this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 15 hours ago (26 children)

I used to be pro-nuclear and I am still not worried about the safety issue. However, fissile material is still a finite resource and mining for it is an ecological disaster, so I no longer am in favor of it.

[–] AwesomeLowlander 5 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

fissile material is still a finite resource

We have reserves that will last centuries, and it can literally be extracted from seawater just like lithium if the economics allow for it. Can't comment on the mining impact, though. Is it any worse than rare earth metals?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

There is no economical way to extract fissile material from sea water. This is no different from people saying you can mine gold that way. Technically, yes. Practically, no.

The only way we know to get the uranium necessary for reactors in the quantities we need to do it is to mine it. And we don't even have enough to mine to last for a century at current consumption.

The world's present measured resources of uranium (6.1 Mt) in the cost category less than three times present spot prices and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for about 90 years.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/uranium-resources/supply-of-uranium

Sure, maybe some new practical way to make a reactor without uranium or to find uranium elsewhere might happen. But that's a MIGHT. With what we know now, we need uranium and we need to mine it and there isn't enough.

[–] AwesomeLowlander 5 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Dude. Read the rest of your source.

Thus, any predictions of the future availability of any mineral, including uranium, which are based on current cost and price data, as well as current geological knowledge, are likely to prove extremely conservative

In recent years there has been persistent misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the abundance of mineral resources, with the assertion that the world is in danger of actually running out of many mineral resources. While congenial to common sense if the scale of the Earth's crust is ignored, it lacks empirical support in the trend of practically all mineral commodity prices and published resource figures over the long term. In recent years some have promoted the view that limited supplies of natural uranium are the Achilles heel of nuclear power as the sector contemplates a larger contribution to future clean energy, notwithstanding the small amount of it required to provide very large amounts of energy.

Of course the resources of the earth are indeed finite, but three observations need to be made: first, the limits of the supply of resources are so far away that the truism has no practical meaning. Second, many of the resources concerned are either renewable or recyclable (energy minerals and zinc are the main exceptions, though the recycling potential of many materials is limited in practice by the energy and other costs involved). Third, available reserves of 'non-renewable' resources are constantly being renewed, mostly faster than they are used.

Literally half the page you linked discusses how we're not going to run out of resources anytime soon.

Known reserves are sufficient for 90 years because nobody wants to bother with further prospecting when supply hugely exceeds demand.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I did read that, which is why I said this:

Sure, maybe some new practical way to make a reactor without uranium or to find uranium elsewhere might happen. But that’s a MIGHT.

Building tons more nuclear reactors in the hopes that we'll find new resources to power them all because we haven't spent enough time prospecting does not make much rational sense to me.

[–] AwesomeLowlander 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You appear to be severely misunderstanding the source. You may want to take the time to read through it again.

Also, did you think we checked each and every resource we industrialised to make sure we had a few millenia worth before we started using them? Last I heard, our known lithium resources are only sufficient for a decade or two at current rates, never mind the increasing usage.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Are you asking if we did smart things before we began exploiting resources? Because the answer is no, never. Not once.

[–] AwesomeLowlander 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

You're missing the point, which is that we don't normally measure reserves in centuries. We prospect as needed, and there is no reason to think that we would be unable to locate new deposits as necessary. All this and more is covered in the source you linked.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

We prospect as needed

Which has never once caused a problem before, am I right?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Love how you ignored their actual point to focus on the one thing they said that didn't apply to the topic

That's what we normally do, which is a problem

But for nuclear we have centuries worth of stockpile, so we dont have to do that

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago

We don't know we have centuries worth of stockpile. That's just an assumption.

In fact, I think it's a foolish assumption to make since if the world's nuclear powers haven't been quietly prospecting the globe for new sources of Uranium since 1945, they sure should have been. But you don't hear about a lot of new uranium mines opening.

And what if this big stockpile us close to a major waterway? Or under a bunch of people's homes?

Acting like "we can just look and find more" as if it's that simple doesn't make sense to me.

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