5 ms·

Uranium is not the only element/mineral of interest that is dissolved in seawater. Research has been done on this stuff before. I'm glad it's being done, but un

Uranium is not the only element/mineral of interest that is dissolved in seawater. Research has been done on this stuff before. I'm glad it's being done, but unfortunately this will remain unviable when compared to open-pit or underground mining (even accounting for the risk of depending on foreign suppliers + transportation costs of importing). The biggest reserves are in Canada and Australia, not really countries we have to worry about cutting off supply anytime soon. We have bigger strategic mineral concerns (REMs and China) Cool tech, won't leave the lab. Just like the billion "metal-ion/air/water" batteries that get shilled non-stop.

catalogia 6y ago
> The biggest reserves are in Canada and Australia, not really countries we have to worry about cutting off supply anytime soon. Perhaps not maliciously, but might those countries hypothetically shut down those mines for environmental reasons?
sandworm101 6y ago
>> The biggest reserves are in Canada and Australia, not really countries we have to worry about cutting off supply anytime soon. Unless you are Iran. North Korea. Or anyone else currently not able to buy uranium from Canada.
- pfdietz 6y ago
  Uranium is quite common, if you don't care too much about cost. If you own a house with a suburban lot, the top meter of soil in your yard probably contains several kilograms of uranium.
  - jfim 6y ago
    Several milligrams or kilograms?
    - 01100011 6y ago
      According to Wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_in_the_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_in_the_environment): "According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation the normal concentration of uranium in soil is 300 μg/kg to 11.7 mg/kg." So let's say 5mg/kg. 200kg of soil per gram. How much area do you need to make 200kg of soil if you're going down 1m? I'd guess not much... So I think OP is wrong and it's more like 'several grams'.
      - ptero 6y ago
        I first thought that OP estimate was way off, but from your numbers he may be right! If you only need 200 tons of soil for 1kg of Ur, that's not much. A cubic meter of soil is ~2 tons, maybe more, which means you only need a 10m by 10m square to get 1kg of Ur if you go 1m deep. Wow.
        finnh 6y ago
        I think getting to enriched uranium is the hard bit.
        perl4ever 6y ago
        Also, now your property is a large hole.
      - kosievdmerwe 6y ago
        According to this[1] the weight for 1 cubic meter of dry soil is 1200kg, so 6 grams of uranium per cubic meter. Looking at average suburban lot sizes, they seem to be about 7200 sqft , which is about 668m^2. Which gives 668m^3 which gives about 4kg of uranium shockingly. [1] https://www.reference.com/science/much-cubic-meter-soil-weigh-e48660fa83d913ab https://www.reference.com/science/much-cubic-meter-soil-weig...
        throw_away 6y ago
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    >> the top meter of soil in your yard probably contains several kilograms of uranium. No. That is way way off. Grams ... more likely milligrams and even that sounds too much.
    - justatdotin 6y ago
      for a house in my neighbourhood I'd guess ~100 mg
    - akiselev 6y ago
      According to [1], "the normal concentration of uranium in soil is 300 μg/kg to 11.7 mg/kg." According to [2], the density of topsoil ranges from 1,100 to 2,500 kg/m^3. One acre is about 4,000 m^2, so a conservative estimate is that there is about 1.3 kg of uranium in 1 meter of top soil on a 1 acre lot. (4000 m^3 * 1100 kg/m^3 * 3x10^-7). That's just the low end - taking the midway point for both yields over 40kg (4000 m^3 * 1800 kg/m^3 * 6 mg/kg). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_in_the_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_in_the_environment [2] https://structx.com/Soil_Properties_002.html https://structx.com/Soil_Properties_002.html
      - masonic 6y ago
        on a 1 acre lot Not many of us have all of an acre lot for our homes.
        akiselev 6y ago
        According to [1], 2 billion people are subsistence farmers with under 5 hectares. The population adjusted average seems to be around a quarter of a hectare (~0.6 acres) per person (which sounds low to me, as someone who has grown my own food without automation). 10^9 == many of us. Unless your definition of "us" is hacker news readers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      Do the math. Average crustal abundance of U is around 3 ppm.
  - twomoretime 6y ago
    I think uranium at that concentration would qualify your lot as a Superfund site. It's a toxic heavy metal and that's a lot. Your numbers might be off by a zero or two.
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      As others have pointed out here, no, I was not off. It's a bit of a shocker to realize how much U is out there. There's a reason one should test your basement for radon before you buy a house.
      - perl4ever 6y ago
        But, since people don't mine uranium randomly, one may assume that your back yard doesn't have enough to be price-competitive with modern mines.
        pfdietz 6y ago
        Of course. The point is that if a nation wants to make nuclear weapons, keeping them away from uranium is a nonstarter. Uranium is everywhere, if you're willing to pay to extract it (in this case, by piling up the dirt and leaching the uranium using a bicarbonate solution). Fun fact: if the uranium and thorium in an average crustal rock were totally fissioned (using breeder reactors), the rock would produce about 20x the heat energy of burning the same mass of coal.
manfredo 6y ago
I don't think the idea is that it's meant to be competitive against extraction on land. What it does do is expand the potential uranium supply to make nuclear power viable as a global power supply on the order of hundreds of thousands of years at least.
- eloff 6y ago
  It also gives a path to nuclear power and weapons for counties with no uranium deposits.
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
    Is obtaining the uranium really the bottleneck?
    - eloff 6y ago
      It's a bottleneck, if you don't get past it, you're done. Uranium as far as I know, is a heavily regulated material. You can't buy nuclear reactor level amounts of refined uranium without the blessing of the states that control the supply. There are a LOT more problems after that though.
whatever1 6y ago
Things change, US itself has changed. Why do you expect Canada to lick the boot of Trump if they get the treatment they get today ? Why does one expect that an uranium cartel will not be formed the moment that it gains significant market adoption?

catalogia 6y ago

> The biggest reserves are in Canada and Australia, not really countries we have to worry about cutting off supply anytime soon. Perhaps not maliciously, but might those countries hypothetically shut down those mines for environmental reasons?

sandworm101 6y ago

>> The biggest reserves are in Canada and Australia, not really countries we have to worry about cutting off supply anytime soon. Unless you are Iran. North Korea. Or anyone else currently not able to buy uranium from Canada.

pfdietz 6y ago
Uranium is quite common, if you don't care too much about cost. If you own a house with a suburban lot, the top meter of soil in your yard probably contains several kilograms of uranium.
- jfim 6y ago
  Several milligrams or kilograms?
  - 01100011 6y ago
    According to Wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_in_the_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_in_the_environment): "According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation the normal concentration of uranium in soil is 300 μg/kg to 11.7 mg/kg." So let's say 5mg/kg. 200kg of soil per gram. How much area do you need to make 200kg of soil if you're going down 1m? I'd guess not much... So I think OP is wrong and it's more like 'several grams'.
    - ptero 6y ago
      I first thought that OP estimate was way off, but from your numbers he may be right! If you only need 200 tons of soil for 1kg of Ur, that's not much. A cubic meter of soil is ~2 tons, maybe more, which means you only need a 10m by 10m square to get 1kg of Ur if you go 1m deep. Wow.
      - finnh 6y ago
        I think getting to enriched uranium is the hard bit.
        perl4ever 6y ago
        Also, now your property is a large hole.
    - kosievdmerwe 6y ago
      According to this[1] the weight for 1 cubic meter of dry soil is 1200kg, so 6 grams of uranium per cubic meter. Looking at average suburban lot sizes, they seem to be about 7200 sqft , which is about 668m^2. Which gives 668m^3 which gives about 4kg of uranium shockingly. [1] https://www.reference.com/science/much-cubic-meter-soil-weigh-e48660fa83d913ab https://www.reference.com/science/much-cubic-meter-soil-weig...
      - throw_away 6y ago
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> the top meter of soil in your yard probably contains several kilograms of uranium. No. That is way way off. Grams ... more likely milligrams and even that sounds too much.
  - justatdotin 6y ago
    for a house in my neighbourhood I'd guess ~100 mg
  - akiselev 6y ago
    According to [1], "the normal concentration of uranium in soil is 300 μg/kg to 11.7 mg/kg." According to [2], the density of topsoil ranges from 1,100 to 2,500 kg/m^3. One acre is about 4,000 m^2, so a conservative estimate is that there is about 1.3 kg of uranium in 1 meter of top soil on a 1 acre lot. (4000 m^3 * 1100 kg/m^3 * 3x10^-7). That's just the low end - taking the midway point for both yields over 40kg (4000 m^3 * 1800 kg/m^3 * 6 mg/kg). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_in_the_environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_in_the_environment [2] https://structx.com/Soil_Properties_002.html https://structx.com/Soil_Properties_002.html
    - masonic 6y ago
      on a 1 acre lot Not many of us have all of an acre lot for our homes.
      - akiselev 6y ago
        According to [1], 2 billion people are subsistence farmers with under 5 hectares. The population adjusted average seems to be around a quarter of a hectare (~0.6 acres) per person (which sounds low to me, as someone who has grown my own food without automation). 10^9 == many of us. Unless your definition of "us" is hacker news readers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsistence_agriculture
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Do the math. Average crustal abundance of U is around 3 ppm.
- twomoretime 6y ago
  I think uranium at that concentration would qualify your lot as a Superfund site. It's a toxic heavy metal and that's a lot. Your numbers might be off by a zero or two.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    As others have pointed out here, no, I was not off. It's a bit of a shocker to realize how much U is out there. There's a reason one should test your basement for radon before you buy a house.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      But, since people don't mine uranium randomly, one may assume that your back yard doesn't have enough to be price-competitive with modern mines.
      - pfdietz 6y ago
        Of course. The point is that if a nation wants to make nuclear weapons, keeping them away from uranium is a nonstarter. Uranium is everywhere, if you're willing to pay to extract it (in this case, by piling up the dirt and leaching the uranium using a bicarbonate solution). Fun fact: if the uranium and thorium in an average crustal rock were totally fissioned (using breeder reactors), the rock would produce about 20x the heat energy of burning the same mass of coal.

manfredo 6y ago

I don't think the idea is that it's meant to be competitive against extraction on land. What it does do is expand the potential uranium supply to make nuclear power viable as a global power supply on the order of hundreds of thousands of years at least.

eloff 6y ago
It also gives a path to nuclear power and weapons for counties with no uranium deposits.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y ago
  Is obtaining the uranium really the bottleneck?
  - eloff 6y ago
    It's a bottleneck, if you don't get past it, you're done. Uranium as far as I know, is a heavily regulated material. You can't buy nuclear reactor level amounts of refined uranium without the blessing of the states that control the supply. There are a LOT more problems after that though.

whatever1 6y ago

Things change, US itself has changed. Why do you expect Canada to lick the boot of Trump if they get the treatment they get today ? Why does one expect that an uranium cartel will not be formed the moment that it gains significant market adoption?