4 ms·
Increase in price would increase amount of mineable U. Nobody even prospected it in last 50 years. There is enough of of known deposits, why trying to find new
by mnau 4y ago
Increase in price would increase amount of mineable U. Nobody even prospected it in last 50 years. There is enough of of known deposits, why trying to find new ones?
That is like peak oil stories. Increase price twice or thrice and suddenly there is enough place where it is worth mining. Nobody even talks about peak oil anymore. It's not like U is significant part of a cost/kWh. We could get U even from seawater.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoSea mining as an alternative to renewables + storage is an absolutely riotous joke. Take a look at the results of practical attempts and see if you can find the punchlines (there are at least three). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30648847/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30648847/ https://www.ornl.gov/publication/investigations-reusability-amidoxime-based-polymeric-adsorbents-seawater-uranium https://www.ornl.gov/publication/investigations-reusability-...
- pfdietz 4y agoPowering a single 1000 MW(e) LWR reactor with sea water uranium would require an adsorber field covering 170 square kilometers of continental shelf. The average power/area would be considerably worse than solar. Also (from second reference): "The predicted cost to extract uranium from seawater ranged from $610/kg U to $830/kg U." Ouch.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoYou missed the really funny bit where to reduce costs to a "mere" ~$400/kg you attach the sea mining equipment to supply 5MW to an offshore wind turbine which in 2022 will produce around 10MW net. Then it produces enough vanadium to add about 1hr or storage in flow batteries for the wind turbine each year. It also requires a constant supply of polymer that caps the EROI around 10.