Re:2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record
by pdkl95 on Wednesday January 20, 2016 @07:33PM
(#10942548)
> 200 years of uranium
As other people have mentioned, that's known 235U.
We have enough domestic 232Th to satisfy our energy needs for a very long time. If we use breeder reactors that can utilize 238U, we also have sufficient availability for well-beyond any reasonably foreseeable future ("many millenia").
Besides, that gives us plenty of time to actually develop other methods of providing energy. Right now every day we fail to deploy nuclear is another day of coal/gas. Even if we used your silly figure of 200 years, it shouldn't take that long to develop a proper solar+batteries replacement (heck, we should have fusion before the 200 years is up).
> mining
There are rare earth mines that we aren't operating right now because it's too expensive to dispose of the Th. In any serious nuclear deployment, the fuel itself would be free (or nearly free).
> far fewer
Comparing U or Th mining to coal mining is silly when you only need to do over 2,000,000x more coal mining.
As other people have mentioned, that's known 235U.
We have enough domestic 232Th to satisfy our energy needs for a very long time. If we use breeder reactors that can utilize 238U, we also have sufficient availability for well-beyond any reasonably foreseeable future ("many millenia").
Besides, that gives us plenty of time to actually develop other methods of providing energy. Right now every day we fail to deploy nuclear is another day of coal/gas. Even if we used your silly figure of 200 years, it shouldn't take that long to develop a proper solar+batteries replacement (heck, we should have fusion before the 200 years is up).
> mining
There are rare earth mines that we aren't operating right now because it's too expensive to dispose of the Th. In any serious nuclear deployment, the fuel itself would be free (or nearly free).
> far fewer
Comparing U or Th mining to coal mining is silly when you only need to do over 2,000,000x more coal mining.