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As a Finn I think this is the correct way. To add to some other comments here I presume uranium is so abundant even if we multiply our usage that the opportunit

As a Finn I think this is the correct way. To add to some other comments here I presume uranium is so abundant even if we multiply our usage that the opportunity cost of reusing the spent fuel is not a major issue. We have a lot of spent fuel in places like the bottom of the ocean we can tap into first. There are a lot of different materials we're burning or burying even if it might be useful in the future, I'd look into repurposing those first as they carry a much bigger risk in e.g. polluting the ground water before worrying about a marginal amount of global spent fuel being buried (you need to account for the fact that we are a small country with non-optimal geography, it is less probable that it would be viable for us build processing facilities to recycle spent fuel as it is much more viable in e.g. France where there is much more raw materials available relatively close + shipping the spent fuel from Finland is probably quite expensive as especially in the current geopolitical setting we are somewhat of an island logistically). Take what I said with a grain of salt as I am not an expert in the matters of nuclear technology, just sharing my layman's viewpoint. It's probably a complex system so I'm not sure if anyone has definitive answers as it all depends on the amount of nuclear power the world is going to build, how the reprocessing technology and know-how develops, how the alternative means for electricity production develop etc. etc. -- so we can only make educated guesses for now, but I see that we're making a good compromise here with the marginal amount of the global spent nuclear fuel we possess considering our options. For other parts of the world the equation probably plays out differently, e.g. not having suitable solid bedrock to utilize might be an obvious showstopper.

tsimionescu 3y ago
Uranium is actually pretty rare - using fuel the way we have for now, we would pretty quickly exhaust all the known accessible uranium deposits - I believe I read the estimate is something like 50 years? The story changes significantly if we start using breeder reactors and other designs.
- Mrdarknezz 3y ago
  With breeder reactors we have enough uranium to last us until the sun goes out https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  > Uranium is actually pretty rare > estimate is something like 50 years those are pretty pessimistic estimates. From a 2009 article on Scientific America According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today's consumption rate in total the extraction of uranium from seawater would make available 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium—a 60,000-year supply at present rates fuel-recycling fast-breeder reactors, which generate more fuel than they consume, would use less than 1 percent of the uranium needed for current LWRs. Breeder reactors could match today's nuclear output for 30,000 years using only the NEA-estimated supplies.
  - Mutjake 3y ago
    Yeah, and to my understanding we're not specifically looking for it as the uranium isn't really that expensive at the moment. The largest plant in Finland needs 128 tons of uranium for the fuel to be fully loaded which on a quick calculation is $57 per pound * 2.2 pounds per kilo * 128000 kilos = around $16M and based on a quick search it lasts from three to five years. Since the fuel is cooled in water ponds for decades before it is processed, even in the case of a nuclear industry boom there's ample lead time to alter the plans if running out of materials seems to become an issue. I'd be much more worried about usage of oil as it is the base material for a lot of different things like medicines, and we're burning the stuff away (granted, we can do synthetic hydrocarbons, but the whole thing with oil is a bigger problem in my books than running out of uranium; it's still there to be retrieved if it really comes down to it).
    - Ekaros 3y ago
      Also, stuff that we need at scale to keep things running, but are somewhat harder to source like sulphur... Which is used for agriculture.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered If it's "undiscovered", presumably that 0.5 metric tons amounts to spurious precision. Call it ten million, and it becomes clear that it's a wild guesstimate. Also: the location of these Uranium deposits is not evenly distributed. I understand that substantially all of France's Uranium, for example, comes from Niger, a politically-unstable country where much of the mining is controlled by the Wagner Group.
- pjc50 3y ago
  If we turn out to need the uranium, we know where it is: in the special spent fuel storage facility. It's just very contaminated with radioactive elements that aren't uranium and have shorter, more dangerous half-lives.
  - LordShredda 3y ago
    Isn't shorter half lives better? That means radioactivity reduces faster
    - theelous3 3y ago
      Faster can still be a very long time, relative to the kind of time we typically operate projects on, and also means that the decaying material is more radioactive in terms of exposure risk.
    - pjc50 3y ago
      Each decay event is when radiation is emitted. So: very short half-life is good, because the element turns into something else very quickly and ceases to be a problem. This is the nanoseconds-to-days range. Very long half-life: not actually all that radioactive. e.g. U238 itself with a half-life in the billions of years. Medium half-life: emits a dangerously high level of radiation in the process of decaying. This is the real problem stuff as "medium" can mean "centuries".
      - roenxi 3y ago
        If it can generate enough energy to be dangerous then it probably has an economic use if enough of it can be gathered in one place Like the sun - as I recall per-m3 it isn't all that energetic but there is enough sun that it provided the energy for ~99% of all life on earth. Lots of not-quite-enough energy is enough energy. That is part of why this "no human should set foot for 100,000 years" is silly. We only have recorded history going back a few thousand years, and all of civilisation was invented in that time. If humans are exist in 100,000 years we'll be using that century-long half life material for something important.
- credit_guy 3y ago
  > quickly exhaust all the known accessible uranium deposits The key thing here is "known". In order to "know" of the economic viability of a mining source you need to invest serious money. Mining companies have serious money, and they invest them to "prove" new reserves, because that's how they can get loans from banks. But once the reserves exceed whatever demand there is in the world for more than a hundred years, there's absolutely no incentive to keep exploring further. That's where we are now: there are about 8 million tons of proven uranium reserves [1]. The annual production fluctuates very slightly around 50,000 tons [2]. At the current production levels we have more than 150 years of proven reserves. But if we were to suddenly double the number of reactors, we would very quickly double the proven reserves. If we were to multiply 100-fold the number of reactors, we'd multiply the proven reserves by 100, or more likely more than that. In the end there is absolutely no limit. The current market price of uranium is about $130 per kg. It is estimated that it can economically be extracted from seawater for $1000/kg, so less than a factor of 10. Such a cost would not increase the cost of electricity by even one cent per kWh ( see the math in the notes). As for breeder reactors or other designs. The current generation reactors produce about 40 to 60 GWday of energy from 1 ton of uranium fuel (which is generally enriched to close to 5% U-235). New designs will increase this number (called burnup) to 100 [3] and some even to 180, but generally not because they are more efficient, just because they'll use fuel enriched to up to 20% U-235. There are 2 designs that will exceed that, but they are supposed to burn thorium rather than uranium. We have easily 100 times less experience with thorium than uranium, so I wouldn't hold my breath that it's a piece of cake to achieve higher burnup with it. In theory we could, but practice finds ways to disagree with theory. Notes: the math of 1 cent per kWh: you need about 10 tons of natural uranium to produce one ton of fuel-grade uranium, and with that you get about 50 GWd, or 50 x 24 = 1200 GWh = 1.2 billion kWh of electricity. 10,000 kg at $1000/kg is $10 MM for 1.2 billion kWh, or 0.83 cents/kWh. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_r... [2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figures/uranium-production-figures.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figu... [3] https://aris.iaea.org/sites/burnup.html https://aris.iaea.org/sites/burnup.html
- titzer 3y ago
  > exhaust all the known accessible uranium deposits Uranium is everywhere. While there are mines that have extremely high concentrations of Uranium, it is present in trace amounts in almost everything from granite to sand to soil to groundwater. There are 4 billion tons of Uranium dissolved in the oceans. A number of projects have looked at filtering and extracting it from the oceans. It's relatively expensive to extract it from seawater, but not insane--4x-10x the cost of mining. We won't run out. https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/oceans/articles/2018/06/28/the-nuclear-option-technology-to-extract-uranium-from-the-sea-advances# https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/oceans/articles/2018/0... > I believe I read the estimate is something like 50 years? It's more like 200 years. And that's "economically accessible", not accessible. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glo...
- ekianjo 3y ago
  > Uranium is actually pretty rare Where did you get that notion?
atombender 3y ago
> the opportunity cost of reusing the spent fuel is not a major issue Uranium mining is extremely destructive to the environment, not to mention using a lot of energy, so this isn't just opportunity cost, it's externality cost.
- trenchgun 3y ago
  Uranium mining is not necessarily more destructive to environment or energy intensive than any other mining. And in fact, a major part of uranium is in-situ leaching, which is less enviromentally damaging than most other mining.
- orwin 3y ago
  Sources on that? I thought uranium mining was mostly leaching (which is very, very, very energy efficient, and non-destructive if you take care of the used solution) with open mining on the decline.
  - DennisP 3y ago
    Yep, 57% of the world's uranium mining is in-situ leaching, which is basically two pipes in the ground. One pumps water down, the other brings uranium-rich water back up, into a building where the uranium is filtered out. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/in-situ-leach-mining-of-uranium.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
    - m4rtink 3y ago
      Um, its not water down, its sulphuric acid and similar kinds of fun. We are still working out how to get ridd of side effects of that here in Czech Republic decades anfter most such mining ended.
  - atombender 3y ago
    In-situ leaching contaminates aquifiers, and remediations have not been shown to be effective [1]. Meanwhile, this still leaves all of the mining which is not ISL. [1] https://www.nrdc.org/bio/nrdc/epa-tries-sign-away-authority-regulate-water-polluting-uranium-mining https://www.nrdc.org/bio/nrdc/epa-tries-sign-away-authority-...

tsimionescu 3y ago

Uranium is actually pretty rare - using fuel the way we have for now, we would pretty quickly exhaust all the known accessible uranium deposits - I believe I read the estimate is something like 50 years? The story changes significantly if we start using breeder reactors and other designs.

Mrdarknezz 3y ago
With breeder reactors we have enough uranium to last us until the sun goes out https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html
peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> Uranium is actually pretty rare > estimate is something like 50 years those are pretty pessimistic estimates. From a 2009 article on Scientific America According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today's consumption rate in total the extraction of uranium from seawater would make available 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium—a 60,000-year supply at present rates fuel-recycling fast-breeder reactors, which generate more fuel than they consume, would use less than 1 percent of the uranium needed for current LWRs. Breeder reactors could match today's nuclear output for 30,000 years using only the NEA-estimated supplies.
- Mutjake 3y ago
  Yeah, and to my understanding we're not specifically looking for it as the uranium isn't really that expensive at the moment. The largest plant in Finland needs 128 tons of uranium for the fuel to be fully loaded which on a quick calculation is $57 per pound * 2.2 pounds per kilo * 128000 kilos = around $16M and based on a quick search it lasts from three to five years. Since the fuel is cooled in water ponds for decades before it is processed, even in the case of a nuclear industry boom there's ample lead time to alter the plans if running out of materials seems to become an issue. I'd be much more worried about usage of oil as it is the base material for a lot of different things like medicines, and we're burning the stuff away (granted, we can do synthetic hydrocarbons, but the whole thing with oil is a bigger problem in my books than running out of uranium; it's still there to be retrieved if it really comes down to it).
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    Also, stuff that we need at scale to keep things running, but are somewhat harder to source like sulphur... Which is used for agriculture.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered If it's "undiscovered", presumably that 0.5 metric tons amounts to spurious precision. Call it ten million, and it becomes clear that it's a wild guesstimate. Also: the location of these Uranium deposits is not evenly distributed. I understand that substantially all of France's Uranium, for example, comes from Niger, a politically-unstable country where much of the mining is controlled by the Wagner Group.
pjc50 3y ago
If we turn out to need the uranium, we know where it is: in the special spent fuel storage facility. It's just very contaminated with radioactive elements that aren't uranium and have shorter, more dangerous half-lives.
- LordShredda 3y ago
  Isn't shorter half lives better? That means radioactivity reduces faster
  - theelous3 3y ago
    Faster can still be a very long time, relative to the kind of time we typically operate projects on, and also means that the decaying material is more radioactive in terms of exposure risk.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    Each decay event is when radiation is emitted. So: very short half-life is good, because the element turns into something else very quickly and ceases to be a problem. This is the nanoseconds-to-days range. Very long half-life: not actually all that radioactive. e.g. U238 itself with a half-life in the billions of years. Medium half-life: emits a dangerously high level of radiation in the process of decaying. This is the real problem stuff as "medium" can mean "centuries".
    - roenxi 3y ago
      If it can generate enough energy to be dangerous then it probably has an economic use if enough of it can be gathered in one place Like the sun - as I recall per-m3 it isn't all that energetic but there is enough sun that it provided the energy for ~99% of all life on earth. Lots of not-quite-enough energy is enough energy. That is part of why this "no human should set foot for 100,000 years" is silly. We only have recorded history going back a few thousand years, and all of civilisation was invented in that time. If humans are exist in 100,000 years we'll be using that century-long half life material for something important.
credit_guy 3y ago
> quickly exhaust all the known accessible uranium deposits The key thing here is "known". In order to "know" of the economic viability of a mining source you need to invest serious money. Mining companies have serious money, and they invest them to "prove" new reserves, because that's how they can get loans from banks. But once the reserves exceed whatever demand there is in the world for more than a hundred years, there's absolutely no incentive to keep exploring further. That's where we are now: there are about 8 million tons of proven uranium reserves [1]. The annual production fluctuates very slightly around 50,000 tons [2]. At the current production levels we have more than 150 years of proven reserves. But if we were to suddenly double the number of reactors, we would very quickly double the proven reserves. If we were to multiply 100-fold the number of reactors, we'd multiply the proven reserves by 100, or more likely more than that. In the end there is absolutely no limit. The current market price of uranium is about $130 per kg. It is estimated that it can economically be extracted from seawater for $1000/kg, so less than a factor of 10. Such a cost would not increase the cost of electricity by even one cent per kWh ( see the math in the notes). As for breeder reactors or other designs. The current generation reactors produce about 40 to 60 GWday of energy from 1 ton of uranium fuel (which is generally enriched to close to 5% U-235). New designs will increase this number (called burnup) to 100 [3] and some even to 180, but generally not because they are more efficient, just because they'll use fuel enriched to up to 20% U-235. There are 2 designs that will exceed that, but they are supposed to burn thorium rather than uranium. We have easily 100 times less experience with thorium than uranium, so I wouldn't hold my breath that it's a piece of cake to achieve higher burnup with it. In theory we could, but practice finds ways to disagree with theory. Notes: the math of 1 cent per kWh: you need about 10 tons of natural uranium to produce one ton of fuel-grade uranium, and with that you get about 50 GWd, or 50 x 24 = 1200 GWh = 1.2 billion kWh of electricity. 10,000 kg at $1000/kg is $10 MM for 1.2 billion kWh, or 0.83 cents/kWh. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_r... [2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figures/uranium-production-figures.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figu... [3] https://aris.iaea.org/sites/burnup.html https://aris.iaea.org/sites/burnup.html
titzer 3y ago
> exhaust all the known accessible uranium deposits Uranium is everywhere. While there are mines that have extremely high concentrations of Uranium, it is present in trace amounts in almost everything from granite to sand to soil to groundwater. There are 4 billion tons of Uranium dissolved in the oceans. A number of projects have looked at filtering and extracting it from the oceans. It's relatively expensive to extract it from seawater, but not insane--4x-10x the cost of mining. We won't run out. https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/oceans/articles/2018/06/28/the-nuclear-option-technology-to-extract-uranium-from-the-sea-advances# https://deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org/oceans/articles/2018/0... > I believe I read the estimate is something like 50 years? It's more like 200 years. And that's "economically accessible", not accessible. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glo...
ekianjo 3y ago
> Uranium is actually pretty rare Where did you get that notion?

atombender 3y ago

> the opportunity cost of reusing the spent fuel is not a major issue Uranium mining is extremely destructive to the environment, not to mention using a lot of energy, so this isn't just opportunity cost, it's externality cost.

trenchgun 3y ago
Uranium mining is not necessarily more destructive to environment or energy intensive than any other mining. And in fact, a major part of uranium is in-situ leaching, which is less enviromentally damaging than most other mining.
orwin 3y ago
Sources on that? I thought uranium mining was mostly leaching (which is very, very, very energy efficient, and non-destructive if you take care of the used solution) with open mining on the decline.
- DennisP 3y ago
  Yep, 57% of the world's uranium mining is in-situ leaching, which is basically two pipes in the ground. One pumps water down, the other brings uranium-rich water back up, into a building where the uranium is filtered out. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/in-situ-leach-mining-of-uranium.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
  - m4rtink 3y ago
    Um, its not water down, its sulphuric acid and similar kinds of fun. We are still working out how to get ridd of side effects of that here in Czech Republic decades anfter most such mining ended.
- atombender 3y ago
  In-situ leaching contaminates aquifiers, and remediations have not been shown to be effective [1]. Meanwhile, this still leaves all of the mining which is not ISL. [1] https://www.nrdc.org/bio/nrdc/epa-tries-sign-away-authority-regulate-water-polluting-uranium-mining https://www.nrdc.org/bio/nrdc/epa-tries-sign-away-authority-...