Uranium resources and mining
Uranium is a relatively common metal. The quantity that is readily available for human use is far larger than the quantity that would be required to fuel a vastly larger base of nuclear reactors than the one that is in operation today. The Uranium Information Center has published an excellent briefing paper titled Supply of Uranium that was last updated in June 2006.
That information paper directly contradicts the adamant antinuclear activists who try to make the case that the world’s supply of uranium is comparable to the world’s supply of fossil fuel. They are often trying to convince people that there is no use in expending significant resources in developing new nuclear power plants. According to their way of thinking, nuclear fission power is simply replacing one non renewable resource for another.
The reality is that there is a huge difference in potential energy available. Uranium prospecting has only just begun; there is a vast quantity of already mined uranium that is currently considered to be a waste product and there is an even larger potential resource base in the world’s supply of thorium.
Shane and I talk about these topics and others during Atomic Show #031.
During the show we made a couple of comments that deserve additional attention.
1. The chemicals most frequently used for In Situ Leaching (ISL) in the US are oxygen and carbon dioxide. That’s right, the acidic chemical that Shane mentioned during the show is essentially soda water with a pH of about 6.8-7.5.
2. Approximately 85% of the uranium mined in the US uses the ISL process.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:00 — 15.5MB)
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I’m getting network errors trying to access the mp3. Anyone else having problems?
Daniel:
Thanks for the heads up. I goofed up the file name and added an extra 0 in the link. I should work now.
Rod
works now thanks Rod
Hi Shane
What’s 32,000 tons of Uranium in cubic meters? For that matter whats 1 ton in cubic meters?
Hi Daniel,
If we’re talking straight metal, U has a density of 19,050 kilograms per cubic meter (19 times denser than fresh water at 1000 kg/m^3). So, if we run the numbers:
32,000 tons U = 32,000,000 kg U;
32,000,000 kg / 19,050 kg/m^3 = 1680 cubic meters; let’s express that as a cube;
cbrt(1680 m^3) = 11.9 meters on a side; how about as a sphere;
(4/3) pi r^3 = 1680 m^3; solve for r -> radius of 7.37 meters, or a diameter of 14.75 meters.
Finally, 1 ton of uranium occupies v = 1,000 kg / 19,050 kg/m^3 = 0.052 cubic meters or 1.85 cubic feet.
Uranium is seriously dense! Though it doesn’t hold the record for normal solid-state density in the periodic table (it’s a toss up between iridium and osmium at 23,000 kg/m^3).
I wonder on how many other blogs there are comments with engineering unit conversions going on? 🙂 Thanks for letting me dust off my brain!
Daniel,
As a sanity check, I went and looked up Cohen’s paper; it’s 32,000 tons U per year that rivers bring into the ocean, not per day. Also, the U content of seawater is given as 3 ppb, which is 3 milligrams per 1000 kilograms (or 1 billion milligrams). Here’s the reference:
http://www.sustainablenuclear.org/PADs/pad8301cohen.html
The salient point is still there; 5 billion years of U supply with no more than 1% increase in price over that time. Now there’s an inflation rate I can live with!