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For an average American's final energy usage you'd need 2kg of Uranium per year transported and stored in 5kg of copper and steel cask encased in 20kg of concre
by Schroedingersat 4y ago
For an average American's final energy usage you'd need 2kg of Uranium per year transported and stored in 5kg of copper and steel cask encased in 20kg of concrete. Dealing with this is significantly more dangerous and destructive than the 250-500kg of iron ore per person per year.
And leaching it in a mine with median grade uses about 200kg of sulfuric acid each year to process 7 tonnes of heavy metal containing ores.
The only reason it's 'miniscule' is most of the problem is out sourced to kazakhstan, uzbekistan, nigeria, namibia, and australia. And around 3% of final energy is provided by nuclear.
- concordDance 4y agoCan I see how you got that Uranium figure? Because raw Uranium doesn't need that sort of treatment (it's not radioactive enough) and I'm struggling to believe 2kg of refined Uranium is needed per person per year to meetb3% of energy need.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoDU is still a toxic heavy metal, and the 3-15% by mass (or 100% in a HWR) that becomes SNF needs containment that outmasses it by at least an order of magnitude. Then there's another order of magnitude more LLW again. > to meet 3% of energy need This is disingenuous because the proposition is to expand it to make a relevant contribution to decarbonization.