![]() | Saturday open thread | The Oil Drum | We Were Warned: The Spelling of the Word Has an Extra "u" That Many People Forget.. | ![]() |
106 comments on A concern about Canadian gas and the oil sands
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GAIA Host Collective
Everything is limited. The wind & sun energy is limited to - isn't the sun sending limited energy to the Earth? Even the whole Universe contains a limited amount of energy.
The question is can a given resource be sufficient for such an amount of time to justify the investments we make to develop it. With hundreds of years of conventional uranium reserves and many thousands of years if we start using breeders I can assure you that the answer for nuclear is YES.
Link please?
The European Nuclear Society states that with the current reserves "all 439 world-wide operated nuclear power plants can be supplied for several decades".
But if you are talking about ramping up the use of nuclear power (as half the world is saying), then that "several decades" will be shortened quite drastically.
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium
To say that "we have several decades of uranium left" is like saying "we have only 100 days of food left in the world" (which can make you want to shoot yourself if you don't give it a second thought).
We are nowhere near to reaching the geological limits because what is being included in the official reserves now is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. This link for example gives more than 100 years of U under 130$:
http://www.inb.gov.br/english/reservasMundiais.asp
But this is again relative, because should U go to 100$ and above (from the current ~ $35), the breeders reactors will become competitive, meaning that you have to multiply these figures by a factor of 100. In addition many new discoveries will be found all around the world if we simply start looking for them. Even now enormous amounts of nuclear fuel are simply stored away as waste, because the processed nuclear fuel contains plutonium and unburnt uranium that can be used. But the prices are so low that it is not worthed the investment and overcoming the NIMBYSsm.
Regarding economics - even at $130, the price of fuel will be below 30% of the production costs, assuming (wrongfully of course) that the sales prices in 100 years will remain at current levels.
http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/uranium.html
Very informative, reminding you once again to question your assumptions before making projections for the future (especially far in the future).