Steven Krivit wrote:
My sources...atomic energy researchers in France and Canada say we have
80 years of uranium left. I don't know where the "peak" is.
That agrees with what I believe I've read elsewhere. HOWEVER...
... That's just U235, and unless I miss my guess, it's without
reprocessing to recover usable fuel from the "spent" fuel rods.
The fact that it glosses over is that, with sensible handling, the
available fuel would last centuries, which should certainly be enough
time to figure out something better!
First of all, simple reprocessing can extend that 80 year number
greatly, but it's politically unacceptable due, IIRC, to the ease with
which the process can be subverted to make bomb-grade enriched uranium.
The United States, in particular, does _not_ reprocess its spent fuel
(someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this). I'm not sure where
Eurupe stands on this issue.
Far more to the point, breeder reactors could extend that number by
perhaps a factor of 100 by allowing us to burn the U238 rather than just
burning the U235 and hence throwing away 99% of the fuel, completely
unused, as we do today. But safe and effective breeder reactors have
not been developed, AFAIK, and most likely never will be, because they
are scary and politically completely unacceptable: the fuel they
produce when they convert the U238, unless I am mistaken, is plutonium.
And _that_ is the fuel of choice for bombs.
So, the upshot is that we have enough uranium in the ground to last us
centuries, but the technologies which would enable us to use it
efficiently are currently "untouchable" and are likely to remain that
way. In consequence we'll never actually be able to use more than
perhaps 1% of the available uranium, and we'll just throw away the rest,
sealing it up in caves as a "problem" rather than burning it as a
"solution". And this situation seems unlikely to change.
Anyway, I will be happy to stand corrected on any of this.
At 06:44 AM 2/3/2006, you wrote:
We haven't had any new nuclear power plants built in many years.
Since any notion of NIMBYism is to be rejected ( despite overwhelming
political
evidence that it is real), the clear answer is THAT URANIUM HAS PEAKED!
The same goes for the rich Cape Cod elitists who don't want wind
turbines
off their coast. Clearly, saving birds is paramount.
Why build nuclear power plants when we know that uranium is running
out? Surely, the situation is no different than the fact that the US
hasn't built a new
refinery since 1976 - Obviously, everyone knew - 30 YEARS AGO - that
we were running out of oil and refineries were a waste of time.
Obvious too, is the fact that everyone knows that coal/ shale/
thermal pyrolysis treated garbage will never give us significant sources
of oil. What are
Pennsylvania and Montana thinking, when they to spend billions for
this? Those estimates of centuries worth of coal aren't to be taken
seriously.
Anyone who thinks otherwise needs a reality
check..............................
