3 ms·

Your co-worker may be mistaken. ~75 would only make sense if he was saying of known deposits. And even then, there is about 50 million tons of known deposits, a

Your co-worker may be mistaken. ~75 would only make sense if he was saying of known deposits. And even then, there is about 50 million tons of known deposits, and the currently open mines only account for about a tenth of that... I'm not sure we'd need to burn through the resulting refined product of 50 million tons of pitchblende to run the entire planet for 75 years. This also ignores the rest of the intended refinement chain: thorium and other reactor fuel sources.

Retric 5y ago
The uranium deposits are a long way from 1:1 with fuel grade uranium. Natural ore is generally under 20% uranium, and that uranium is 90.3% U238, and 0.7% U235. Reactors want ~5% U235 but depleted uranium is still 0.2% to 0.3% U235. Which means your produce less than 10% fuel grade uranium from every ton of natural uranium. Ex: Cigar Lake with ~217 million pounds (99,000 t) of ore at 18% uranium is only going to produce ~1,700t of reactor grade uranium. As you very roughly get 1GW for 1 year from 1t of reactor grade fuel that’s only 23GW for 75 years. Aka, those 50m t of ore globally work out to around 0.5-1m t of fuel though we’re extracting the cheapest stuff first so expect prices to rise well before you extract all of it. There are also options to extract vastly more energy from that same ore, but again they all make nuclear more expensive.
- DiabloD3 5y ago
  Hmm, that might be right then. I was doing the fuzzy math in my head on what we can do, not what is worth doing right this moment due to market influence.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Reactors want ~5% U235 Light-water reactors, which are the more/most prevalent design. Heavy-water reactors, like CANDUs, can use non-processed uranium in 'natural' concentrations: * https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/CANDU_reactor https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/CANDU_reactor * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor#Purpose_of_using_heavy_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor#Purpose_of_using... The heavy-water is deuterium oxide, where there "hydrogen" atom has one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more common hydrogen has no neutrons in the nucleus: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water
  - Retric 5y ago
    Current CANDU reactors are significantly more expensive to operate and have had relatively low capacity factors. Which is why they have had little success outside of Canada. China for example only uses 2 and has abandoned the design. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor They do use up to 30% less mined uranium as your link points out, but also produce a lot more high level nuclear waste.

Retric 5y ago

The uranium deposits are a long way from 1:1 with fuel grade uranium. Natural ore is generally under 20% uranium, and that uranium is 90.3% U238, and 0.7% U235. Reactors want ~5% U235 but depleted uranium is still 0.2% to 0.3% U235. Which means your produce less than 10% fuel grade uranium from every ton of natural uranium. Ex: Cigar Lake with ~217 million pounds (99,000 t) of ore at 18% uranium is only going to produce ~1,700t of reactor grade uranium. As you very roughly get 1GW for 1 year from 1t of reactor grade fuel that’s only 23GW for 75 years. Aka, those 50m t of ore globally work out to around 0.5-1m t of fuel though we’re extracting the cheapest stuff first so expect prices to rise well before you extract all of it. There are also options to extract vastly more energy from that same ore, but again they all make nuclear more expensive.

DiabloD3 5y ago
Hmm, that might be right then. I was doing the fuzzy math in my head on what we can do, not what is worth doing right this moment due to market influence.
throw0101a 5y ago
> Reactors want ~5% U235 Light-water reactors, which are the more/most prevalent design. Heavy-water reactors, like CANDUs, can use non-processed uranium in 'natural' concentrations: * https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/CANDU_reactor https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/CANDU_reactor * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor#Purpose_of_using_heavy_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor#Purpose_of_using... The heavy-water is deuterium oxide, where there "hydrogen" atom has one proton and one neutron, whereas the far more common hydrogen has no neutrons in the nucleus: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_water
- Retric 5y ago
  Current CANDU reactors are significantly more expensive to operate and have had relatively low capacity factors. Which is why they have had little success outside of Canada. China for example only uses 2 and has abandoned the design. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor They do use up to 30% less mined uranium as your link points out, but also produce a lot more high level nuclear waste.