4 ms·

Of course we need new types of reactors, we already have reactors that can use the waste from old reactors types like CANDU. Most reactors in use today are anci

Of course we need new types of reactors, we already have reactors that can use the waste from old reactors types like CANDU. Most reactors in use today are ancient and inefficient using only 4% or so of the potential in the fuel. Your back of a napkin calculation is disingenuous and misleading, for example it's estimated that sea water contains 4.5 billion tons tons of uranium. At the very least we have plenty of uranium to last until thorium reactors are ready. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium

pfdietz 4y ago
We do not have breeder reactors in a commercialized form. Rejecting solar/wind because technologies are not yet in widespread use, but accepting breeders with nuclear, is hypocritical. Recycling fuel from LWRs to make MOX is not the same thing. It would only extend that 5 years by a couple of additional years. Seawater uranium extraction has been demonstrated at the gram scale. It would have to be scaled up by something close to a factor of a trillion to power the world. Also, powering a single 1 GW(e) reactor would require a collector field on 170 square kilometers of continental shelf, in an area with good ocean currents. The levelized power/area would be considerably worse than PV. I will add that running a reactor on bred isotopes (233U, various Pu isotopes) presents an additional problem. All of these have considerably lower delayed neutron fraction than 235U. This means the reactors will be operating much closer to prompt criticality. One could resort to subcritical reactors, but that means adding a 100 MW (or so) 1 GeV linac to each to add the needed extra neutrons. And of course no such accelerator driven reactors have ever been built.