First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in operation

Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by defrost on Thursday December 28, 2023 @03:34AM (#38791313)

FWiW the latest in a long line of seawater extraction papers is (2020):

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ta/d0ta0...

https://sci-hub.ru/10.1039/D0TA07180C

which has the weasel phrases

     uranium production costs could be reduced to $80.70–86.25 per kg of uranium with this fiber, which is similar to the uranium spot price of $86.68 per kg of uranium

and

    suggests the possibility of economically producing nuclear fuel from the ocean.

Not to disrespect their work, many small scale lab tests confidently assert that costs could be reduced and might possibly be economic.

The fine print is that so far no pilot plants exist and no estimates on the capital plant costs for industrial scale extraction to achieve the possible unit throughput prices as yet exist.

This may yet happen.

There may also be a slip between paper and industrial plant at scale.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:First new U.S. nuclear reactor since 2016 is now in opera... by mpweiher on Thursday December 28, 2023 @11:27AM (#38795117)

> This may yet happen.

Yeah. But probably not for a long time as Uranium from present sources is cheap (enough) and plentiful (enough) and if that should ever get more expensive we can start looking at the huge stockpiles of 95% unspent fuel that we call "nuclear waste". Burning that would (a) give us a lot of electricity and (b) reduce the radioactivity of whatever is left dramatically.

[ Parent | on HN ]