New Material Can Soak Up Uranium From Seawater (acs.org) 87
A new adsorbent material "soaks up uranium from seawater, leaving interfering ions behind," reports the ACS's Chemical & Engineering News, in an article shared by webofslime:
The world's oceans contain some 4 billion metric tons of dissolved uranium. That's roughly 1,000 times as much as all known terrestrial sources combined, and enough to fuel the global nuclear power industry for centuries. But the oceans are so vast, and uranium's concentration in seawater is so low -- roughly 3 ppb -- that extracting it remains a formidable challenge... Researchers have been looking for ways to extract uranium from seawater for more than 50 years...
Nearly 20 years ago, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) confirmed that amidoxime-functionalized polymers could soak up uranium reliably even under harsh marine conditions. But that type of adsorbent has not been implemented on a large scale because it has a higher affinity for vanadium than uranium. Separating the two ions raises production costs. Alexander S. Ivanov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, together with colleagues there and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other institutions, may have come up with a solution. Using computational methods, the team identified a highly selective triazine chelator known as H2BHT that resembles iron-sequestering compounds found in bacteria and fungi.... H2BHT exhibits little attraction for vanadium but has roughly the same affinity for uranyl ions as amidoxime-based adsorbents do.
Nearly 20 years ago, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) confirmed that amidoxime-functionalized polymers could soak up uranium reliably even under harsh marine conditions. But that type of adsorbent has not been implemented on a large scale because it has a higher affinity for vanadium than uranium. Separating the two ions raises production costs. Alexander S. Ivanov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, together with colleagues there and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other institutions, may have come up with a solution. Using computational methods, the team identified a highly selective triazine chelator known as H2BHT that resembles iron-sequestering compounds found in bacteria and fungi.... H2BHT exhibits little attraction for vanadium but has roughly the same affinity for uranyl ions as amidoxime-based adsorbents do.
So, if 1000x as much as we have... (Score:3, Insightful)
.. is enough for "centuries", then what we have should run out in less than a year? Seems somebody has trouble with numbers. While Uranium that can be mined is not nearly as plentiful as the nuclear-mafia wants you to believe, it should be enough for a few decades, given that no new reactors are constructed.
Re:So, if 1000x as much as we have... (Score:5, Informative)
The world's oceans contain about 4.5 billion tonnes of uranium. The world consumes 65,000 tonnes of uranium a year. There are thus 70,000 years worth of uranium at current consumption rates in the ocean. The world land reserves of uranium are estimated at 7.6 million tonnes at a recover cost of $260/kg, this is 115 years worth.
The lowest current estimated cost of recovering uranium from seawater is something like $300/kg, a price point at which the cost of the uranium still has little influence on fission power economics, and not much higher than that cost of recovery cited above for the 115 year reserve on land. The current market price of uranium right now is about $80/kg (element, not oxide), but it fluctuates a lot. The recent trendline is something like $100/kg, though in the past it has spiked as high as $400/kg (current dollars).
There no need for uranium-for-seawater in the foreseeable future (i.e. this century), and as long as mined uranium can be had for $100/kg or so there will be no steps taken to commercialize seawater extraction. Research on the topic, like this one, continues with refinements in extraction chemistry and efficiency as the focus, but not looking at the most cost-efficient extraction method, since that is the realm of commercialization. When land uranium resources start to run out, and prices rise, that is when all of the research on seawater extraction will be put to use, with a new focus on industrial operation cost and efficiency.
We are never going to run out of uranium. Even with no breeder reactors, or any thorium reactors.
Re:So, if 1000x as much as we have... (Score:5, Insightful)
What you say is likely true, if we assume that there is a free trade of uranium. A nation with less than friendly relations with much of the world might have trouble getting uranium if their local geology is lacking in uranium. Access to the sea though means a constant supply of uranium at a very constant price. Extraction of uranium at any rate which we could conceive of is nothing compared to the size of the ocean, the concentration of uranium salts in the ocean will not be affected (on any human time frame).
As I recall nations such as India, Iran, and Japan don't have a lot of uranium that they can mine. At least not at the prices you gave. If this process gets to even double the market rate on what many pay now then it can still be viable because of costs due to transport and trade regulations.
There's also some possibility of another spike in uranium. I recall a co-worker being quite excited when he saw uranium prices spike. He was crushed later when he found out why. A mine he had invested in had been flooded with water, some weather event and/or mechanical problem at the site. This put a dent in future expectations of supply and that made uranium prices climb. If there's a technology on uranium extraction from seawater then we will see a ceiling on uranium prices as people build such facilities to back up their terrestrial mining. Oil people do this all the time, they drill for less than ideal oil because they need that well drilled before prices spike. If prices spike and there's no oil to sell then they can't cash in.
Investments in uranium from seawater would certainly happen if a government sees uranium supplies as a national security interest. Governments will invest in this even if the pay off later is little to nothing. Not having to beg others for energy gives a lot more security than investing in more battle tanks and bombers.
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If you have the battle tanks and bombers you don't have to beg for energy... You can just take it.
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65,000 tons of uranium a year, of which we are extracting <1% of the energy. Good news: we can recycle it and extract all of the energy from "spent" fuel, after which nothing remains but short-lived fission products. The technology exists, we just don't use it. (Though the Russians do have breeder reactors in commercial operation.)
Moreover, the 4.5 billion tons of U in seawater are an equilibrium concentration, which is constantly being replenished by the earths crust, so even that is vastly underestimat
1000x considered paltry (Score:3)
And ... that somebody is you.
In Economics 101, when a supply curve shifts to a lower price point (e.g. due to a technology such as this one) the demand curve almost always shifts to higher demand. And so every plenitude uptick is slated to run out in about a hundred years, no matter how much greater the new plenitude over the incumbent what-have-you-done-for-me-lately.
This phenomena is especially well known in the department of traffic congestion, which is why you can
Re:So, if 1000x as much as we have... (Score:5, Insightful)
>given that no new reactors are constructed
Isn't that the point? There is no such thing as a truly "global nuclear power industry." To me, the 'centuries' estimate implies a global industry providing power to the entire world while also replacing fossil fuels and supporting a general increase of demand for energy as technology progresses.
Ok, so you want to do this in global total energy. So lets do that. World consumes about 50PWh of fuel (converting fuel to electricity for simplicity) and electricity a year. We get > 90% of that from fossil fuels right now. So about 8000h/yr (with a 90% capacity factor which is common in nuclear) and that's 6.25TWs of production or 6,250 1GW reactors. So a current generation LWR will consume about 200 tons every 4 years so that's 50 tons/yr/GW. So that's 312,500 tons per year or ~283,495 tonnes. So 4.5b tonnes mentioned above (which is renewed each year naturally at an unknown rate) would be about 15,800 years. Now, I've ignored the issue of enrichment, so let's adjust for that. So the fuel is about 3% enriched (2% for initial load, 4% for refueling rods) and that's 4x more U-235 than natural Uranium, so divide by 4.
So that's a hair under 4000 years of supply for all the worlds fuel and electricity at current rates. And as I said, its naturally replenished at an unknown rate. Its likely that if we used a lot of uranium from seawater that the increased difference in concentration would increase this rate of natural replenishment.
And of course, with Thorium we have far larger reserves than Uranium and since we burn up the common isotope of Thorium we end up with far more energy per amount of raw material and a 300 years supply of the stuff is sitting around in slag heaps across the world and that doesn't count all the huge piles of the stuff near every rare earth mine. So no, there is no way we are running out of nuclear fuel anytime soon. Try doing this with any other energy source and you either get climate change (fossil fuels) or you have to ramp up mining to an absurd degree to get the raw materials you need. Try doing some research into what it would take to get 100% of just CAs energy needs from renewables (hint nameplate capacity isn't what counts). You quickly run out of the entire world's supply of various types of raw materials (including land) for any scheme you ramp up. This is why nuclear is really the only good option we have or likely will have in our lifetimes.
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You quickly run out of the entire world's supply of various types of raw materials (including land) for any scheme you ramp up. This is why nuclear is really the only good option we have or likely will have in our lifetimes.
Yep. Nuclear power will be a major source of energy in our lifetimes. This is precisely because of the material requirements for anything else.
This web page shows some numbers to back that up: http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]
Nuclear power is required not only because of it's low material requirements but also because of it's safety and low CO2 emissions. Personally I believe the CO2 global warming scare is being blown well out of proportion. I will buy into it so long as people look at real facts and
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I will buy into it so long as people look at real facts and figures
Well, I'm out of school since about 35 years, but I never heard about "real facts".
Either it is a fact or it is not, don't you agree?
Ah, my fault, you are that farmer yahooo ...
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"Real Facts" is an instance of the "Big Lie", first described in writing by Goebbels: Basically, when you know something is untrue, you claim repeatedly and forcefully that it is true. Many people fall for that.
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This web page shows some numbers to back that up: http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2 [blogspot.com]... [blogspot.com],
Please note that the material equivalents are provable bullshit. For example, in the solar case, the cement requirements are ridiculous (there's virtually none necessary in almost all cases, what with roof installations always using metallic structures and ground installations *allowing* for concrete foundations but really using mostly screw installations these days, being much faster and cheaper to install, and especially to clean up afterwards) and the steel requirements are overblown by a factor of five
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Well, the nuclear fanatics (that want nuclear power for one reason: it gives them the bomb) were never above the most outrageous lies to justify their stance. Today, there is zero rational reason to go for terrestrial nuclear power. Cheap and reliable storage for electricity is about to become available and had been demonstrated already. Solar, wind, water is quite enough to deliver all energy needed. The problem of processing and storing nuclear waste safely is _still_ unsolved. We now had 4 "happen at mos
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Ah, A man who knows something about outrageous lies...
I sometimes dream of a world where the anti-nuclear/pro-solar fanatics had everything they say recorded and they were held to some standard of accountability-- instead they just say whatever, and when it turns out it's nonsense (Mark Z. Jacobsen?) then they just get to dance away from it and start saying whatever else sounds good that week.
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Full life-cycle analyses of CO2-e emissions for various energy sources have been done many times-- the only metastudy the anti-nukes had on their side was a piece of garbage by Sovacool, and even that didn't really do a good job of villifying nuclear, if you looked at the numbers. The summary is that anything besides burning fossil fuels is pretty damn good, qu
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So about 8000h/yr (with a 90% capacity factor which is common in nuclear) and that's 6.25TWs of production or 6,250 1GW reactors.
The CF of all power plants together is less than 50%. Because that is how much the load curve over a day varies.
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So about 8000h/yr (with a 90% capacity factor which is common in nuclear) and that's 6.25TWs of production or 6,250 1GW reactors. The CF of all power plants together is less than 50%. Because that is how much the load curve over a day varies.
WTF? That's not how capacity factor works not that that matters at all since your comment would still have no relevance even if it did. The GP asked how much nuclear fuel would be needed for a theoretical 100% nuclear fuel and electricity production for the world. I answered using estimates and one of those estimates is how many hours of power you get from a nuclear plant per year. Most nuclear plants give you power 90% of the time (hence a capacity factor of 90%). That's why its a reasonable estimatio
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WTF? That's not how capacity factor works
That is exactly how a CF "works".
I answered using estimates and one of those estimates is how many hours of power
No, you answered with bullshit. Why not simply looking up how much power the wold consumes, divide it by nuclear reactors doing 500MW (or 600MW if you prefer) and then multiply it by the fuel usage of each rector, wow that would be to easy I guess.
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That's why its a reasonable estimation. Why do you troll topics you know nothing about angelsphere?
Actually I don't know how many tons of uranium a reactor needs per year, considering the different levels of enrichment that is actually quite difficult.
However I worked a third of my software development career in the power industry .... idiot.
But 99% of that is 'worthless' U-238 (Score:1)
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Enough fast neutrons and it doesn't matter if it's 235 or 238 or whatever
Yes, yes it does. First, fast neutrons need to be slowed down by moderators and generally slower (thermal) neutrons are better in a reactor as they increase the cross-section (chance of hitting) nuclei. Second, U-238 needs to be breed into Pu-239 to be used for power. U-235 is ready to make power immediately. That's why its prized and we used it first. Its also problematic as we don't like the idea of having U-235 pure enough to be made into weapons. So we make reactors in such a way as they don't nee
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Fast molten salt reactors are perfectly capable of consuming U-238, and neatly avoid the fuel shuffling problem, having liquid fuel. There are downsides though, probably the greatest being that they need a much larger inventory of fissile to overcome the cross section issue you mention, which is an expensive up front cost.
You get the best of both worlds with LFTR [flibe-energy.com], which consumes thorium in a thermal spectrum: a minimum fissile inventory, no enrichment needed, and almost no generation of Pu-239. For each GW-
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Shit you're right. Good thing there aren't any methods for separating U-238 from U-235
Oh wait, there seems to be six or more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I mean, it's cool that you can pull nuclear fuel from the ocean, but it still has to be enriched as presumably aqueous uranium has the same abysmal percentage of U-235 as the terrestrial ores that are already being mined.
The uranium in seawater does in fact have the same isotopic composition as that mined from the dirt. It's this way because the uranium in the water got there by erosion being dissolved as a salt. The uranium does not need to be enriched to be used as fuel, there are heavy water reactors capable of using natural uranium as fuel. Canada has been using natural uranium as fuel for decades, and sold their designs to India, China, and perhaps other nations, from which local variants have been built. This is n
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When you gas up your car do you think about how many people could be burned to ash if we used that fuel to bomb cities instead of use it to power the transportation sector of the world?
Can't speak for anyone else, but I think about how much devastation follows this unnecessary use of fossil fuels. We could make 100% of our transportation fuel needs from algae grown on seawater by allocating a relatively small portion of desert. Well, we could have. Now that climate change is causing feet of snow to fall on Arizona, and the like, it probably wouldn't work so well as it might have.
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Can't speak for anyone else, but I think about how much devastation follows this unnecessary use of fossil fuels. We could make 100% of our transportation fuel needs from algae grown on seawater by allocating a relatively small portion of desert.
We could also make all of our transportation fuel by hydrocarbon synthesis driven by nuclear fission. This is not new technology. We figured out how to get economically viable energy from fission in the 1950s. We figured out how to synthesize hydrocarbons suitable for use as aircraft fuel since the 1930s. There's been a lot of effort in combining the two by the US Navy but our congresscritters seem more interested in burning money on more failures in solar power projects and electric airplanes.
Well, we could have. Now that climate change is causing feet of snow to fall on Arizona, and the like, it probably wouldn't work so well as it might have.
Right, gl
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Right, global warming causes snow in Arizona. Tell me something, what kind of weather or climate event would there have to be to disprove the theory of human caused global warming from burning fossil fuels?
A year-on-year decrease in global temperatures, obviously.
The climate changes, and I can't seem to find anyone to dispute that. If you want me to believe your theory then first I need to see the theory explained in a way that is falsifiable.
If you still find greenhouse gases confusing, there's really no explaining the situation to you.
I know what is holding up synthetic fuels. It is the Democrat "Green New Deal" that denies us access to nuclear power.
That's a seriously stupid thing to say on multiple levels, and this is my surprised face. First level, nuclear power is unprofitable, it would make more sense to get the power from renewables. Second level, nuclear power was unprofitable and unpopular before the "Green New Deal" was proposed, but you're blaming it anyway. That's because you're a troll.
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Read this:
https://www.statesman.com/news... [statesman.com]
And this:
https://thehill.com/opinion/en... [thehill.com]
Then go on about how renewable energy makes more economic sense than nuclear power. Let's assume that nuclear power is not profitable now. What happens as energy prices continue to rise from government mandates for renewable energy like these? At some point those lines cross and nuclear power becomes profitable again.
Also, it took decades of investment, private and public, in wind and solar energy to bring the price down
Re:But 99% of that is 'worthless' U-238 (Score:4, Informative)
And this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
France has been able to keep both costs and CO2 emissions low with their nuclear power. You want me to believe that we can do better than both Germany and France if only we build more batteries? Batteries don't produce electricity. To get cheap electricity out you have to put even cheaper electricity in, that's to make up for the capital investment in building the batteries and for energy losses in the storage.
Oh, and Germany already has access to ample energy storage. They sell their electricity to their neighbors that have lots of hydro and then buy it back later. They have to sell cheaper than French nuclear and then buy at prices higher than they can produce, that's just how the market works. That won't change with batteries in Germany.
You believe Germany has the technology now to build energy storage that's cheaper than storing energy in a tank of Russian natural gas? Or cheaper than Scandinavian hydro? What's stopping them then? They should be well on their way to telling France and Russia that their energy won't be needed any more. Instead we see them making plans for another natural gas pipeline from Russia.
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Then go on about how renewable energy makes more economic sense than nuclear power.
All over the world wind and solar is cheaper than nuclear.
You must live in a third world country with no regulations if nuclear is cheaper at your place.
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We figured out how to synthesize hydrocarbons suitable for use as aircraft fuel since the 1930s.
Yes, and that fuel costs 3 times as much as fuel at a gas station. It is/would only be a viable solution for carrier based air crafts because refueling them from a gas station costs 4 times as much (due to transportation) as fuel costs at a gas station.
No idea why you link youtube videos when you are obviously never watching them ...
For civil usage, gas prices have to quadruple until synthetic fuels, made from nu
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When you gas up your car do you think about how many people could be burned to ash if we used that fuel to bomb cities instead of use it to power the transportation sector of the world?
Can't speak for anyone else, but I think about how much devastation follows this unnecessary use of fossil fuels. We could make 100% of our transportation fuel needs from algae grown on seawater by allocating a relatively small portion of desert. Well, we could have. Now that climate change is causing feet of snow to fall on Arizona, and the like, it probably wouldn't work so well as it might have.
The algae keep dying off at certain levels of scale. Also, it has to be economical and its not clear that these types of algae based bio-fuels will be economical as there is still a fair amount of effort to keep the algae alive and growing in a changing environment at scale. Plus there is the same energy density problems of bio-fuels that plague all the other renewables. Yes climate change is real. But you don't seem to be reacting as if it is because you keep telling us to wait on unicorns instead of l
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The algae keep dying off at certain levels of scale.
Could you be more specific? Say, providing any information at all? If the algae die, you throw them in the centrifuge and start making biofuel. It's not a problem.
Nature colonizes open pools with an algae appropriate to the local climate, and whatever water you're using. Problems with algal die-offs are related to using special algaes, which are not necessary unless you're trying to use closed bioreactors.
Also, it has to be economical and its not clear that these types of algae based bio-fuels will be economical
Ye olde biofuels study [nrel.gov] showed that it would be possible to get economic results using seawater, though
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The algae keep dying off at certain levels of scale.
Could you be more specific? Say, providing any information at all?
Well, something is very wrong with the process. Here is more info [greentechmedia.com]. All those biofuel companies are pivoting away from algae. They know something we don't. As I said, current speculation on what it is is that you can't keep the algae alive at scale. Algal blooms in the wild often poison themselves and everything else in different ways after a time, perhaps that's the issue. Maybe its something else, cost of maintaining the pools perhaps. Either way, it doesn't work. Its yet another unicorn.
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The algae farms have several issues. The difference between now and the 1980s is that the current efforts involved genetic engineering of the algae proper. See work done at UC Berkeley for example.
Still, yes, they have issues being grown in large quantities.
Re:But 99% of that is 'worthless' U-238 (Score:4, Interesting)
Canada has been using natural uranium as fuel for decades, and sold their designs to India, China, and perhaps other nations, from which local variants have been built. This is not new technology and not rare either.
CANDU reactors have a positive void coefficient meaning if they start to boil off their water (just bubbles form, not fill boil), they overheat quickly. This is very dangerous. One of the few sensible US nuclear regulations is not allowing reactors with positive void coefficients. It is quite nice that they can use raw ore but at the cost of having to use heavy water which is really just shifting the problem of enrichment, not fixing it. However, the Canadians usually have more sensible nuclear regulations and hopefully will start licensing MSRs soon.
Now figure it out how to enrich it at the same time and watch as the world destroys itself building nukes from ocean water.
By "nukes" I assume you mean nuclear weapons. You do realize what many wars have been fought over, do you not? Resources. People fight over water, fuel, food, and so on. Access to cheap nuclear fission power by extracting uranium from seawater could mean an end to scarcity. Well, there will always be scarcity of something, just not a scarcity of energy. Energy that can be used to produce water, food, shelter, and clothing. That's not saying there won't be wars, people fight for other reasons. Many such people fight because their god tells them to convert or kill. If they were more concerned about live and let live then they'd be far better off and not feel such jealousy of other people having greater wealth, freedom, and generally a better standard of living.
Nuclear energy has as much to do with nuclear weapons as gasoline cars have with napalm. When you gas up your car do you think about how many people could be burned to ash if we used that fuel to bomb cities instead of use it to power the transportation sector of the world? You don't? Maybe that's because peaceful energy is far more valuable than weapons to deny other people of their wealth, property, and lives.
Well said and spot on...
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we have the asteroids to mine
much easier
Okay Elon, you show us how its done. You make that happen and you can make your pile of cash far larger. In the mean time you have competition from the Japanese that are trying to get it from the ocean. First to get to market wins.
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Didn't Japan just land a space probe on a meteor? Or whatever it is called before it enters the atmosphere. Asteroid? IDK you're probably smarter than I, you figure it out. lol
"The man who ploughed the sea"/A.C. Clarke (Score:4, Insightful)
It's amazing how many concepts and technologies have been predicted by early science fiction.
As soon as I saw the headline, I thought of Arthur C. Clarke's "The man who ploughed the sea" and how it is a cautionary tale for people who think about investing with fast talkers.
Will it work for Lithium or Gold? (Score:2)
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A few tonnes of uranium in old reactors, vs billions of tons of dissolved uranium.
Also, removing solid pollutants is a totally different technical problem from extracting a tiny portion of dissolved salts.
I'm not sure AC is grasping the interesting issue here.
It like somebody comes up with a new way to extract oil from underground reserves, and some dumb AC suggests looking in the oil sumps at the local car-wrecking yard first.
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and they automagically re-aggregate into some form of large blobs by wave action
We already have that, its called Fish. Granted probably not the best way to do it.. But I've seen a few studies that say its working.
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Sure, uranium and lithium are great.... but I think the best possible idea here would be to find something to soak up all the microplastics and other shit our species poisoned the oceans with.... Then we can come at these other great ideas again. It would be the adult thing to do, to set aside what we want until we clean up our mess. If I am not mistaken there are more than a few reactor cores left at the bottom of the ocean by Russia and the US. Might just be easier to go get those fissiles at some point, but it would be nice to do because they continue to suck, radiate, pollute.
As far as I know, there are 9 reactors in vessels that have sunk. I'm not sure how many of those reactors are still at the bottom of the sea. But its hardly fair to lump nuclear power into the same boat as nuclear weapons as seems to happen so often. They aren't the same thing anymore than gasoline is the same thing as napalm. Every energy source is a double edged sword (even solar) as the energy to make an explosion and the energy to power a machine are the same thing in physics. The difference is how
So Jules Verne wasn't that far off (Score:4, Interesting)
News quality is non-existant these days (Score:2)
So, 1000 times all known terrestrial sources will power the global nuclear industry for centuries. Which means all known terrestrial sources will last a fraction of a year. An all mined sources should run out tomorrow afternoon.
Journalists really are stupid people who will never let facts interfere with their storytelling.
what a farce (Score:2)
the sea also contains massive amount of gold, copper, molybdenum, selenium, magnesium..... so what, all these extraction methods won't be useful
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"I don't understand it, therefore it is impwossibul!" --iggmanz
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Not likely unless you have a broken fuel rod in an assembly, which is an incident, and then depending on the burn-up of the fuel, you may have less of the uranium-5 you want, and more of the uranium-8 which you don't want than seawater.
The details matter, my smart ass friend.
Vanadium is useful also. (Score:2)
US Stealing Japanese Technology! (Score:3)
So it's okay for the US to take Japanese technology but not for anyone to use US technology! /s
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Do we have the technology to deal with radioactive waste yet? No, then why to add more waste we can flush?
Let me introduce you to Yucca Mountain. Stop repeating that lie. Its never been true, it will never been true. It only makes you a liar when you say it.
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Do we have the technology to deal with radioactive waste yet? No, then why to add more waste we can flush?
Let me introduce you to Yucca Mountain. Stop repeating that lie. Its never been true, it will never been true. It only makes you a liar when you say it.
We have a place, assuming we decide to use it. But we decided not to use it because we didn't have a viable containment technology. Vitrification turned out to be too expensive, and dry cask storage is not sufficiently sound.
If nuclear reporting was like solar... (Score:2)
If reporting on nuclear technology was like reporting on solar, we'd all talk about this idea all week, telling everyone that nuclear power was about to become incredibly cheap as the fuel costs drop to near zero.
Then if the idea didn't pan out, we'd all pretend we'd never said anything about it, and move on to another nifty-sounding announcement.
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Nuclear power has generated a tremendous amount of clean power over the last half-century, and if the entire planet had reacted to the 70s energy crisis the way France did, we might not actually have a global warming problem now; and any place that gets Green Fever and shuts down it's nukes is actually contributing to global warming-- their CO2 emissions either go up, or-- in the case of German-- go flat when you might've expected them to come down, because of less coal use.
Nuclear power is not actually e
People will pay you to take away Thorium. (Score:2)