh at your concerns for them. Those 100 years in the future may shake their fists at us with fury as they die off regularly in their early 20s from cancer from breathing plastic-lousy air, from drinking plastic and chemical-lousy water, from eating what food that manages to survive the harsh weather and periods of drought - that just so happens to have various levels of heavy metal contamination from the soil it grew in. In ten thousand years, there might not be anything remotely resembling what we think of humans today.
- fsloth 7y ago
mikece 7y ago
We have 300k years of uranium at current usage rates. If we switched over to Thorium the supply is orders of magnitude greater.
- UnpossibleJim 7y ago
  What is the foot dragging on the momentum of Thorium generators?
  - TremendousJudge 7y ago
    the fact that they don't really exist yet?
    - kjar 7y ago
      Oh dear this ancient repeated never ending debate. Nuclear lost - in cost, in failure modes, in lack of private funding, in plant build time, in risk of enrichment systems... dead horse is dead. Edit. Add the fact the reactors take decades to develop, cool story we have about ten of those decades before really shit has hit irreversible climate destabilization fan.
      - manigandham 7y ago
        Tell that to the US Navy which operates dozens of reactors in wartime vessels travelling millions of miles and enduring rough conditions and even combat with one of the best safety records of any industry.
        Retric 7y ago
        The US has 2 sunk Nuclear submarines (129 and 99 lives lost). With at least USS Thresher being related to a loss of propulsion and thus at least indirectly the reactor. Considering how few where in service and none being sunk in wartime that’s not a great safety record. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_subma... The cause of USS Scorpion’s sinking is unknown so it may be related to the reactor or it may not.
melling 7y ago
Why would we put aside the science fiction of astroid mining? In 3000 years, it probably won’t be a problem. And I’m not sure how you think it’s the most non-renewable. How much oil do you think we have left?
- rabidrat 7y ago
  The earth can make more oil given enough time. There will never be more fissile material in this solar system.
  - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
    Once you get to the point where you mined all of the fissile material in the solar system you probably have fusion figured out or how to use solar power at large scales.
  - melling 7y ago
    Enough time is millions of years for the earth to make oil. If it makes you happy, i’m willing to ration the uranium so the earth’s supply lasts 10,000 years. If our exponential knowledge curve can’t solve the problem by then we might be in trouble. The singularity should be within the next 10,000 years.
ravitation 7y ago
> Put aside the science fiction of asteroid mining nuclear fuel for now > If we have dreams of ever being able to do mass interstellar travel We probably should put aside the science fiction of mass interstellar travel for now too then? Especially given that asteroid mining (or lunar mining) is relatively achievable in the near term compared to interstellar travel...
merpnderp 7y ago
There is effectively an unlimited amount of uranium dissolved in ocean water which can be mined at a much higher cost, but which is an insignificant cost in the operation of a nuclear plant. There's no reasonable reason to delay consuming uranium, and absolutely ridiculous to consider saving thorium (not that we can actually consume thorium yet).
tim333 7y ago
I'd say we have a reasonable expectation that fusion will be viable this century in the sense of working. Whether it will be cost effective remains to be seen.
pier25 7y ago
Even if nuclear only lasted 3000 years it would be more than what fossil fuels will last.
- willio58 7y ago
  And by then we will have many better alternatives
conanbatt 7y ago
3000 years of not worrying about energy by todays standards looks like a fantastic deal to me.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  That's also 3,000 more years to figure out how to make a useful fusion reactor, or to figure out how to smoosh neutrons and protons and electrons together to turn uranium into a renewable resource, or to figure out how to blow up stars and harvest fissile material that way. 3,000 years is a long time at our current rate of scientific discovery.
godelski 7y ago
This is utterly laughable! If we can't make any improvements or find an alternative energy source (like fusion, who's fuel is essentially limitless) then we probably don't deserve to live anymore. The assumption that we'll make absolutely no technological progress in a (at a ridiculous lower bound!!) 3000yr time frame (and that we shouldn't use an energy source because of that) is laughable! Let alone calling something the least renewable because of it. Specifically with nuclear we've made tremendous progress in the last decade alone. There is no evidence to support this kind of thinking. Let alone that humanity won't make any progress. If we took this kind of thinking to any other kind of problem we'd never make any progress. There's reasons to not use nuclear (I'm pro), but this isn't one of them.
fragmede 7y ago
> If we magically went to 100% nuclear fission for energy (which is not reasonable for personal transportation, at least) Not quite so fast. A nuclear power plant under the hood of a car may be unfeasible for a long time to come, but what is becoming feasible is electric cars. Right now, a Tesla is still powered by coal in most places for now, but as more renewable energy sources come online, they magically get switched over to being solar powered, and then they become "nuclear powered", if/when that time comes.
rakoo 7y ago
Does your figure account for the uranium contained in seawater ?

Rylinks 7y ago

it's the most non-renewable resource, but it also goes away whether we use it or not.

Retric 7y ago
It’s going away on the scale of billions of years. Personally, I think it’s much better to use it for space exploration than unusually expensive electrical power. Now if was even vaguely cost competitive with battery backed up wind and solar then that’s a reasonable argument, but until then I just don’t see the point.
nanomonkey 7y ago
For all intents and purposes it is a renewable resource. Breeder reactors allow us to utilize our fissible materials for an absurd amount of time.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  Yup. Just like the finite but immense fusion fuel in our nearest star.
acidburnNSA 7y ago
With seawater extraction and breeders there's enough uranium to power the entire world many times over for hundreds of millions of years. Thus, just like the fusion fuel in the sun, uranium fission fuel is effectively as renewable as it gets. http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2016/10/03/nuclear-power-becomes-completely-renewable-with-extraction-of-uranium-from-seawater/#sthash.RI5SGSBc.dpbs http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2016/10/03/nuclear-power-becomes-c...

yostrovs 7y ago

"We" now and "we" ten thousand years from now are very different people. Those in the future will laugh at your concerns for them. It's as if ancient Egyptians would worry about whether we, now, have enough flood plain space to harvest crops.

oliwarner 7y ago
This assumes we don't screw ourselves into another dark age via societal breakdown climate disasters. Both events seem increasingly likely within 100 years, let alone 10,000 years. Humanity in Y12019 might be exactly where we are now.
- manigandham 7y ago
  In that case there's no problem with fuel.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    Exactly where we are, but without all of the easily available petrochemical and coal deposits.
rabidrat 7y ago
Those in the near- and medium- future are already lamenting our lack of concern for them :(
ryanmercer 7y ago
>Those in the future will laugh at your concerns for them. Those 100 years in the future may shake their fists at us with fury as they die off regularly in their early 20s from cancer from breathing plastic-lousy air, from drinking plastic and chemical-lousy water, from eating what food that manages to survive the harsh weather and periods of drought - that just so happens to have various levels of heavy metal contamination from the soil it grew in. In ten thousand years, there might not be anything remotely resembling what we think of humans today.
fsloth 7y ago

mikece 7y ago

We have 300k years of uranium at current usage rates. If we switched over to Thorium the supply is orders of magnitude greater.

UnpossibleJim 7y ago
What is the foot dragging on the momentum of Thorium generators?
- TremendousJudge 7y ago
  the fact that they don't really exist yet?
  - kjar 7y ago
    Oh dear this ancient repeated never ending debate. Nuclear lost - in cost, in failure modes, in lack of private funding, in plant build time, in risk of enrichment systems... dead horse is dead. Edit. Add the fact the reactors take decades to develop, cool story we have about ten of those decades before really shit has hit irreversible climate destabilization fan.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      Tell that to the US Navy which operates dozens of reactors in wartime vessels travelling millions of miles and enduring rough conditions and even combat with one of the best safety records of any industry.
      - Retric 7y ago
        The US has 2 sunk Nuclear submarines (129 and 99 lives lost). With at least USS Thresher being related to a loss of propulsion and thus at least indirectly the reactor. Considering how few where in service and none being sunk in wartime that’s not a great safety record. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_subma... The cause of USS Scorpion’s sinking is unknown so it may be related to the reactor or it may not.

melling 7y ago

Why would we put aside the science fiction of astroid mining? In 3000 years, it probably won’t be a problem. And I’m not sure how you think it’s the most non-renewable. How much oil do you think we have left?

rabidrat 7y ago
The earth can make more oil given enough time. There will never be more fissile material in this solar system.
- read_if_gay_ 7y ago
  Once you get to the point where you mined all of the fissile material in the solar system you probably have fusion figured out or how to use solar power at large scales.
- melling 7y ago
  Enough time is millions of years for the earth to make oil. If it makes you happy, i’m willing to ration the uranium so the earth’s supply lasts 10,000 years. If our exponential knowledge curve can’t solve the problem by then we might be in trouble. The singularity should be within the next 10,000 years.

ravitation 7y ago

> Put aside the science fiction of asteroid mining nuclear fuel for now > If we have dreams of ever being able to do mass interstellar travel We probably should put aside the science fiction of mass interstellar travel for now too then? Especially given that asteroid mining (or lunar mining) is relatively achievable in the near term compared to interstellar travel...

merpnderp 7y ago

There is effectively an unlimited amount of uranium dissolved in ocean water which can be mined at a much higher cost, but which is an insignificant cost in the operation of a nuclear plant. There's no reasonable reason to delay consuming uranium, and absolutely ridiculous to consider saving thorium (not that we can actually consume thorium yet).

tim333 7y ago

I'd say we have a reasonable expectation that fusion will be viable this century in the sense of working. Whether it will be cost effective remains to be seen.

pier25 7y ago

Even if nuclear only lasted 3000 years it would be more than what fossil fuels will last.

willio58 7y ago
And by then we will have many better alternatives

conanbatt 7y ago

3000 years of not worrying about energy by todays standards looks like a fantastic deal to me.

yellowapple 7y ago
That's also 3,000 more years to figure out how to make a useful fusion reactor, or to figure out how to smoosh neutrons and protons and electrons together to turn uranium into a renewable resource, or to figure out how to blow up stars and harvest fissile material that way. 3,000 years is a long time at our current rate of scientific discovery.

godelski 7y ago

This is utterly laughable! If we can't make any improvements or find an alternative energy source (like fusion, who's fuel is essentially limitless) then we probably don't deserve to live anymore. The assumption that we'll make absolutely no technological progress in a (at a ridiculous lower bound!!) 3000yr time frame (and that we shouldn't use an energy source because of that) is laughable! Let alone calling something the least renewable because of it. Specifically with nuclear we've made tremendous progress in the last decade alone. There is no evidence to support this kind of thinking. Let alone that humanity won't make any progress. If we took this kind of thinking to any other kind of problem we'd never make any progress. There's reasons to not use nuclear (I'm pro), but this isn't one of them.

fragmede 7y ago

> If we magically went to 100% nuclear fission for energy (which is not reasonable for personal transportation, at least) Not quite so fast. A nuclear power plant under the hood of a car may be unfeasible for a long time to come, but what is becoming feasible is electric cars. Right now, a Tesla is still powered by coal in most places for now, but as more renewable energy sources come online, they magically get switched over to being solar powered, and then they become "nuclear powered", if/when that time comes.

rakoo 7y ago

Does your figure account for the uranium contained in seawater ?