Peak Oil News and Message Boards

The International Atomic Energy Agency and Nuclear Energy Agency figure there’s enough uranium to power existing plants for 100 years. Granted, there are some supply-side issues. About 40% of current uranium supplies come from stockpiles and old weapons—not from uranium mines—so new sources need to be developed soon to avoid “uranium supply shortfalls,” they say

outcast wrote:I'm a bit confused

The International Atomic Energy Agency and Nuclear Energy Agency figure there’s enough uranium to power existing plants for 100 years. Granted, there are some supply-side issues. About 40% of current uranium supplies come from stockpiles and old weapons—not from uranium mines—so new sources need to be developed soon to avoid “uranium supply shortfalls,” they say

But didn't someone just say earlier in the thread that the IAEA (or something like that) said we have more than enough uranium?

Gazzatrone wrote:Is it to simplistic to ask why Nuclear waste isn't encased in concrete and dumped in a Volcano?

the48thronin wrote:

Gazzatrone wrote:Is it to simplistic to ask why Nuclear waste isn't encased in concrete and dumped in a Volcano?

Enriched Uranium will still be half as deadly 5000 years from today, how long will the concrete last in that volcano?

Tyler_JC wrote:

the48thronin wrote:

Gazzatrone wrote:Is it to simplistic to ask why Nuclear waste isn't encased in concrete and dumped in a Volcano?

Enriched Uranium will still be half as deadly 5000 years from today, how long will the concrete last in that volcano?

I think you are missing the point. We want to melt the uranium in lava. The point of the concrete is to keep the uranium together while it falls into the lava.

Zero-point wrote:Please people learn!

Thorium! Thorium! Thorium!

And there are such things as breeder reactors too. Also thorium reactors breed the uranium necessary to use as "starter" fuel for more thorium reactors so there is no supply problem for nuclear energy.

There is only the problem of a few companies that want "scarcity" to extort profits from an entire industry and world in effect holding the rest of the world hostage.

Don't think that if these companies can't make a profit then who will build these reactors cause that's why we have national governments of, for, and by the people.

And breeder reactors, of which there are none operating in breeder mode, are the way to solve resource scarcities?

outcast wrote:

And breeder reactors, of which there are none operating in breeder mode, are the way to solve resource scarcities?

The reason why no breeder reactors are operating in breeder mode is because there is no Uranium shortage, so it is not economical for them to do that.

"Uranium mines provide us with 40,000 tons of uranium each year. Sounds like that ought to be enough for anyone, but it comes up about 25,000 tons short of what we consume yearly in our nuclear power plants. The difference is made up by stockpiles, reprocessed fuel and re-enriched uranium — which should be completely used up by 2013. And the problem with just opening more uranium mines is that nobody really knows where to go for the next big uranium lode. Dr. Michael Dittmar has been warning us for some time about the coming shortage (PDF) and has recently uploaded a four-part comprehensive report on the future of nuclear energy and how socioeconomic change is exacerbating the effect this coming shortage will have on our power consumption. Although not quite on par with zombie apocalypse, Dr. Dittmar's final conclusions paint a dire picture, stating that options like large-scale commercial fission breeder reactors are not an option by 2013 and 'no matter how far into the future we may look, nuclear fusion as an energy source is even less probable than large-scale breeder reactors, for the accumulated knowledge on this subject is already sufficient to say that commercial fusion power will never become a reality.'"

Dr. Ofellati wrote:In the end, it's the Montequest principle. It's not really that we're running out of uranium, it's that there are too many people.

Jotapay wrote:Peak uranium? I've known (and probably you as well) about this for a while, but here is a decent article about it. I love that they broach the "zombie" issue, LOL.

"'no matter how far into the future we may look, nuclear fusion as an energy source is even less probable than large-scale breeder reactors, for the accumulated knowledge on this subject is already sufficient to say that commercial fusion power will never become a reality.'"

Ultimately, the collider aims to create conditions like they were one trillionth to two trillionths of a second after the Big Bang, which scientists think marked the creation of the universe billions of years ago. Physicists also hope the collider will help them see and understand other suspected phenomena, such as dark matter, antimatter and supersymmetry.

Cern's Director General Rolf Heuer said yesterday's collisions were actually the side effect of the quick advances being made by the LHC during its startup phase.

He said that the scientists would be proceeding cautiously, just a driver would with the first production model of a new car.
"We'll never accelerate this the first time with a kick-start to its maximum velocity," he said. "It’s a great achievement to have come this far in so short a time. But we need to keep a sense of perspective – there’s still much to do before we can start the LHC physics programme.”

David Barney, a physicist working at Cern said: "It's quite amazing really, we never expected this to go so quickly. We're incredibly pleased, everything seems to be working excellently. The LHC hasn't actually accelerated particles yet - it hasn't made them go any faster than they were when they came into the tunnel.

"Cern intends to collide them at higher energy next week. It's going incredibly well and we don't really know what to expect next."