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Where are you going to get the uranium ore from to run this project? Where are the high-grade uranium ores that can be economically processed into the required

Where are you going to get the uranium ore from to run this project? Where are the high-grade uranium ores that can be economically processed into the required ~200 tons of rods that each 1 GW nuclear power plant requires each year? Let's say we have 0.1% uranium ore, that means we need 1000 tons of ore for each ton of uranium. Huge energy costs, huge waste stream to get that one ton of uranium, by the way. And each 1 GW reactor needs 200 tons - per year. So that's 200,000 tons of ore per year. Now, in comparison, a 1 GW coal-fired power plant needs to be fed with 3-4 million tons of coal per year (energy content of coal varies a bit, in relation to oxygen-based combustion at least). And, a 1 GW reliable 24/7 solar/wind/storage system needs how many tons per year? (OK battery replacement is an issue... work it out yourself).

d4mi3n 3y ago
Pebble bed reactors are thing. Thorium reactors are a thing. The tech has improved even if the active reactors have not.
- bumby 3y ago
  Tbf, I think the commenter was responding in the context of the 93 existing reactors previously mentioned.
doublespanner 3y ago
The highest yield current mining and enriching processes beat that by about a factor of 10; there are a few sites globally that achieve that, Canada would be the most relevant. Don't forget that only the high density fuel needs to be shipped long distance as well... For a fully reliable 1gw of wind, that's something like 600 turbines (to simply), each turbine lasts about 20 years, and weighs about 200 tonnes. So about 5000 tonnes of finished wind turbine a year, with an equivalent waste stream.
vasco 3y ago
It's funny you'd assume they haven't done simple math of where to get the fuel for billion dollar investments.
_huayra_ 3y ago
It's a bit disappointing how the solar/wind folks neglect to consider the fact that such a storage system does not exist. Before one goes to the "but muh batteries" rebuttal, it's a useful exercise to see how much Lithium would need to be mined to provide reliable baseload power. Simon Michaux has already done this. It's worth a read through his reports [0]. Also, it's quite possible to reprocess spent fuel. France has been doing it for decades. [1] The price has not been enough to justify it, but eventually it will (or if other costs are imposed, like a tax on the mineral rights that would favor reprocessing fuel). [0] https://www.simonmichaux.com/gtk-reports https://www.simonmichaux.com/gtk-reports [1] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t...
- photochemsyn 3y ago
  If you're not limited by the need to move around, then lithium doesn't make as much sense for power arbitrage technologies. There are literally dozens of such technologies capabale of storing intermittent solar/wind inputs in physical or chemical forms that can be pumped back out onto the grid as needed. It's so ridiculous to think that human civilization would collapse just because we will eventually run out of stuff to dig out of the ground and burn, when the biosphere has been humming along on sunlight for about three billion years. Why is this so hard to explain to people?
  - ben_w 3y ago
    I agree, but we also need a storage system that can move around, and the aggregate scale of that is inherently more than enough for grid storage. This is why I'm not going to rule out hydrogen despite it having not worked out even back during the 1973 OPEC fuel crisis when alternatives were desperately needed and nuclear power (which is useful for among other things electrolysis) was The Future. (Also, on paper one doesn't need any grid storage, if only we could get governments to cope rates on a planetary grid. Texas doing it's own thing and Japan having two frequency zones shows how hard this would be in practice, but in principle it can work just fine).
  - bdsa 3y ago
defrost 3y ago
Assuming you're asking a literal question and want an answer, the current global total of "reasonably assured resource" uranium (known, tested to a degree of certainty by sampling, modelled for economic recovery costs) that can be extracted at less than $130 US / kg usable uranium is 3.8 million tonnes, roughly 28% of which is in Australia, 10% in Canada, ~1% in the USofA, etc. You can find a full table, distribution maps, guesstimates for known but as yet untested deposits, etc in the big Red Book of Uranium stuff (free to download): https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-production-and-demand-red-book https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-pro... > a 1 GW reliable 24/7 solar/wind/storage system needs how many tons per year? Currently panels drop to 80% efficacy after 10 years and are doorstops in 20 - replacement | recovery is an ongoing process and that currently requires raw materials that come with a cost - including slave labour. https://blog.ucsusa.org/charlie-hoffs/mining-raw-materials-for-solar-panels-problems-and-solutions/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/charlie-hoffs/mining-raw-materials-f... There are no magic problem free resources.
- photochemsyn 3y ago
  Monocrystalline silicon panels last >30 years at near-initial production unless subjected to physical damage. Yes, investors in the uranium fuel rod production pipeline will feel a lot of pain as a result of what's going on right now, but it's not like they weren't warned. Like Theranos investors, they failed to do their due diligence. [edit] Just to add, the metric you want is ENERGY not $US, because what really matters is the amount of energy you have to put into mining the ore, extracting the uranium from the ore, enriching the uranium-235 in the ore to the point where it's useful in a nuclear reactor, and then packaging that refined product into highly expensive fuel rods made of fairly expensive materials. By the time you do that energy calculation, per-year, for the reactor (on top of ridiculously high initial construction costs), the whole thing looks like a massive long-term liability.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Monocrystalline is the most expensive one to produce, the process of manufacturing monocrystalline solar cells is very energy-intensive and produces a big amount of silicon waste. They're not especially robust in cold weather and while they do last longer, they do also degrade in output over time just as the poly versions do. To maintain a 1 GW farm requires ongoing upkeep, etc. Again, there are no magic problem free resources, just like low volume uranium mining, large volume mining and production processing to sustain solar power has toxic side effects and impacts people.

d4mi3n 3y ago

Pebble bed reactors are thing. Thorium reactors are a thing. The tech has improved even if the active reactors have not.

bumby 3y ago
Tbf, I think the commenter was responding in the context of the 93 existing reactors previously mentioned.

doublespanner 3y ago

The highest yield current mining and enriching processes beat that by about a factor of 10; there are a few sites globally that achieve that, Canada would be the most relevant. Don't forget that only the high density fuel needs to be shipped long distance as well... For a fully reliable 1gw of wind, that's something like 600 turbines (to simply), each turbine lasts about 20 years, and weighs about 200 tonnes. So about 5000 tonnes of finished wind turbine a year, with an equivalent waste stream.

vasco 3y ago

It's funny you'd assume they haven't done simple math of where to get the fuel for billion dollar investments.

_huayra_ 3y ago

It's a bit disappointing how the solar/wind folks neglect to consider the fact that such a storage system does not exist. Before one goes to the "but muh batteries" rebuttal, it's a useful exercise to see how much Lithium would need to be mined to provide reliable baseload power. Simon Michaux has already done this. It's worth a read through his reports [0]. Also, it's quite possible to reprocess spent fuel. France has been doing it for decades. [1] The price has not been enough to justify it, but eventually it will (or if other costs are imposed, like a tax on the mineral rights that would favor reprocessing fuel). [0] https://www.simonmichaux.com/gtk-reports https://www.simonmichaux.com/gtk-reports [1] https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t...

photochemsyn 3y ago
If you're not limited by the need to move around, then lithium doesn't make as much sense for power arbitrage technologies. There are literally dozens of such technologies capabale of storing intermittent solar/wind inputs in physical or chemical forms that can be pumped back out onto the grid as needed. It's so ridiculous to think that human civilization would collapse just because we will eventually run out of stuff to dig out of the ground and burn, when the biosphere has been humming along on sunlight for about three billion years. Why is this so hard to explain to people?
- ben_w 3y ago
  I agree, but we also need a storage system that can move around, and the aggregate scale of that is inherently more than enough for grid storage. This is why I'm not going to rule out hydrogen despite it having not worked out even back during the 1973 OPEC fuel crisis when alternatives were desperately needed and nuclear power (which is useful for among other things electrolysis) was The Future. (Also, on paper one doesn't need any grid storage, if only we could get governments to cope rates on a planetary grid. Texas doing it's own thing and Japan having two frequency zones shows how hard this would be in practice, but in principle it can work just fine).
- bdsa 3y ago

defrost 3y ago

Assuming you're asking a literal question and want an answer, the current global total of "reasonably assured resource" uranium (known, tested to a degree of certainty by sampling, modelled for economic recovery costs) that can be extracted at less than $130 US / kg usable uranium is 3.8 million tonnes, roughly 28% of which is in Australia, 10% in Canada, ~1% in the USofA, etc. You can find a full table, distribution maps, guesstimates for known but as yet untested deposits, etc in the big Red Book of Uranium stuff (free to download): https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-production-and-demand-red-book https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-pro... > a 1 GW reliable 24/7 solar/wind/storage system needs how many tons per year? Currently panels drop to 80% efficacy after 10 years and are doorstops in 20 - replacement | recovery is an ongoing process and that currently requires raw materials that come with a cost - including slave labour. https://blog.ucsusa.org/charlie-hoffs/mining-raw-materials-for-solar-panels-problems-and-solutions/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/charlie-hoffs/mining-raw-materials-f... There are no magic problem free resources.

photochemsyn 3y ago
Monocrystalline silicon panels last >30 years at near-initial production unless subjected to physical damage. Yes, investors in the uranium fuel rod production pipeline will feel a lot of pain as a result of what's going on right now, but it's not like they weren't warned. Like Theranos investors, they failed to do their due diligence. [edit] Just to add, the metric you want is ENERGY not $US, because what really matters is the amount of energy you have to put into mining the ore, extracting the uranium from the ore, enriching the uranium-235 in the ore to the point where it's useful in a nuclear reactor, and then packaging that refined product into highly expensive fuel rods made of fairly expensive materials. By the time you do that energy calculation, per-year, for the reactor (on top of ridiculously high initial construction costs), the whole thing looks like a massive long-term liability.
- defrost 3y ago
  Monocrystalline is the most expensive one to produce, the process of manufacturing monocrystalline solar cells is very energy-intensive and produces a big amount of silicon waste. They're not especially robust in cold weather and while they do last longer, they do also degrade in output over time just as the poly versions do. To maintain a 1 GW farm requires ongoing upkeep, etc. Again, there are no magic problem free resources, just like low volume uranium mining, large volume mining and production processing to sustain solar power has toxic side effects and impacts people.