Comments on: Peak Uranium? Our nuclear future might be shorter than we thought

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:22:46 +0000

There is plenty of uranium left we just don’t know if we can access it for cheap enough, the statistic of 100 years left is at the current price of mined uranium the price can go up and we can mine more or we could figure out how to extract it from sea water. Most of the cost of nuclear power is in the construction. Looking at the Canadian CANDU (CANadian Deuterium Uranium) reactor which is also around the world the cost of uranium is 10% of the money that is gained from the energy so it would still be economical if the price went up. The CANDU reactor can used unenriched uranium AS WELL AS thorium and plutonium. There is also 4-5 times more thorium than uranium so even in the worse case scenario we do reach a peak of uranium there are many nuclear power alternatives. Nuclear power has a bright future as long as politicians and nuclear philistines don’t get scared and make irrational decisions.

source of “100 year of uranium left”
http://www.nea.fr/html/general/press/2008/2008-02.html

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:50:49 +0000

I doubt that we will be running out of Uranium by 2013. The majority of spent fuel is not being re-enriched as it is, and most estimates on the lifespan of your sources count for full scale re-enrichment. Also, there is plenty of Thorium for a long while as well, and Thorium reactors have less waste and are generally better than Uranium reactors. Even if Uranium runs out sooner than expected, we can simply most to the next fuel. Eventually we will need to move from fission to fusion, but not for a while.

By: Zin

Zin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:16:48 +0000

Fusion isn’t even on the table at the moment, unfortunately, and while conventional fission reactors do, indeed, sip fuel, by relying on uranium supplies we’re really not doing ourselves a favor.

Uranium is like oil- there is a limited supply that can reasonably be gathered up. Once that is gone, or more likely cannot be obtained due to the fuel cost of mining or drilling for it, all machinery based on that fuel source is now useless.

With how much a nuclear power plant costs, and how astoundingly difficult they are to safely dismantle, even 100 years is a bad bet. Let alone 3 years.

By: Jimmy

Jimmy — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:14:40 +0000

Currently, the U.S. has enough uranium to power the nation (on fission power alone) for roughly 100 years. However, if we were to implement Fast Breeder reactors into the cycle (like france), we could use the same supply to power the whole nation for a little over a thousand years. The only cog in the works is the Nuclear Proliferation acts, and sundries other political hurdles. Advocation of nuclear power is necessary, but burner reactors alone are not. such is the way of the world

By: Jarkko Nieminen

Jarkko Nieminen — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 10:16:20 +0000

Uranium really isn’t running out. People worried about uranium running out are forgetting that nuclear plant only use very small amount of uranium and thus the price of uranium ore does not affect that much on the price of nuclear power. Even if price of uranium ore would be ten times that it is today, the price of nuclear power would still be competive. Amount of uranium which would be avalaible at that price would last thousands of years not to mention that at that price it would even be feasible to extract uranium from seawater.