Nuclear power is too slow

Re:Nuclear power is too slow by mnau on Friday December 16, 2022 @08:30PM (#34023240)

Increase in price would increase amount of mineable U. Nobody even prospected it in last 50 years. There is enough of of known deposits, why trying to find new ones?

That is like peak oil stories. Increase price twice or thrice and suddenly there is enough place where it is worth mining. Nobody even talks about peak oil anymore. It's not like U is significant part of a cost/kWh. We could get U even from seawater.

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Re:Nuclear power is too slow by Schroedingersat on Saturday December 17, 2022 @03:04AM (#34025838)

Sea mining as an alternative to renewables + storage is an absolutely riotous joke. Take a look at the results of practical attempts and see if you can find the punchlines (there are at least three).

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30648847/

https://www.ornl.gov/publication/investigations-reusability-...

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Re:Nuclear power is too slow by pfdietz on Saturday December 17, 2022 @11:03AM (#34028914)

Powering a single 1000 MW(e) LWR reactor with sea water uranium would require an adsorber field covering 170 square kilometers of continental shelf. The average power/area would be considerably worse than solar.

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Re:Nuclear power is too slow by Schroedingersat on Saturday December 17, 2022 @06:14PM (#34033283)

You missed the really funny bit where to reduce costs to a "mere" ~$400/kg you attach the sea mining equipment to supply 5MW to an offshore wind turbine which in 2022 will produce around 10MW net. Then it produces enough vanadium to add about 1hr or storage in flow batteries for the wind turbine each year.

It also requires a constant supply of polymer that caps the EROI around 10.

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