Uranium Supply Pt 2

[Dezakin]

I think, you are still a victim of exponential growth paradigm.

I think you just do not understand what I am doing. But thats Ok. My questions just do not seem to make a system, do they? they do.
I want to quantify the basics of nuclear energy. thats it. Tanada started a FISSION FAQ here. But he explained isotope basics and then had enough of this - the FAQ is unfinished big time. So there are no numbers connecting WHEN with HOW MUCH on nuclear power. Only the assurance of Dezakin that we have enough uranium in the crust and can scale up the mining to any scale needed.
So if anybody says: then we will go thorium and this is an endless supply, I want to know WHEN and HOW MUCH. just for me. To understand the basics.

I cant quantify what economics will do, or weather people will all decide that investing in panda fur purses are a better bet than uranium mines in a tight market. All we can really point to here is production numbers of mines open today, previous growth rates during demand acceleration (which I believe was substantial based on the growth of the nuclear power industry) and the energy requirements of mining. We can easily state that uranium is very energy positive in any time regime in the next several millinia because the Rossing mine data is very clear.

1 unit of energy in mining 300ppm ore from Rossing mine yields enough uranium to make 500 units of electric energy in light water reactors. With the rather crude, but reasonable estimate that energy demands of mining are inversely proportional to the ore grade, we can exploit some 1 trillion tons of uranium at an energy gain of 15-30, more than some large petrochemical projects, and thats enough to last 20000 light water reactors 250000 years. This is simple arithmetic and I have very high confidence in this.

The mine production numbers for this year, next year, next decade, I couldn't say. I'd guess that the market should respond, but maybe it wont and capital will flow towards something else, or some other political problem will get in the way, and we can argue all day about weather mines will produce x% more uranium to meet market demand. I think they will because people stand to make a lot of money if they do, but sure, they might not for a host of above ground issues seperate from engineering and energy.

But this doesnt detract from uranium having the capacity to be a resource into the distant future.

[Dezakin]

If I had access to say 400 billion dollars instead of invading some country I'd probably spend say 10 on the development of a molten chloride fast reactor for incinerating the plutonium and other actinides in spent fuel, and another 10 on the development of a molten fluoride reactor for meeting the global energy demands, and then spend I'd guess 2 billion each on the chloride fast reactors and about 1.5 billion on the fluoride thermal reactors.

If one take into account current FED monetary policy, there is a good chance that within next several years $ 400 billion will buy you a box of matches

Take it to economics forum, I dont care to argue religeon.

Anyway, $10 billion for existing business or governments is not very much.
My suspicion is that no significant work is done on molten salt breeders, because it is already concluded that these will not work economically if applied in power plants.

Nope. The reason the plug was pulled in the early 70's was because molten salts had a poor breeding ratio compared to liquid metal reactors were much more amenable to breeding plutonium.

Molten salt reactors have a much better chance of economic power production than any other breeding regime simply because it internalizes the reprocessing cost and gets rid of fuel fabrication regimes. I've seen economic analysis on molten salt reactors that show them to produce power at a lower cost than PWRs or even coal.

http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/

[sch_peakoiler]

Theres no way PWRs are going to breed at 1.02.

the number 1.01 comes from Tanada, the number 1.02 from EnergyUnlimited. Can you please agree with them on anything?
because it is difficult to discuss if the proponents do not agree on one number.

Also this would finally get people to shut up about the whole running out of energy meme when they realize how much energy is recoverable just by digging up some dirt in the backyard. (Cue in next doomy topic about overpopulation, ecological collapse, whatever. Theres allways some pessimistic horizon)

Yeah you have drawn a techno paradise. Looks nice. Pity that in the capitalism technolgy is suppressed by big financial interests "intertwined" with politics I would also support a world with large scale nuclear research and development. Because now it is stagnating... One working Fast Breeder and one being built. and this not even in a country calling itself GREAT 7. anyway.

as you correctly point out, as things are now - people tend NOT to shut up about the whole energy thing. They want facts and dont let anybody feed them with expectations.

Strictly speaking, the chloride fast reactor is unnecissary. Fluoride thermal breeders can be started on enriched uranium, and the only industry demand would be for the initial fuel load. The chloride reactors are only aesthetically desirable for incineration of the spent fuel stockpile and optimal production of U233 for the market.

As far as I get the situation, if we manage to breed and burn U238 and Th232 we will get a pretty long term supply, which would surpass thousands of years. If. We. Manage.

That, IMHO, is sufficient for the fuel cycle and energy demands of civilization

MHO is slightly different on this. I think that we still have to see some more progress on mining U from leaner ores.

, though not aesthetically pleasing or optimally efficient. I doubt things will play out with any breeder reactors in the future

I agree...

[sch_peakoiler]

energy positive in any time regime in the next several millinia because the Rossing mine data is very clear.

I understand this. Things I do not understand completely are:

how much discovered (not estimated) uranium do we have at 300 ppm?

would we possibly get a problem of scale trying to replace high grade mines which are bound to run out with low grade mines and trying to expand production at the same time?

The mine production numbers for this year, next year, next decade, I couldn't say.

you cannot. but the industry can do that,does that and fails. Thats the problem. you are not responsible for what is being said. Dont feel like I am attacking you.

[sch_peakoiler]

double post, deleted.

[sch_peakoiler]

double post, deleted

[EnergyUnlimited]

Theres no way PWRs are going to breed at 1.02.

the number 1.01 comes from Tanada, the number 1.02 from EnergyUnlimited. Can you please agree with them on anything?
because it is difficult to discuss if the proponents do not agree on one number.

1.01 came from first shot experiment on commercial reactor, as described by Tanada.
I suspect that 1.02 could be achieved with some more "fiddling" but we are not there yet and there was no interest in developing this technology further.

Dezakin think, it is not possible due to reactor geometry.
I think, that with some engineering efforts it may be possible to get there.
It is very rare that firs experiment ever run delivers the best possible result.
Usually there is some room for improvement.

I have noted that you are stating that we have one running commercial fast breeder.
Unfortunately it is not breeding fast breeder (in Russia).
Fast breeder which doesn't breed cannot help.
I think, fast breeders are working well only as ~50MW military installations, very expensive to run.

I doubt that we will ever succeed in adapting them to commercial electricity production.
Superphoenics was a spectacular failure.
Japanese installation is haunted with problems related to leaks of molten sodium, causing fires and it was not demonstrated to breed either.
Russian project does not breed, but otherwise is probably the best.

[sch_peakoiler]

Dezakin think, it is not possible due to reactor geometry.
I think, that with some engineering efforts it may be possible to get there.

I think you three should either agree on something :):)or agree on something:):)

because otherwise if I cite numbers from you or Tanada I get an "its impossible" from Dezakin:) and vice versa.
That way the discussion is a stalemate.

I have noted that you are stating that we have one running commercial fast breeder.
Unfortunately it is not breeding fast breeder (in Russia).

I know. it runs with HEU. So to say it is running in the eternal ignition mode (similar to what we discussed with igniting thorium). To make it breed one would have to reprocess the waste and make a "breeder load".

I called it a running breeder because

a) it is a breeder by design.

b) it runs

c) according to its project assessment documentation it has been confirmed to breed at some 1.3.

this breeder cannot help because even if you start building things like it tomorrow, you will have to wait 50 to 100 years before getting a substantial amount of them run. Build time+ignition breed+first reprocessing: all takes time.
So we can forget FBRs for the scope of our lifetimes. They are loosing it in our timeframe.

It looks like the same is true for almost every advanced nuclear tech out there. Fusion, FBRs, you name it.

[Dezakin]

Dezakin think, it is not possible due to reactor geometry.
I think, that with some engineering efforts it may be possible to get there.

I think you three should either agree on something :):)or agree on something:):)

because otherwise if I cite numbers from you or Tanada I get an "its impossible" from Dezakin:) and vice versa.
That way the discussion is a stalemate.

Well, I know the numbers for graphite moderated fluoride reactors for thorium breeding are 1.02 or so, and there you have helium sparging pulling out all of your neutron poisons online. In order for a solid fuel reactor with accumulated neutron poisons and a worse moderator to do close to that good, you have to be more than a little creative.

http://www.atomicinsights.com/oct95/LWBR_oct95.html

Mea culpa, but it doesnt sound like converting a PWR is fast, cheap, or easy. I'm not very familiar with how they constructed their core so I'm not sure its even possible in most PWRs.

[Dezakin]

Superphoenics was a spectacular failure.
Japanese installation is haunted with problems related to leaks of molten sodium, causing fires and it was not demonstrated to breed either.
Russian project does not breed, but otherwise is probably the best.

To be fair, all of these boondogles are liquid metal fast breeder reactors. A molten chloride fluid fuel power reactor offers some significant advantages over all of these (and even light water reactors)

No fuel fabrication for a start. Breeding ratio of 1.5 or more. No offline reprocessing plant. No corrosion issues from lead-bismuth, no bismuth neutron activation, no sodium fires, no massive pressure vessels.

[sch_peakoiler]

Superphoenics was a spectacular failure.
Japanese installation is haunted with problems related to leaks of molten sodium, causing fires and it was not demonstrated to breed either.
Russian project does not breed, but otherwise is probably the best.

To be fair, all of these boondogles are liquid metal fast breeder reactors. A molten chloride fluid fuel power reactor offers some significant advantages over all of these (and even light water reactors)

No fuel fabrication for a start. Breeding ratio of 1.5 or more. No offline reprocessing plant. No corrosion issues from lead-bismuth, no bismuth neutron activation, no sodium fires, no massive pressure vessels.

maybe you can provide more specs on it?
like what is the fuel mix,
how does the bred fuel come out (should one stop it for unload?)
should one let the spent fuel cool for several years before reprocessing
whats the "doubling time"?
time to build one reactor?
whats its assessed technology state (working prototype or theoretical prototype or pure fantasy) ?

[Dezakin]

maybe you can provide more specs on it?
like what is the fuel mix,
how does the bred fuel come out (should one stop it for unload?)
should one let the spent fuel cool for several years before reprocessing
whats the "doubling time"?
time to build one reactor?
whats its assessed technology state (working prototype or theoretical prototype or pure fantasy) ?

I sort of hate the phrase 'doubling time' because its a lot faster to build more mines or more enrichment plants than to build breeder reactors just to create fuel. Really when people are interested in this its about weapons production...

Liquid chloride reactors would be about fissile production and actinide incineration, which are aesthetic objectives at best. I like them but for power production, liquid fluoride reactors are superior because they operate in thermal regimes (safer) and have fewer development issues (most development and prototyping was allready done in the MSBR project decades ago)

The fuel for a liquid fluoride mix is a liquid core of molten berylleum and lithium fluorides with uranium tetrafluoride disolved in. The fluorides act as a moderator or you can reduce the core size and fissile load by having external moderation (graphite or heavy water) but now it seems that because of moderator swelling and capital costs, just dealing with higher fissile load and a slightly larger core is more economical.

Wrapped around the core is a liquid salt medium with thorium tetrafluorides as a blanket. Fluoride volitility pulls out bred U233, and then thats fed into the core. Helium sparging pulls out gasseous fission products online, a sacrificial annode pulls out noble metals, and vacuum distillation gets the rest of the fission products, so there aren't accumulated neutron poisons in the core. The radioactive waste stream is 1/1000th that of a light water reactor, and average half life is 30 years instead of some 25000. After the initial fuel load (which can be just enriched uranium) it requires 1 ton of thorium per GW/year. After the reactor is decommissioned, the fuel load can be moved to another reactor.

Time to build the reactor is comparable to time to build a light water reactor, from 2 to 10 years depending on licensing costs, supply bottlenecks, political opposition or whatever.

The assessed technology state for the liquid fluoride reactor isn't yet commercial yet, but there was a working prototype that ran for five years at ORNL. For molten salt fast reactors using chlorides its theoretical.

[Starvid]

The last time the price of uranium was quoted in this thread it was at $90. Now it is $68. The speculative uranium bubble has been bursting as exploration has showed that the resource is very abundant.

[mkwin]

The last time the price of uranium was quoted in this thread it was at $90. Now it is $68. The speculative uranium bubble has been bursting as exploration has showed that the resource is very abundant.

The Redbook is out soon also. I am standing by my previous guess, a massive rise again in proven and probable reserves, which will be the final nail in the uranium supply insuffcienty argument.

[TonyPrep]

The Redbook is out soon also. I am standing by my previous guess, a massive rise again in proven and probable reserves, which will be the final nail in the uranium supply insuffcienty argument.

A book will never make it a renewable resource or a resource that can be extracted at any rate required or always at a net energy gain or a resource that will not damage the environment during extraction.

[mkwin]

The Redbook is out soon also. I am standing by my previous guess, a massive rise again in proven and probable reserves, which will be the final nail in the uranium supply insuffcienty argument.

A book will never make it a renewable resource or a resource that can be extracted at any rate required or always at a net energy gain or a resource that will not damage the environment during extraction.

We are talking about Uranium not coal.

[EnergySpin]

The last time the price of uranium was quoted in this thread it was at $90. Now it is $68. The speculative uranium bubble has been bursting as exploration has showed that the resource is very abundant.

So M_B_S's posts peaked too or not ?

[TonyPrep]

The Redbook is out soon also. I am standing by my previous guess, a massive rise again in proven and probable reserves, which will be the final nail in the uranium supply insuffcienty argument.

A book will never make it a renewable resource or a resource that can be extracted at any rate required or always at a net energy gain or a resource that will not damage the environment during extraction.

We are talking about Uranium not coal.

I know. Uranium has to be mined or extracted and processed, does it not?

[Starvid]

The Redbook is out soon also. I am standing by my previous guess, a massive rise again in proven and probable reserves, which will be the final nail in the uranium supply insuffcienty argument.

A book will never make it a renewable resource or a resource that can be extracted at any rate required or always at a net energy gain or a resource that will not damage the environment during extraction.

We are talking about Uranium not coal.

I know. Uranium has to be mined or extracted and processed, does it not?

The steel, aluminum, copper, concrete etc of a wind turbine has to be mined and or processed too, and you need several times as much base metals and stuff to get a kWh of wind power compared to a kWh of nuke power, according to a slide I saw at a lecture held by the chairman of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Not that it really matters when push comes to shove. Neither does your reflexive counter agruments which have been debunked at this site so many times I can't care to count all of them.

[TonyPrep]

Not that it really matters when push comes to shove. Neither does your reflexive counter agruments which have been debunked at this site so many times I can't care to count all of them.

They haven't been debunked, otherwise I would not still raise them. But this is a bit of overreaction. All I said was that a red book could not turn uranium into a renewable resource that can be mined and processed at any rate required and always at a net energy gain. I wouldn't have thought that was controversial, though the nuclear pushers might not like to admit it.