3 ms·

... uranium to oil is what oil is to coal.

• mftb 4y ago
  That's an interesting idea. I also think quantum may be to traditional computing as oil was to coal. The OP would probably just write it off as increased complexity though.
• bsedlm 4y ago
  but whereas once upon a time one could find very good quality oil very easily. uranium has always had to be processed a lot to reach usable form. also, making oil into usable gas also yields (or used to yield?) lot's of very useful resources used for plastic and lubricants and so on.
  • beefman 4y ago
    It turns out this processing has the magnitude of a rounding error in the uranium lifecycle. Also, not all reactors require it.
• beefman 4y ago
  No coincidence that Soddy was the discoverer of transmutation. Writing in the 1920s, before the fission chain reaction was conceived, he anticipated its potential "If ... there is at hand not merely in the remote stars, but at our feet, an unlimited source of energy of the order of a million times more powerful than any known, what tremendous social consequences await the discovery of artificial transmutation!"