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158 comments on DrumBeat: June 10, 2006

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Boof on June 10, 2006 - 10:42am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Re Peak Uranium I'm dubious about the claimed 1981 peak because about that time the Olympic Dam deposit was discovered which near doubled world reserves. I will admit that the industry spin has echoes of peak oil denial
http://www.uic.com.au/WNA-UraniumSustainability.pdf
and it guess it will get back to EROEI with low grade reserves. It also looks like fast breeder reactors are not yet reliable. Even if there is just half a century of reserves that could be the lifeline for the world to sort out issues like GW and sustainable population.  Several decades of nuclear could provide low CO2 baseload power to underpin irregular sources, hydrogenation of poor quality liquid fuels and electrification of transport (PHEVs, light rail etc). The big mistake would be to exploit uranium thinking something else will replace it. Like I said, it's a lifeline and a one-off.
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AlanfromBigEasy on June 10, 2006 - 11:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The greatest potential fuel source is spent reactor fuel.  The enrichment is lower than when first inserted, but still much higher than natural uranium.  In many cases, take out the fission byproducts (everything below Uranium) and just stick it back in with some new uranium nearby (perhaps enriched a bit higher).  Plutonium, Americanium, Neptunium are all fissile.

Not going to happen in US, but I bet China would do it if need be.  And offer to take troublesome nuclear waste off of others' hands.

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Todd on June 10, 2006 - 1:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
There were a long series of posts on the Energy Resources forum (somewhere between 1-3 years ago) arguing that U could be extracted from the ocean by suspending nets.  I don't remember any specifics but I think the nets were supposed to be treated to "attract" the U - but don't hold me to this :-)  In any case, the arguement was that there was unlimited U that could be extracted.
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ozonehole on June 10, 2006 - 10:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Some of the new fast breeder reactors seem to be much safer than earlier designs, and would solve the fuel shortage problem for at least 1000 years. I'm particularly interested in the lead-cooled reactors. Good information page about these new reactor designs:

http://www.uic.com.au/nip77.htm

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wstephens on June 11, 2006 - 8:55am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Actually this "dubious" claim would make some sense -- after a big reserve is discovered, further exploration is shut down (why bother?), so subsequently reserve numbers would "fall" from that high vantage point.  This is how "crisis mongers" operate.
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158 comments on DrumBeat: June 10, 2006

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