Thread: Information: Uranium from seawater ??

You learn something every day. Was reading a Scientific American magazine during lunch since I was eating alone today. Question posed on the Ask The Experts column was how long the nuclear power plants could run on the current known supplies of uranium. Estimate? More than 200 years.

However, there was a blurb in the article, that acknowledged it isn't currently economically feasible, but .... "the extraction of uranium from sea water would make available 4.5 billion metric tons of uranum, a 60,000 year supply at present rates."

There's uranium in sea water?!?!?!?!

So, looking around, I found http://www.wise-uranium.org/upusa.html

Presidential Committee recommends research on uranium recovery from seawater

In a report released on August 2, 1999, the The President's Committee Of Advisors On Science And Technology (PCAST ) recommended that the U.S. consider participating in international research on extracting uranium from seawater:

"One possibility for maintaining fission as a major option without reprocessing is low-cost extraction of uranium from seawater. The uranium concentration of sea water is low (approximately 3 ppb) but the quantity of contained uranium is vast - some 4 billion tonnes (about 700 times more than known terrestrial resources recoverable at a price of up to $130 per kg). If half of this resource could ultimately be recovered, it could support for 6,500 years 3,000 GW of nuclear capacity (75 percent capacity factor) based on next-generation reactors (e.g., high-temperature gas-cooled reactors) operated on once-through fuel cycles. Research on a process being developed in Japan suggests that it might be feasible to recover uranium from seawater at a cost of $120 per lb of U3O8.40 Although this is more than 10 times the current uranium price, it would contribute just 0.5¢ per kWh to the cost of electricity for a next-generation reactor operated on a once-through fuel cycle-equivalent to the fuel cost for an oil-fired power plant burning $3-a-barrel oil." [emphasis added]
40 Nobukawa 1994: H. Nobukawa "Development of a Floating Type System for Uranium Extraction from Sea Water Using Sea Current and Wave Power," in Proceedings of the 4th International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference (Osaka, Japan: 10-15 April 1994), pp. 294-300.
Source: Powerful Partnerships: The Federal Role In International Cooperation On Energy Innovation. A Report From The President's Committee Of Advisors On Science And Technology Panel On International Cooperation In Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, And Deployment. Washington, DC, June 1999, p. 5-26 - 5-27 (download full text , 1.3M PDF format)

Anyway, find it interesting or not, up to you.

They mumbled some other stuff in the column as well. And the previous paragraph....

Using more enrichment work could reduce the uranium needs of LWRs by as much as 30% per metric ton of LEU. And separating plutonium and uranium from spent LEU and using them to make fresh fuel could reduce requirements by another 30%. Taking both steps would cut the uranium requiremens of an LWR in half.

Not sure if that covers what you're saying Potemkine, but I'm guessing so. Oh, and for reference's sake
LEU - low enriched uranium
LWR - light water reactor

3ppb or 3 points per billion is nearly inconsequential. That's where all the "if" statements in that article started to come in .. The energy it would take to extract it would far exceed the output gained.

Originally Posted by Potemkine

No it is is interesting. Never knew there was uranium in sea water. Why dont we just enrich the rods to the 50-75% capacity like the military does and then we have a nearly limitless source of power?

The military enriches WAAY above 90%. But, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission only allows the private sector to enrich to approx. 4.9%, for safety primarily.

Originally Posted by Keiron

I'd say it's very interesting.

Could we really get all that uranium though? Like how deep is it under water and what are the costs of extracting it all or some of it?

Originally Posted by Potemkine

Thats pretty much what I am going for. It makes more sense energy wise, but why those in charge dont do it is beyond me.

To waste more resources so they can hopefully charge more?

Maybe it isn't as safe supposedly or too costly for people other than the military?

I found this while looking through several of the pages in a search from uranium in seawater

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/how...r-nuclear.html

I do not think that depth is a concern as, based on calculations described in the link above, 1.1ppb Uranium enters the oceans every year from rivers that feed into it.