4 ms·

Why do people bother mining it?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mpweiher 3y ago
Because mining it is relatively cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it is economical to throw away >95% of the fuel rather than try to burn it all or recycle it. Fuel costs are 10% of the cost of nuclear electricity. The vast majority is financing.
- danans 3y ago
  > The vast majority is financing. The financing for nuclear is expensive primarily because: 1) The costs of construction are so high - so huge amounts of financing needed. 2) The amount of time before investors see any ROI is very long. A long time ago, when electricity markets were fully monopolized end to end, the long-term ROI on nuclear and other generating assets was guaranteed by the government, and the financial risk was borne by society. Now, electricity markets have been liberalized (at least at the generation level). Simultaneously, far less capital-intensive generation technologies have been created (renewables, combined-cycle gas, and increasingly storage). These technologies provide an earlier ROI for risk-averse capitalists.
  - bborud 3y ago
    And as Bent Flyvbjerg mentions in "How Big Things Get Done", projects that last for a very long time are all but guaranteed to encounter one or more black swan events and/or recessions. Bent makes a sensible argument for SMR reactor technology in that book too.
- stephenr 3y ago
  > you can get uranium out of seawater for the same price as mining it > Why do people bother mining it? > Because mining it is relatively cheap. Something does not add up here.
  - mpweiher 3y ago
    Mining exists and is cheap enough that there is no incentive to invest in something new, even if it might just as good. Particularly because "just as good" is rarely a good reason for changing and investing, it would have to be significantly better. (Though I have no real opinion on whether seawater extraction really is just as good...somewhat dubios)
    - defrost 3y ago
      FWiW the latest in a long line of seawater extraction papers is (2020): https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ta/d0ta07180c https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ta/d0ta0... https://sci-hub.ru/10.1039/D0TA07180C https://sci-hub.ru/10.1039/D0TA07180C which has the weasel phrases uranium production costs could be reduced to $80.70–86.25 per kg of uranium with this fiber, which is similar to the uranium spot price of $86.68 per kg of uranium and suggests the possibility of economically producing nuclear fuel from the ocean. Not to disrespect their work, many small scale lab tests confidently assert that costs could be reduced and might possibly be economic. The fine print is that so far no pilot plants exist and no estimates on the capital plant costs for industrial scale extraction to achieve the possible unit throughput prices as yet exist. This may yet happen. There may also be a slip between paper and industrial plant at scale.
      - mpweiher 3y ago
        > This may yet happen. Yeah. But probably not for a long time as Uranium from present sources is cheap (enough) and plentiful (enough) and if that should ever get more expensive we can start looking at the huge stockpiles of 95% unspent fuel that we call "nuclear waste". Burning that would (a) give us a lot of electricity and (b) reduce the radioactivity of whatever is left dramatically.
    - stephenr 3y ago
      To be clear: I'm not arguing for one or the other, I'm pointing out that one of the above statements doesn't align with the other. If the other costs are equal (remember I said if) then extracting it from seawater would undoubtedly be easier overall simply because of abundance, and the non-destructive nature of collecting it would mean there's no issue with environmental challenges due to the destructive nature of mining.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Because mining it is relatively cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it is economical to throw away >95% of the fuel rather than try to burn it all or recycle it. Fuel costs are 10% of the cost of nuclear electricity. The vast majority is financing.

danans 3y ago
> The vast majority is financing. The financing for nuclear is expensive primarily because: 1) The costs of construction are so high - so huge amounts of financing needed. 2) The amount of time before investors see any ROI is very long. A long time ago, when electricity markets were fully monopolized end to end, the long-term ROI on nuclear and other generating assets was guaranteed by the government, and the financial risk was borne by society. Now, electricity markets have been liberalized (at least at the generation level). Simultaneously, far less capital-intensive generation technologies have been created (renewables, combined-cycle gas, and increasingly storage). These technologies provide an earlier ROI for risk-averse capitalists.
- bborud 3y ago
  And as Bent Flyvbjerg mentions in "How Big Things Get Done", projects that last for a very long time are all but guaranteed to encounter one or more black swan events and/or recessions. Bent makes a sensible argument for SMR reactor technology in that book too.
stephenr 3y ago
> you can get uranium out of seawater for the same price as mining it > Why do people bother mining it? > Because mining it is relatively cheap. Something does not add up here.
- mpweiher 3y ago
  Mining exists and is cheap enough that there is no incentive to invest in something new, even if it might just as good. Particularly because "just as good" is rarely a good reason for changing and investing, it would have to be significantly better. (Though I have no real opinion on whether seawater extraction really is just as good...somewhat dubios)
  - defrost 3y ago
    FWiW the latest in a long line of seawater extraction papers is (2020): https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ta/d0ta07180c https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ta/d0ta0... https://sci-hub.ru/10.1039/D0TA07180C https://sci-hub.ru/10.1039/D0TA07180C which has the weasel phrases uranium production costs could be reduced to $80.70–86.25 per kg of uranium with this fiber, which is similar to the uranium spot price of $86.68 per kg of uranium and suggests the possibility of economically producing nuclear fuel from the ocean. Not to disrespect their work, many small scale lab tests confidently assert that costs could be reduced and might possibly be economic. The fine print is that so far no pilot plants exist and no estimates on the capital plant costs for industrial scale extraction to achieve the possible unit throughput prices as yet exist. This may yet happen. There may also be a slip between paper and industrial plant at scale.
    - mpweiher 3y ago
      > This may yet happen. Yeah. But probably not for a long time as Uranium from present sources is cheap (enough) and plentiful (enough) and if that should ever get more expensive we can start looking at the huge stockpiles of 95% unspent fuel that we call "nuclear waste". Burning that would (a) give us a lot of electricity and (b) reduce the radioactivity of whatever is left dramatically.
  - stephenr 3y ago
    To be clear: I'm not arguing for one or the other, I'm pointing out that one of the above statements doesn't align with the other. If the other costs are equal (remember I said if) then extracting it from seawater would undoubtedly be easier overall simply because of abundance, and the non-destructive nature of collecting it would mean there's no issue with environmental challenges due to the destructive nature of mining.