Uranium Supply Pt 2

[sch_peakoiler]

EnergyUnlimited,

I see your point. So you see, you fall between radical opponents and radical proponents:) Because radical proponents see FBRs as already built and tested at any scale, ready to run tomorrow morning, breeding at 10x, spewing pu239 like crazy and giving out millions of billions of TWh(e) per SECOND in the mean time Ok, that was a really radical one:):)

Jokes apart, I think a very important issue is this OPEN QUESTION issue thing. You mention FBRs as open. I would say Thorium is an open issue as well, as it means breeding, and we have not been really successfull in breeding (except for breeding ourselves or cattle) for some time now. How many operating Thorium nuclear plants you know in the world?

Nuclear opponents, however, use this argumentation: We do not produce electricity with FBRs nor we do it with Thorium. The only technologies which are used and are planned on are LWR+MOX+a little bit of CANDU. So lets only discuss LWRs.
This kind of argumentation is of course not very satisfactory, but in general, the absence of practically employed hi-tech solutions gives the opponents their argument.

I for myself, after analyzing data from the both sides came to the conclusion that we can mine ores with 20 ppm, but if we continue building LWRs, than it would be logistically too difficult to do. And we, which is pity of course, continue to build LWRs

[Dezakin]

so if uranium energy is used up mining uranium you would still mine it?

There is enough of energy in uranium to mine "replacement", deal with waste and to provide some excess into grid.

what replacement? and how do we know there is enough energy to deal with waste? we haven't done it yet, have we?

Replacement means additional mined uranium to replace spent fuel.
You can also mine thorium, which is capable to give ca 100 times more energy, than uranium can (I assume here that FBR had failed, but this is still an open question).

You dont have to use fast reactors to utilize U238. You can do molten salt breeders that combine Th232 and U238. The chemistry is a bit more challenging because of the higher ratio of transuranic actinides, and ideally you probably have a four fluid reactor.

The best approach in dealing with waste is to reprocess it to recover uranium, plutonium and other actinides.

I sort of think the best approach to dealing with waste is to stick it in dry storage casks until demand for spent fuel makes it economically viable to reprocess. Then crack it open and stick it in the reactors. Lots of nice fission platenoids that command high market value also.

[Dezakin]

EnergyUnlimited,
Jokes apart, I think a very important issue is this OPEN QUESTION issue thing. You mention FBRs as open. I would say Thorium is an open issue as well, as it means breeding, and we have not been really successfull in breeding (except for breeding ourselves or cattle) for some time now. How many operating Thorium nuclear plants you know in the world?

Theres no point in running a breeder reactor until the economics are more favorable than LWR reactors. The only breeder reactor that has a hope of being competitive with LWR is the molten salt breeder reactor, because it has a more scalable design (tens of megawatts to gigawatts) and avoids the fuel fabrication logistical problems.

There was a molten salt reactor that ran for several years at ORNL as a successful demonstrator. Current logistical problems include swelling of the moderator do to neutron erosion, so the moderator must be replaced somewhat regularly in the ORNL design, but its not implausible to imagine a MSBR that runs without a moderator in the epithermal spectrum.

Nuclear opponents, however, use this argumentation: We do not produce electricity with FBRs nor we do it with Thorium. The only technologies which are used and are planned on are LWR+MOX+a little bit of CANDU. So lets only discuss LWRs.
This kind of argumentation is of course not very satisfactory, but in general, the absence of practically employed hi-tech solutions gives the opponents their argument.

I'm fine using only those arguments, given the ore yield data. Then we go from several billion years to several thousand, and a lot can happen in several thousand years.

I for myself, after analyzing data from the both sides came to the conclusion that we can mine ores with 20 ppm, but if we continue building LWRs, than it would be logistically too difficult to do. And we, which is pity of course, continue to build LWRs

I dont think its really that big of an issue. It will be hundreds of years before we are forced to use such poor ore grades using only the once through LWR, and by then one might reasonably imagine we'll either use more advanced breeder reactors or actually get some alternative energy technology to the point of economic competitiveness. (solar or fusion really)

[EnergyUnlimited]

Jokes apart, I think a very important issue is this OPEN QUESTION issue thing. You mention FBRs as open. I would say Thorium is an open issue as well, as it means breeding, and we have not been really successfull in breeding (except for breeding ourselves or cattle) for some time now. How many operating Thorium nuclear plants you know in the world?

There is distinct advantage with thorium breeding cycle.
Thorium can be converted into fissile U233 in certain type of conventional reactor subjected to only moderate modifications. This is NOT fast breeder process.
In fact fast neutrons are most unwanted in thorium breeding, as their presence leads to U232 byproduct, which is outright nuisance if present in nuclear fuel. Even if it does not quench fission process, it posess substantial radiological hazard in handling (exceeding plutonium 239 by orders of magnitude) and it is very unwelcomed by civilian engineers not even mentioning our poor weapon designers/manufacturing engineers, who are getting irradiated with high energy gamma radiation for free, if this isotope is present.
Fortunately it is easy to set thorium breeding in fashion preventing production of this nuisance impurity and some conventional reactor designs are well suited for this task.
Breeding factors can be marginally higfer than 1 in this process, which ensures ability of exhaustive thorium use.

Additional opportunity with thorium is particle accelelator assisted fission, which is of great safety advantage and has some perspective for the future (commercial plants applying it had not been built yet, but all necessary technology to do so is in place).

Because we still have plenty of uranium around, as well as nuclear engineers are "used to" it, there is currently not very much work on thorium breeding going on.
However few thorium rich but uranium poor countries (say India) are keenly pursuing this route.

Once uranium gets scarce or nationalised worldwide and not traded freely, than IMO thorium is bound to take over.

Nuclear opponents, however, use this argumentation: We do not produce electricity with FBRs nor we do it with Thorium. The only technologies which are used and are planned on are LWR+MOX+a little bit of CANDU. So lets only discuss LWRs.
This kind of argumentation is of course not very satisfactory, but in general, the absence of practically employed hi-tech solutions gives the opponents their argument.

I for myself, after analyzing data from the both sides came to the conclusion that we can mine ores with 20 ppm, but if we continue building LWRs, than it would be logistically too difficult to do. And we, which is pity of course, continue to build LWRs

If we stay with LWR + some MOX only, than within about sixty - hundred years we may switch off light and close the shop.
Low grade mineral uranium ores, even if of satisfactory EROEI - but I doubt it - are tedious to work with, and due to unsatisfactory production rates are likely to fail to provide sufficient supply to global nuclear sector.
Our only hope to keep LWR for long term future would be in successful large scale uranium recovery from sea water, but we do not have working technology yet, albeit there are some interesting initial results obtained.
It may be possible to convert some LWR into thorium breeders if need arise, but this is only my speculation (someone help here?).
I know no documented precedence of that.

[EnergyUnlimited]

I sort of think the best approach to dealing with waste is to stick it in dry storage casks until demand for spent fuel makes it economically viable to reprocess. Then crack it open and stick it in the reactors. Lots of nice fission platenoids that command high market value also.

I rather believe, that it is good idea to deal with waste as soon as it is reasonably possible.
It is not good idea to store more and more of it in stainless (but yet rusting casks) without clear idea, what to with it in the future.
You may also note, that after few thousands years of storage current "reactor grade" plutonium will transform itself into "weapon grade" without any external help due to half life differences of Pu238/239/240/241.
One could argue, that few thousands years is long enough not to bother about and some others would not see anything wrong with "selfenrichment". Neverthless it is good idea to remember about it.
And please note that plutonium "left alone" will be a perfect weapon material after few thousands years, but a reasonably good one only after few decades.

[EnergyUnlimited]

EnergyUnlimited,

I see your point. So you see, you fall between radical opponents and radical proponents:) Because radical proponents see FBRs as already built and tested at any scale, ready to run tomorrow morning, breeding at 10x, spewing pu239 like crazy and giving out millions of billions of TWh(e) per SECOND in the mean time Ok, that was a really radical one:):)

I had replied to your main question/enquiry in my previous post , as good as I can at the moment.
Now I reply to your joke part:
Yes, we already have devices capable to deliver TWhr per second (or even milisecond).
However those are not of use in electricity production.

[Tanada]

It may be possible to convert some LWR into thorium breeders if need arise, but this is only my speculation (someone help here?).
I know no documented precedence of that.

Look up the 'LWBR Shippingport' keywords on Google for confirmation that what I am telling you is true. In the mid 1975 the AEC (predecessor of the DOE) designed an experimental Light Water Breeder Reactor using the Shippingport facillity. The redesigned the core of the reactor so that in addition to regular shutdown negative controll rod (neutron absorbers) it also had positive controll rod (neutron emmiters). The bulk of the core was made up of 97% Thorium-232 with 3% HEU, the positive controll rods were made up of 94% Thorium and 6% HEU. With the positive controll rods and the negative controll rods all extracted from the reactor it would not run, the enrichment of the bulk of the fuel was designed to be too low for it to generate power in this condition. The positive controll rods were very slowly inserted until the reactor core acheived criticallity and began generating power in 1977. From then until 1982 with the expection of maintenance shutdowns the plant operated without refueling and without showing the gross signs of fuel depletion. After 5 years of operation they dissassembled and assayed the core at which time they determined that it had been breeding at a rate of 1.01. There was slightly more fissionable material in the core after the power run than before it.

Two things to keep in mind, the initial fissionable mass was HEU, 94% U-235. While U-235 is a good fission fuel it is not the best, for thermal neutrons U-233 is much better and for fast neutrons Pu-239 and Pu-241 are both superior. We use U-235 because we can get it from nature, which saves a lot of effort on our part, not because it is best. The LWBR breeds U-233 and as a result over time the U-233 came to dominate the fissionable fuel load in the reactor. When the reactor was started up it was probably breeding in the .92 range simply because it was fueled with U-235. The longer it ran the higher the ratio of U-233/U-235 became and the higher the breeding ratio as a result.

The other thing to keep in mind, though the reactor did not show any gross signs of fuel depletion even after 5 years, at some point the neutron absorbing effects of the fission fragments will become high enough to prevent breeding. After that threshold the reactor can still produce power for quite a while, probably another 5 years from that point. The Shippingport experiment was almost down to that point when the system was shut down for dissasembly and assay, it was estimated the plant could have run another 5 years, possibly longer, without refueling.

Using a Shippingport design LWBR with the same fuel design they used would allow you to operate a reactor for 10 or more years between refuelings. Current best use LWR are running on a 6 years cycle with refueling every 24 months. The economic difference between refuling every 120 months vs every 24 months should be obvious!

LWBR review

[sch_peakoiler]

EnergyUnlimited,

I see your point. So you see, you fall between radical opponents and radical proponents:) Because radical proponents see FBRs as already built and tested at any scale, ready to run tomorrow morning, breeding at 10x, spewing pu239 like crazy and giving out millions of billions of TWh(e) per SECOND in the mean time Ok, that was a really radical one:):)

I had replied to your main question/enquiry in my previous post , as good as I can at the moment.
Now I reply to your joke part:
Yes, we already have devices capable to deliver TWhr per second (or even milisecond).
However those are not of use in electricity production.

Cool!!! I give up! Your joke is truly superior to mine:) I would say more, those devices have a negative influence on all electricity production in approx. 100 miles around the place they are used

[J_S_Bokchoy]

Google search on "CANDU thorium" yielded a 2005 symposium stating that CANDU reactors, like the Bruce Power station providing most of Ontario's electricity, will run on thorium, virtually without modifications. Hard for me to understand what the disadvantages of deuterium moderated systems are compared to LWR's, when they eliminate the need for enrichment. d2o isn't cheap but the Girdler sulfide process sure looks a lot more like 1930s style low-tech than centrifuge systems, why aren't more orders for CANDU systems being placed? It's not for a lack of Canadians trying to export, they've been promoting this all along, and in fact the South Koreans use CANDU in tandem with LWR's to enable DUPIC recycling of spent fuel. There must be some strong political or technical objections for some reason or CANDU choice would seem a no-brainer. Oh well, guess the Canadians will just have to emerge as the world leaders in thorium usage.

[Dezakin]

Jokes apart, I think a very important issue is this OPEN QUESTION issue thing. You mention FBRs as open. I would say Thorium is an open issue as well, as it means breeding, and we have not been really successfull in breeding (except for breeding ourselves or cattle) for some time now. How many operating Thorium nuclear plants you know in the world?

There is distinct advantage with thorium breeding cycle.
Thorium can be converted into fissile U233 in certain type of conventional reactor subjected to only moderate modifications. This is NOT fast breeder process.
In fact fast neutrons are most unwanted in thorium breeding, as their presence leads to U232 byproduct, which is outright nuisance if present in nuclear fuel. Even if it does not quench fission process, it posess substantial radiological hazard in handling (exceeding plutonium 239 by orders of magnitude) and it is very unwelcomed by civilian engineers not even mentioning our poor weapon designers/manufacturing engineers, who are getting irradiated with high energy gamma radiation for free, if this isotope is present.

Actually U232 is highly desirable for thorium fuel cycles as a proliferation deterant.

Fortunately it is easy to set thorium breeding in fashion preventing production of this nuisance impurity and some conventional reactor designs are well suited for this task.
Breeding factors can be marginally higfer than 1 in this process, which ensures ability of exhaustive thorium use.

If you're breeding U233 free of U232, you have a fissile material that has most of the same nuclear weapons properties of plutonium minus the spontaneous fission, a highly desirable weapons material. Just use molten salt reactors or the once through fuel cycle. If you must breed U233 in LWRs or CANDU's, then make sure the process spikes it.

Additional opportunity with thorium is particle accelelator assisted fission, which is of great safety advantage and has some perspective for the future (commercial plants applying it had not been built yet, but all necessary technology to do so is in place).

I can say with total confidence that we will never have significant power supplemented with ADS. Its a cute design with massive costs, but ultimately a rube-goldberg machine. I have more confidence in fisson-fusion plants coming online before ADS gets any attention at all. Its a great political distraction that reduces energy efficiency by answering a question that can be better answered with safer critical reactors.

Because we still have plenty of uranium around, as well as nuclear engineers are "used to" it, there is currently not very much work on thorium breeding going on.
However few thorium rich but uranium poor countries (say India) are keenly pursuing this route.

Consider that U233 is good weapons material so long as its not spiked with U232, which probably has some impact on indias policy.

If we stay with LWR + some MOX only, than within about sixty - hundred years we may switch off light and close the shop.
Low grade mineral uranium ores, even if of satisfactory EROEI - but I doubt it - are tedious to work with, and due to unsatisfactory production rates are likely to fail to provide sufficient supply to global nuclear sector.

Say what? On what do you base that?

I like the thorium breeder concept as much as anyone, but this is being willfully ignorant of the production capacity of medium grade ores.

[EnergyUnlimited]

Actually U232 is highly desirable for thorium fuel cycles as a proliferation deterant.

Well, if you are going to sell your nuclear fuel to not particularly friendly nation, than U232 may be of advantage.
If you are going to work within your own nation, or within set ups like NAFTA or EU, than U232 is an outright nuisance.
If one propose nuclear power as a world wide solution to energy problems, than it is certain, that issues of nonproliferation are going to be compromised with time.
Few more Koreas and NPT will no longer be relevant anyway.
Howewer I am not trying to say, that we should allow Hutus & Tutsis to acquire nukes without making any fuss.
Again "reactor grade" U233 will purify itself from U232 contaminant, if left alone for few centuries and "selfweaponise" by the same.

If you're breeding U233 free of U232, you have a fissile material that has most of the same nuclear weapons properties of plutonium minus the spontaneous fission, a highly desirable weapons material. Just use molten salt reactors or the once through fuel cycle. If you must breed U233 in LWRs or CANDU's, then make sure the process spikes it.

I doubt, that many nations will decide to "spoil deliberately" their U233, if it is easier to make a pure one. Even if "officially" they do, they are more than likely to keep (and acummulate) small samples of pure material. Few centuries old material will always be a "weapon grade" anyway. Commercial U233 to be sold to other nations will obviously make exception, but still "purification by storage" cannot be prevented.
Proliferation is probably inevitable with thorium breeding applied worldwide. Plutonium reprocessing makes already "ginnie out of bottle" situation. Few decades old civililian Pu is "weapon grade" anyway.

Consider that U233 is good weapons material so long as its not spiked with U232, which probably has some impact on indias policy.

Hence my comments above regarding probably unsolvable proliferation risks.

If we stay with LWR + some MOX only, than within about sixty - hundred years we may switch off light and close the shop.
Low grade mineral uranium ores, even if of satisfactory EROEI - but I doubt it - are tedious to work with, and due to unsatisfactory production rates are likely to fail to provide sufficient supply to global nuclear sector.

Say what? On what do you base that?

I like the thorium breeder concept as much as anyone, but this is being willfully ignorant of the production capacity of medium grade ores.

Large scale production of Uranium from low grade mineral ores is not going IMO to secure enough uranium for timely replacement of fuel in 1-2 thousands of NPP of the future.
Even if OK by EROEI, you will have great trouble with scaling up production to sufficient levels.
Just imagine "leaching" of millions of tons of low grade ore with nitric acid etc.
Uranium will not appear on your shelf, because you demand it.
Extraction from low grade ores would be a much more tedious process, than current approach.
Add all NIMBY factors and you may not be able to open (and maintain) sufficient number of mines to cover timely worldwide demand.

[sch_peakoiler]

Yet another proposal of a technofix : http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/09 ... hetic.html

nuclear to liquids, liquid synthetic fuel from CO2 and nuclear based H2.

I wonder what you think about it? From a doomer standpoint it seems rather crazy... From an optimist standpoint it would seem like a perfect solution, because it is poised to solve the very problem of peakoil - supply of liquid fuels. This would mean - no stripmine agriculture for biofuels in the first place.

However, there are concerns that we will not manage to create a nuclear infrastructure that large.

My opinion - It is hard for me to make an opinion, as I do not have enough data about whether one could build all the npps.

What say you, dear opponents and proponents of nucelar (sic) energy?

[Tanada]

Yet another proposal of a technofix : http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/09 ... hetic.html

nuclear to liquids, liquid synthetic fuel from CO2 and nuclear based H2.

I wonder what you think about it? From a doomer standpoint it seems rather crazy... From an optimist standpoint it would seem like a perfect solution, because it is poised to solve the very problem of peakoil - supply of liquid fuels. This would mean - no stripmine agriculture for biofuels in the first place.

However, there are concerns that we will not manage to create a nuclear infrastructure that large.

My opinion - It is hard for me to make an opinion, as I do not have enough data about whether one could build all the npps.

What say you, dear opponents and proponents of nucelar (sic) energy?

Chemically it is doable, however the energy requirements are truely imense! I would think you could get quite a leg up on the deal by using any organic matter as feedstock, the chemicals are half way to being liquid fuel already which has to save you tons of Uranium energy in the process. Heck steal a page from those bio algea people, put sub micron filters on a tank and keep pumping sea water in until it is full of plankton Run the resulting goo through a processor to make liquid fuels.

Or just skip the whole need for carbon by going straight to Hydrazine, it will kill you in large quantities but it is liquid, easy to store, and will burn in a standard ICE engine with minimal modification. The Formula? H2N-NH2, esentually two Ammonia molecules fused together and you can make it with electricity, water and air as your only feedstocks.

[M_B_S]

PEAK URANIUM = PEAK OIL

"GHAWAR" URAMIUM MINE in CANADA totally FLOODED

This one mine, once it's up and running, would produce enough uranium to provide 2 per cent of the world's electricity," said Ray Goldie, a mining analyst with Salman Partners in Toronto. "Saskatchewan is the Saudi Arabia of the uranium business." He believes prices could reach $US95 by 2009.
U-PRICE on the way to the SKY

[web]http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/canada-mine-closure-to-lift-price/2006/10/27/1161749311845.html[/web]

The uranium based dreams are over!

Hey Guys

shit happens

[sch_peakoiler]

Hey M_B_S,

you still have to show how increasing uranium prics influences the electricity production.

A question to MODS: Is this way of posting link generally welcome? My browser goes crazy when it sees it, because of security settings.

[M_B_S]

Uranium shortage and impact on germanys electricity price

[M_B_S]

Are we facing Peak Uranium?

PEAK OIL = PEAK URANIUM

[Tanada]

Uranium shortage and impact on germanys electricity price

That's a pile of steaming horse hockey given that the cost of Uranium is less than 5% of the cost of Fission electricity. Double the cost to 10% and guess what, cost to the consumer goes up 5%.

Gosh that sure sounds scary, a whole 5%? How would we ever survive such an event? Whoa is us, the end is surely near (gasp sob whailing and knashing of teeth)

[sch_peakoiler]

Tanada,

so you think that even the price will go up to maybe 200USD, there will be no physical shortage of uranium in the following years?

[Tanada]

Tanada,

so you think that even the price will go up to maybe 200USD, there will be no physical shortage of uranium in the following years?

Why would higher prices cause a shortage? That is the exact opposite of how market forces work! A shortage causes higher prices, not the other way around. What happenned at Cigar Lake is unfortunate for the company who owns it and I imaging there will be a slew of lawsuits as they stated that the flood bulkhead system they had in place to prevent this type of total flooding failed. That means whoever designed the flood bulkhead system and whoever was responsible for maintaining and testing it are leagly responsible for this total loss.

If $200/kg Uranium ensues in the next year and the perception is that it will be sustained for a few years several things will result. First off the enrichment providers will depleat tails to a greater extent as far as their capacity allows them too, that alone should replace up to a 40% loss in natural uranium supply. If there is not enough enrichment capacity to cover all of the losses then existing mines will have the incentive to work harder/dig faster/longer hours per day. If those two together still are not enough then the marginal Uranium recovery methods like co-extraction of Uranium with Phosphates from fertilizer plants will start back up, those alone are estimated as being able to supply 20% of annual demand on a sustained basis. It is realatively simple to add an extra chemical extraction step to pull the natural Uranium out of the Phosphate concentrate, it is done near the end of the Phosphate refining process.

Other less likely solutions include the USA going to a MOX fuel cycle, but that requires a couple years to build a reprocessing plant and get the bugs out even with the full weight of Government behind it removing red tape. That step would give the USA a sustained 14% fuel supply or a temporary 50% supply, temporary being in terms of 10 years or more. Also if they build a reprocessing plant they can build a dedicated spent Uranium re-enrichment plant with it which would provide an additional 15% sustained fuel supply, or temporarily 50% to add to the 50% MOX cited above. Other possibillities, Russia could ramp up fuel production under the Megatons to Megawatts program to make up the shortfall from Cigar Lake.

In other words, this event really sucks for the insurance company that wrote the policy for Cigar Lake mining ventures, for the rest of us it will be a minor inconveinience.