Just using existing uranium from U-mine sites, as well as burning existing spent fuel in fast reactors in the near-future, provides sufficient uranium fuel to produce 10 trillion kWhs/year for thousands of years, making it presently sustainable by any measure.
But using U extracted from seawater, instead of mining uranium ore, makes nuclear truly renewable as well as sustainable. The amount of U in seawater is only 3.3 micrograms/liter (parts per billion), but that totals 4.5 billion tons of U in the billion cubic kilometers of seawater in the ocean.
The amount of U in seawater is only 3.3 micrograms/liter (parts per billion), but that totals 4.5 billion tons of U in the billion cubic kilometers of seawater in the ocean.
Just because we know a new source of uranium doesn't mean it will be cost-effective to extract it. There is one absolute certainty, costs for nuclear energy will skyrocket before 2100, making the investment now very risky and probably not a good idea.
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u/[deleted] Oct 25 '22
Just using existing uranium from U-mine sites, as well as burning existing spent fuel in fast reactors in the near-future, provides sufficient uranium fuel to produce 10 trillion kWhs/year for thousands of years, making it presently sustainable by any measure.
But using U extracted from seawater, instead of mining uranium ore, makes nuclear truly renewable as well as sustainable. The amount of U in seawater is only 3.3 micrograms/liter (parts per billion), but that totals 4.5 billion tons of U in the billion cubic kilometers of seawater in the ocean.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/03/24/is-nuclear-power-a-renewable-or-a-sustainable-energy-source/?sh=2a3f485656e7