Re: Increasing energy costs


"bill" <ford_prefect42@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:6bf3d041-d7c0-45e6-8343-b029f4242eac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Mar 29, 3:10 pm, T. Keating <tkuse...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 10:44:24 -0700 (PDT), bill



<ford_prefec...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>On Mar 29, 4:59 am, T. Keating <tkuse...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:06:45 -0700 (PDT), bill

>> <ford_prefec...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> >My $25000/kg of uranium is the cost/kg at which uranium generated
>> >electricity increases in cost by *1* cent/kwh.

>> wrong.. more like 77.5 cents per kWh.. not including enrichment,
>> construction, operational, and decommissioning costs..

>> math..

>> Initial fuel load 1GWe .. 100 metric tons of enriched UO2
>> before enrichment.. ~660 metric tons of U3O8(yellow cake)..
>> two refuelings, replacing 1/3 of fuel rods every 1.5 years
>> 220 tonns * 2....

>> 660MT + 220MT + 220MT == 1100 MT
>> 1.5 years * 3 == 4.5 years @ 90% duty cycle..

>> 1100 * 1000MT/kg * 25,000$/kg == 2.75e+10 dollars.. (27.5 Billion
>> dollars)

>> 2.75e+10 / (4.5 years * 365.25 * 24 * .9 * 1,000,000(kWh/hr)) == 0.775
>> dollars per kWh or 77.5 cents per kWh in U3O8 costs..

>except that with refuelling, 96% of the fuel that you remove from the
>reactor goes back into the reactor. your numbers are correct for the
>once through fuel cycle such as is practiced stupidly in the us, in
>france, my number is correct.

No your numbers are NOT correct or even close..

A spent fuel's rod remaining uranium content is nearly all U-238..
inert.. 80 to 90%of the U-235 content has undergone fission..

New reactor fuel.. 3.5 to 4.5 % U-235 content..
Spent fuel.. less than 1% U-235 content.. approx 0,7% new Pu
content..

Mined U isotopic breakdown.. 0.7% U-235, 99.3% U-238 content..

P.S.. The world has plenty of spare U-238.(Depleted Uranium)..
We used it to tip anti-tank weapons.

It's the U-235 isotope that's a rare commodity..http://www.uic.com.au/nfc.htm

Well, you're almost right. consider a candu. take natural
uranium, drop it in, reprocess, drop it in, reprocess, drop it in. I
missed in that the french use LWRs so it doesn't apply to their fuel
cycle, however, at $1000/kg for yellowcake, stretching the yellowcake
gets important and the candu gets more useful. Simply put, 3.5 million
kwh/kg is an easily attainable target for energy density of natural
uranium.

Not to mention other fissile isotopes are created in fuel while operating. That's one of the reasons why people get all excited about proliferation. Even in commercial LWR technology of today, a substantial fraction of the energy extracted comes from Pu that is breed in place. Reprocessing such fuel and removing the poisons can yield almost as much fissile material as when it was first installed.

But then, 'Keating' is not interested in truth, just wants to rant anti-nuclear lies

daestrom

.

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