The paper does look at the outflow. In fact, in the same paragraph as the "money quote" I copied it says, "uranium has a residence time of approximately 500,000

The paper does look at the outflow. In fact, in the same paragraph as the "money quote" I copied it says, "uranium has a residence time of approximately 500,000 years". It's not clear to me that the 9000 tonnes is net or gross, but either way your original point still stands: ocean uranium is nowhere near a limitless resource, and could likely be made economically unviable[1] in a rather short timespan, perhaps even in a single human lifespan if we switched overnight to 100% energy generation from dissolved uranium. What's more surprising, actually, is how much uranium we consume currently. And AFAIU, we do so very inefficiently. Seems to me we'd get a much better RoI by using uranium more efficiently than by turning to seawater for more uranium to waste. [1] Assuming it becomes viable in the first place. It certainly doesn't seem economically viable, today.