Re:Live CO2 emissions of electricity consumption
by acidburnNSA on Sunday December 24, 2017 @09:04AM
(#15999554)
There is actually a pretty strong case to made to say nuclear is renewable [1]. Basically, there's enough uranium dissolved in seawater that is replenished through runoff and plate tectonics faster than we could ever burn it as a civilization for billions of years. Methods for extracting it economically are very close. See this entire journal issue about the technology [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_proposed_as_rene...
Re:Live CO2 emissions of electricity consumption
by zeristor on Sunday December 24, 2017 @06:44AM
(#15999135)
Uranium supply is limited, but there is far more Thorium.
Thorium technology is quite immature at the moment but India and China are developing it, although it'll take quite a while to get to third, or fourth generation level maturity.
Re:Live CO2 emissions of electricity consumption
by acidburnNSA on Sunday December 24, 2017 @09:05AM
(#15999559)
There's more Thorium in the crust, there's more Uranium in seawater. With either fuel (plus breeder reactors), the nuclear fuel supply of earth is unlimited on a several billion year timeframe at world-scale.
Re:Live CO2 emissions of electricity consumption
by zeristor on Sunday December 24, 2017 @10:40AM
(#15999945)
Well ther’s even more Hydrogen in sea water, the problem is getting it out.
Re:Live CO2 emissions of electricity consumption
by acidburnNSA on Sunday December 24, 2017 @10:49AM
(#15999980)
Here's an entire special issue (from 2016) of Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research describing progress in extracting uranium from seawater: http://pubs.acs.org/toc/iecred/55/15
Re:Live CO2 emissions of electricity consumption
by zeristor on Sunday December 24, 2017 @11:33AM
(#16000140)
Thorium though doesn't need isotopic enrichment though.
Re:Live CO2 emissions of electricity consumption
by acidburnNSA on Sunday December 24, 2017 @12:31PM
(#16000366)
Neither does Uranium if you're using breeder reactors. And you have to be using breeder reactors if you're using Thorium because Th-232 is a strong neutron absorber and you can't start a reactor on it at all. You have to breed it up through Pa-233 to U-233 which is fissile. By definition all thorium reactors are breeder reactors. Fertile U-238 can do the exact same thing; instead of U-233 it breeds fissile Pu-239. If you want all the raw details on Thorium check this out [1].
Dumping waste in the ocean is not a great idea, because you can't be sure that fishing grounds won't be contaminated. Nobody wants radioactive fish.
In general, I think the best solution to long-term storage of nuclear waste is to keep it at some facility where it can be continuously monitored. That way, you at least know when something leaks. Unfortunately, energy producers are really good at not paying for that kind of externality.