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.
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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].