How does one enforce nuclear non-proliferation if any country can extract uranium from seawater?
Getting Uranium is not particularly hard anyway. The difficult bit is enriching it to weapons grade.
How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
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Re: How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
#42Uranium is not the only element/mineral of interest that is dissolved in seawater. Research has been done on this stuff before. I'm glad it's being done, but unfortunately this will remain unviable when compared to open-pit or underground mining (even accounting for the risk of depending on foreign suppliers + transportation costs of importing). The biggest reserves are in Canada and Australia, not really countries w…
> The biggest reserves are in Canada and Australia, not really countries we have to worry about cutting off supply anytime soon.
Perhaps not maliciously, but might those countries hypothetically shut down those mines for environmental reasons?
Re: How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
#43Anyone who comes with Thorium reactor, India will gladly supply their Thorium for your power requirement provided you give them working Thorium reactor.
Illinois EnergyProf just did a video on Thorium power. I enjoyed it.
Re: How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
#44How does one enforce nuclear non-proliferation if any country can extract uranium from seawater?
Uranium enrichment to a suitable level is a seriously involved industrial process that requires thousands of supersonic centrifuges to do at scale. This is not something that flies under the radar easily. It's also very energy intensive to run those centrifuges, so it's difficult to conceal.
Illinois EnergyProf has a video I enjoyed on uranium enrichment.
Re: How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> the top meter of soil in your yard probably contains several kilograms of uranium. No. That is way way off. Grams ... more likely milligrams and even that sounds too much.
According to [1], "the normal concentration of uranium in soil is 300 μg/kg to 11.7 mg/kg." According to [2], the density of topsoil ranges from 1,100 to 2,500 kg/m^3. One acre is about 4,000 m^2, so a conservative estimate is that there is about 1.3 kg of uranium in 1 meter of top soil on a 1 acre lot. (4000 m^3 * 1100 kg/m^3 * 3x10^-7). That's just the low end - taking the midway point for both yields over 40kg (40…
on a 1 acre lot
Re: How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uranium is quite common, if you don't care too much about cost. If you own a house with a suburban lot, the top meter of soil in your yard probably contains several kilograms of uranium.
>> the top meter of soil in your yard probably contains several kilograms of uranium. No. That is way way off. Grams ... more likely milligrams and even that sounds too much.
Do the math. Average crustal abundance of U is around 3 ppm.
Re: How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uranium is quite common, if you don't care too much about cost. If you own a house with a suburban lot, the top meter of soil in your yard probably contains several kilograms of uranium.
I think uranium at that concentration would qualify your lot as a Superfund site. It's a toxic heavy metal and that's a lot. Your numbers might be off by a zero or two.
As others have pointed out here, no, I was not off. It's a bit of a shocker to realize how much U is out there. There's a reason one should test your basement for radon before you buy a house.
Re: How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
#48Aluminum is 1000 times more abundant in seawater than (edit)uranium. Lithium is about 60 times as abundant. With uranium at $32/lb, aluminum at $0.75/lb and lithium at $6/lb it seems that aluminum and lithium would reach commercial viability first. Magnesium has already made it with significant production coming from seawater.
The price of aluminum reflects the price of the energy needed to reduce it to the metallic form. Extracting from seawater would still need to pay this price.
Re: How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I first thought that OP estimate was way off, but from your numbers he may be right! If you only need 200 tons of soil for 1kg of Ur, that's not much. A cubic meter of soil is ~2 tons, maybe more, which means you only need a 10m by 10m square to get 1kg of Ur if you go 1m deep. Wow.
I think getting to enriched uranium is the hard bit.
Also, now your property is a large hole.
Re: How to extract uranium from seawater for nuclear power (2017)
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think uranium at that concentration would qualify your lot as a Superfund site. It's a toxic heavy metal and that's a lot. Your numbers might be off by a zero or two.
As others have pointed out here, no, I was not off. It's a bit of a shocker to realize how much U is out there. There's a reason one should test your basement for radon before you buy a house.
But, since people don't mine uranium randomly, one may assume that your back yard doesn't have enough to be price-competitive with modern mines.