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Don't ignore the fact that uranium reserves would not last 100 years if we used it as our sole power source.
by Thetawaves 4y ago
Don't ignore the fact that uranium reserves would not last 100 years if we used it as our sole power source.
- yreg 4y agoThat seems like an estimate on the lower side, but still, in those 100 years we should be able to at least move to thorium, no? Which could last a lot longer.
- flaviut 4y agoYou should say "current" uranium reserves. As demand goes up, so does supply, as additional reserves are prospected for and more costly uranium sources become economically viable. There's not much reason to prove reserves if you won't be able to profitably mine them.
- akvadrako 4y agoThere is enough uranium on Earth for getting all our current power for millions of years. (source: wikipedia) There just isn't much at current prices, but fuel costs are not significant so prices cam rise.
- Thetawaves 4y agoLinky? It seems preposterous to assume that we will be able to map the energy budget of earthlings over a thousand millennia.
- DennisP 4y agoIf you're comparing with solar, it seems fair to assume a level of energy usage that could reasonably be supplied by solar. We're not going to cover the planet in solar panels. With that assumption, fission can last for a very long time if we get uranium from the oceans, and burn it in fast reactors. The oceans hold four billion tons of uranium, and with fast reactors we'd use it a hundred times more efficiently than we do today.
- akvadrako 4y agoI said "all our current power" and I mentioned my source.