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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.
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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The world's oceans contain about 4.5 billion tonnes of uranium. The world consumes 65,000 tonnes of uranium a year. There are thus 70,000 years worth of uranium at current consumption rates in the ocean. The world land reserves of uranium are estimated at 7.6 million tonnes at a recover cost of $260/kg, this is 115 years worth.
The lowest current estimated cost of recovering uranium from seawater is something like $300/kg, a price point at which the cost of the uranium still has little influence on fission power economics, and not much higher than that cost of recovery cited above for the 115 year reserve on land. The current market price of uranium right now is about $80/kg (element, not oxide), but it fluctuates a lot. The recent trendline is something like $100/kg, though in the past it has spiked as high as $400/kg (current dollars).
There no need for uranium-for-seawater in the foreseeable future (i.e. this century), and as long as mined uranium can be had for $100/kg or so there will be no steps taken to commercialize seawater extraction. Research on the topic, like this one, continues with refinements in extraction chemistry and efficiency as the focus, but not looking at the most cost-efficient extraction method, since that is the realm of commercialization. When land uranium resources start to run out, and prices rise, that is when all of the research on seawater extraction will be put to use, with a new focus on industrial operation cost and efficiency.
We are never going to run out of uranium. Even with no breeder reactors, or any thorium reactors.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
What you say is likely true, if we assume that there is a free trade of uranium. A nation with less than friendly relations with much of the world might have trouble getting uranium if their local geology is lacking in uranium. Access to the sea though means a constant supply of uranium at a very constant price. Extraction of uranium at any rate which we could conceive of is nothing compared to the size of the ocean, the concentration of uranium salts in the ocean will not be affected (on any human time frame).
As I recall nations such as India, Iran, and Japan don't have a lot of uranium that they can mine. At least not at the prices you gave. If this process gets to even double the market rate on what many pay now then it can still be viable because of costs due to transport and trade regulations.
There's also some possibility of another spike in uranium. I recall a co-worker being quite excited when he saw uranium prices spike. He was crushed later when he found out why. A mine he had invested in had been flooded with water, some weather event and/or mechanical problem at the site. This put a dent in future expectations of supply and that made uranium prices climb. If there's a technology on uranium extraction from seawater then we will see a ceiling on uranium prices as people build such facilities to back up their terrestrial mining. Oil people do this all the time, they drill for less than ideal oil because they need that well drilled before prices spike. If prices spike and there's no oil to sell then they can't cash in.
Investments in uranium from seawater would certainly happen if a government sees uranium supplies as a national security interest. Governments will invest in this even if the pay off later is little to nothing. Not having to beg others for energy gives a lot more security than investing in more battle tanks and bombers.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
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."
>given that no new reactors are constructed
Isn't that the point? There is no such thing as a truly "global nuclear power industry." To me, the 'centuries' estimate implies a global industry providing power to the entire world while also replacing fossil fuels and supporting a general increase of demand for energy as technology progresses.
Ok, so you want to do this in global total energy. So lets do that. World consumes about 50PWh of fuel (converting fuel to electricity for simplicity) and electricity a year. We get > 90% of that from fossil fuels right now. So about 8000h/yr (with a 90% capacity factor which is common in nuclear) and that's 6.25TWs of production or 6,250 1GW reactors. So a current generation LWR will consume about 200 tons every 4 years so that's 50 tons/yr/GW. So that's 312,500 tons per year or ~283,495 tonnes. So 4.5b tonnes mentioned above (which is renewed each year naturally at an unknown rate) would be about 15,800 years. Now, I've ignored the issue of enrichment, so let's adjust for that. So the fuel is about 3% enriched (2% for initial load, 4% for refueling rods) and that's 4x more U-235 than natural Uranium, so divide by 4.
So that's a hair under 4000 years of supply for all the worlds fuel and electricity at current rates. And as I said, its naturally replenished at an unknown rate. Its likely that if we used a lot of uranium from seawater that the increased difference in concentration would increase this rate of natural replenishment.
And of course, with Thorium we have far larger reserves than Uranium and since we burn up the common isotope of Thorium we end up with far more energy per amount of raw material and a 300 years supply of the stuff is sitting around in slag heaps across the world and that doesn't count all the huge piles of the stuff near every rare earth mine. So no, there is no way we are running out of nuclear fuel anytime soon. Try doing this with any other energy source and you either get climate change (fossil fuels) or you have to ramp up mining to an absurd degree to get the raw materials you need. Try doing some research into what it would take to get 100% of just CAs energy needs from renewables (hint nameplate capacity isn't what counts). You quickly run out of the entire world's supply of various types of raw materials (including land) for any scheme you ramp up. This is why nuclear is really the only good option we have or likely will have in our lifetimes.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
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."
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.