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New Material Can Soak Up Uranium From Seawater (acs.org)
A new adsorbent material "soaks up uranium from seawater, leaving interfering ions behind," reports the ACS's Chemical & Engineering News, in an article shared by webofslime:
The world's oceans contain some 4 billion metric tons of dissolved uranium. That's roughly 1,000 times as much as all known terrestrial sources combined, and enough to fuel the global nuclear power industry for centuries. But the oceans are so vast, and uranium's concentration in seawater is so low -- roughly 3 ppb -- that extracting it remains a formidable challenge... Researchers have been looking for ways to extract uranium from seawater for more than 50 years...
Nearly 20 years ago, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) confirmed that amidoxime-functionalized polymers could soak up uranium reliably even under harsh marine conditions. But that type of adsorbent has not been implemented on a large scale because it has a higher affinity for vanadium than uranium. Separating the two ions raises production costs. Alexander S. Ivanov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, together with colleagues there and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other institutions, may have come up with a solution. Using computational methods, the team identified a highly selective triazine chelator known as H2BHT that resembles iron-sequestering compounds found in bacteria and fungi.... H2BHT exhibits little attraction for vanadium but has roughly the same affinity for uranyl ions as amidoxime-based adsorbents do.
Nearly 20 years ago, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) confirmed that amidoxime-functionalized polymers could soak up uranium reliably even under harsh marine conditions. But that type of adsorbent has not been implemented on a large scale because it has a higher affinity for vanadium than uranium. Separating the two ions raises production costs. Alexander S. Ivanov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, together with colleagues there and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other institutions, may have come up with a solution. Using computational methods, the team identified a highly selective triazine chelator known as H2BHT that resembles iron-sequestering compounds found in bacteria and fungi.... H2BHT exhibits little attraction for vanadium but has roughly the same affinity for uranyl ions as amidoxime-based adsorbents do.
.. is enough for "centuries", then what we have should run out in less than a year? Seems somebody has trouble with numbers. While Uranium that can be mined is not nearly as plentiful as the nuclear-mafia wants you to believe, it should be enough for a few decades, given that no new reactors are constructed.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It's amazing how many concepts and technologies have been predicted by early science fiction.
As soon as I saw the headline, I thought of Arthur C. Clarke's "The man who ploughed the sea" and how it is a cautionary tale for people who think about investing with fast talkers.
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I mean, it's cool that you can pull nuclear fuel from the ocean, but it still has to be enriched as presumably aqueous uranium has the same abysmal percentage of U-235 as the terrestrial ores that are already being mined.
The uranium in seawater does in fact have the same isotopic composition as that mined from the dirt. It's this way because the uranium in the water got there by erosion being dissolved as a salt. The uranium does not need to be enriched to be used as fuel, there are heavy water reactors capable of using natural uranium as fuel. Canada has been using natural uranium as fuel for decades, and sold their designs to India, China, and perhaps other nations, from which local variants have been built. This is not new technology and not rare either.
Now figure it out how to enrich it at the same time and watch as the world destroys itself building nukes from ocean water.
By "nukes" I assume you mean nuclear weapons. You do realize what many wars have been fought over, do you not? Resources. People fight over water, fuel, food, and so on. Access to cheap nuclear fission power by extracting uranium from seawater could mean an end to scarcity. Well, there will always be scarcity of something, just not a scarcity of energy. Energy that can be used to produce water, food, shelter, and clothing. That's not saying there won't be wars, people fight for other reasons. Many such people fight because their god tells them to convert or kill. If they were more concerned about live and let live then they'd be far better off and not feel such jealousy of other people having greater wealth, freedom, and generally a better standard of living.
Nuclear energy has as much to do with nuclear weapons as gasoline cars have with napalm. When you gas up your car do you think about how many people could be burned to ash if we used that fuel to bomb cities instead of use it to power the transportation sector of the world? You don't? Maybe that's because peaceful energy is far more valuable than weapons to deny other people of their wealth, property, and lives.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
And ... that somebody is you.
In Economics 101, when a supply curve shifts to a lower price point (e.g. due to a technology such as this one) the demand curve almost always shifts to higher demand. And so every plenitude uptick is slated to run out in about a hundred years, no matter how much greater the new plenitude over the incumbent what-have-you-done-for-me-lately.
This phenomena is especially well known in the department of traffic congestion, which is why you can't build your way out of a snarl. Spanky new roads induce spanky new suburban commuter swarms emanating from spanky new gated communities.
There's also a bit of irony here that the Leela–Stockfish TCEC superfinal has just concluded with Stockfish winning by a hair (50-49, with game 100 in a position Leela can't win, and the TCEC client server momentarily 404). And sure enough, people are found in the chess comments sections complaining that Leela trains too slowly, given only petaflops do to her business.
Aww, shucks. Only meagre petaflops for an unfunded vanity project (yes, I admit, one that's super cool).
Plenitude: they just don't build it like they used to.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/164/164-h/164-h.htm#chap11 "Professor," said Captain Nemo, "my electricity is not everybody's. You know what sea-water is composed of. In a thousand grammes are found 96 1/2 per cent. of water, and about 2 2/3 per cent. of chloride of sodium; then, in a smaller quantity, chlorides of magnesium and of potassium, bromide of magnesium, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate and carbonate of lime. You see, then, that chloride of sodium forms a large part of it. So it is this sodium that I extract from the sea-water, and of which I compose my ingredients. I owe all to the ocean; it produces electricity, and electricity gives heat, light, motion, and, in a word, life to the Nautilus."
A few tonnes of uranium in old reactors, vs billions of tons of dissolved uranium.
Also, removing solid pollutants is a totally different technical problem from extracting a tiny portion of dissolved salts.
I'm not sure AC is grasping the interesting issue here.
It like somebody comes up with a new way to extract oil from underground reserves, and some dumb AC suggests looking in the oil sumps at the local car-wrecking yard first.
Canada has been using natural uranium as fuel for decades, and sold their designs to India, China, and perhaps other nations, from which local variants have been built. This is not new technology and not rare either.
CANDU reactors have a positive void coefficient meaning if they start to boil off their water (just bubbles form, not fill boil), they overheat quickly. This is very dangerous. One of the few sensible US nuclear regulations is not allowing reactors with positive void coefficients. It is quite nice that they can use raw ore but at the cost of having to use heavy water which is really just shifting the problem of enrichment, not fixing it. However, the Canadians usually have more sensible nuclear regulations and hopefully will start licensing MSRs soon.
Now figure it out how to enrich it at the same time and watch as the world destroys itself building nukes from ocean water.
By "nukes" I assume you mean nuclear weapons. You do realize what many wars have been fought over, do you not? Resources. People fight over water, fuel, food, and so on. Access to cheap nuclear fission power by extracting uranium from seawater could mean an end to scarcity. Well, there will always be scarcity of something, just not a scarcity of energy. Energy that can be used to produce water, food, shelter, and clothing. That's not saying there won't be wars, people fight for other reasons. Many such people fight because their god tells them to convert or kill. If they were more concerned about live and let live then they'd be far better off and not feel such jealousy of other people having greater wealth, freedom, and generally a better standard of living.
Nuclear energy has as much to do with nuclear weapons as gasoline cars have with napalm. When you gas up your car do you think about how many people could be burned to ash if we used that fuel to bomb cities instead of use it to power the transportation sector of the world? You don't? Maybe that's because peaceful energy is far more valuable than weapons to deny other people of their wealth, property, and lives.
Well said and spot on...
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Can't speak for anyone else, but I think about how much devastation follows this unnecessary use of fossil fuels. We could make 100% of our transportation fuel needs from algae grown on seawater by allocating a relatively small portion of desert.
We could also make all of our transportation fuel by hydrocarbon synthesis driven by nuclear fission. This is not new technology. We figured out how to get economically viable energy from fission in the 1950s. We figured out how to synthesize hydrocarbons suitable for use as aircraft fuel since the 1930s. There's been a lot of effort in combining the two by the US Navy but our congresscritters seem more interested in burning money on more failures in solar power projects and electric airplanes.
Well, we could have. Now that climate change is causing feet of snow to fall on Arizona, and the like, it probably wouldn't work so well as it might have.
Right, global warming causes snow in Arizona. Tell me something, what kind of weather or climate event would there have to be to disprove the theory of human caused global warming from burning fossil fuels? If record heat in Arizona proves global warming, and increased snow in Arizona proves global warming, then what would disprove it?
The climate changes, and I can't seem to find anyone to dispute that. If you want me to believe your theory then first I need to see the theory explained in a way that is falsifiable. Then I'd further need to see solutions based on real science and current technology. If you want me to believe that we can grow our fuel in algae ponds in the (snowy) deserts of Arizona then prove the technology as viable. We've proven nuclear fission as viable. We know we can synthesize hydrocarbons, the Nazis flew their fighters off such fuel at the end of WWII. Maybe the economics right now estimates the fuel cost in the $4 to $6 per gallon range for synthesized hydrocarbons, but that's far better than the failed algae fuel experiments so far.
Here's an explanation of this seawater to aviation fuel Navy project in under 15 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
This works. It works now. To make it to market needs only Congress allowing the building of more nuclear power and funding more research in the Navy. In a matter of a few years the Navy will not be adding any carbon into the natural carbon cycle. A few years later the Air Force and Army can join in. In no time this could come to market with no need for new charging stations in parking lots or disposing of the existing vehicles and infrastructure. Every diesel engine in existence becomes zero carbon overnight.
Will algae do that? Perhaps. I know what is holding up synthetic fuels. It is the Democrat "Green New Deal" that denies us access to nuclear power. What's holding up algae fuels? I know what that is too. The laws of physics and economics. We can change the laws of the land, we cannot change the laws of physics and economics.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Read this:
https://www.statesman.com/news...
And this:
https://thehill.com/opinion/en...
Then go on about how renewable energy makes more economic sense than nuclear power. Let's assume that nuclear power is not profitable now. What happens as energy prices continue to rise from government mandates for renewable energy like these? At some point those lines cross and nuclear power becomes profitable again.
Also, it took decades of investment, private and public, in wind and solar energy to bring the price down like it did. This investment included the ability to build prototypes for testing and cost estimation. You think that maybe we could do the same with nuclear power? Build some prototypes of new models so that we can test the technology and economics? As it is now the problem isn't the money, there's lots of private investors willing to put money in nuclear energy. The problem is the Democrats not allowing even the construction of prototypes. Just recently we saw some prototypes getting built because of Trump, Perry, and other Republicans that are taking energy independence seriously. What we get from Democrats is a very unscientific look at the problem. They just throw other people's money at the problem and hope it buys them enough votes for the next election.
You are very correct in that the Democrat distaste for nuclear power predates the GND. That goes all the way back to Carter with his sweaters and solar panels, at least that far back. 40+ years later and we still haven't replaced nuclear power with wind and solar power. I'm guessing in another 40 years it still won't happen.
There's a name for doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
So it's okay for the US to take Japanese technology but not for anyone to use US technology! /s
And this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/m...
France has been able to keep both costs and CO2 emissions low with their nuclear power. You want me to believe that we can do better than both Germany and France if only we build more batteries? Batteries don't produce electricity. To get cheap electricity out you have to put even cheaper electricity in, that's to make up for the capital investment in building the batteries and for energy losses in the storage.
Oh, and Germany already has access to ample energy storage. They sell their electricity to their neighbors that have lots of hydro and then buy it back later. They have to sell cheaper than French nuclear and then buy at prices higher than they can produce, that's just how the market works. That won't change with batteries in Germany.
You believe Germany has the technology now to build energy storage that's cheaper than storing energy in a tank of Russian natural gas? Or cheaper than Scandinavian hydro? What's stopping them then? They should be well on their way to telling France and Russia that their energy won't be needed any more. Instead we see them making plans for another natural gas pipeline from Russia.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
The algae keep dying off at certain levels of scale.
Could you be more specific? Say, providing any information at all?
Well, something is very wrong with the process. Here is more info. All those biofuel companies are pivoting away from algae. They know something we don't. As I said, current speculation on what it is is that you can't keep the algae alive at scale. Algal blooms in the wild often poison themselves and everything else in different ways after a time, perhaps that's the issue. Maybe its something else, cost of maintaining the pools perhaps. Either way, it doesn't work. Its yet another unicorn.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."