Re: Uranium availability

On May 29, 8:18 pm, Maximust <maxi_m...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
dave.walt...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
From the always good and informative "Nuclear is Our Future" blog at:

http://blog.niof.org/

More Russian Uranium Deposits

Worldwide, we "use" about 67,000 tons of uranium per year, 670 tons of
which is actually used (the rest is stored). Nuclear power provides
20% of world electricity, and could provide 100%, requiring 3,350 tons
per year. The US, being 5% of the world's population, uses 25% of
world energy; giving everyone American per-capita access to energy
using nuclear power would require another five-fold increase in
uranium consumption, assuming that the proportion of electricity out
of total energy is the same worldwide--totaling 16,750 tons of uranium
per year.

These eight Russian deposits contain 320,000 tons of uranium.

The math is not difficult: if their contents were used sensibly, these
eight new mines could provide all the uranium needed to fuel all the
nuclear power plants needed to provide American-style quantities of
electricity to everyone in the world for almost twenty years.

Be reminded that this is 6% of worldwide uranium reserves. That's
enough to last almost 320 years. However, there are two other major
sources of uranium: coal ash and seawater.
Uranium is present in coal ash at an average level of 4.5 parts per
million. In the US--and this is just in the US--118 million tons of
new coal ash are available every year. That comes out to 531 tons--
about 80% of the world's current uranium requirement.
Seawater is the big one, though. Uranium is present in seawater at an
average level of 3.3 parts per billion. The oceans have about
1,500,000,000,000,000,000 tons of water and thus about 4,950,000,000
tons of uranium, with 35,000 tons added per year by runoff from
rivers. Quite simply, as long as we use less than 35,000 tons of
uranium per year, uranium from seawater is being made available faster
than it is being consumed. Technically, it is a renewable resource.

Technically, yes. Practically, no. It takes way to much energy to extract
uranium from coal dust and/or seawater for them to be a valid source. Beware of
wishful thinking at a time when global crude production has peaked, as it did
in May, 2005.

In a different thread, it is estimated that uranium extraction
should be possible from sea water and coal ash at roughly $200/kg.
assuming that number is off by a full order of magnitude, and it will
really cost $2000/kg, that still only represents
3 500 000 kwh/kg / $2000/gk = $.0005/kwh in fuel costs assuming
reprocessing.

.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Uranium availability
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    (sci.energy)
  • Re: Uranium availability
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