[Mutjake]

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.

[atombender]

> 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.

[otikik]

I don't think we need to go over the externality cost presented by Coal, Gas or Petrol.

I'll assume that you are a proponent of Solar/Wind/Hydro. Which also have externalities, including human death, but let's ignore that.

But I am onboard with all of those. My problem is that I think solar, wind and hydro are not enough. We don't have a way to store energy in massive ways, so in order to account for cloudy days, non-windy days and nights, we need something else.

I see uranium filing that niche. If not uranium, what else? All the options I see mentioned are along the lines of "let's continue burning stuff, then, and keep adding solar/wind/hydro".

But that is what we are doing now already. And the temperature and CO2 concentration graphs keep going up. So, what is the alternative?

[Retric]

Reprocessing is more destructive to the environment. It looks clean to have stuff take place in large buildings but the externalities are significant.

[orwin]

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.

[mschuster91]

It's certainly very convenient that, sans Canada and Australia, all significant uranium mining countries are developing or virtually lawless (i.e. the government can do whatever the f..k it wants without needing to take care of nature) countries - and to be honest given how past Australian governments outright sharted on nature protection or Aboriginal activists in favor of mining conglomerates, I'd classify the country as lawless as well.

Nuclear fission based on uranium is a lot of things, but definitely not "clean" or "green" even on the raw material sourcing side like the pro-nuclear crowd keeps blathering.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...

[ekianjo]

> so this isn't just opportunity cost, it's externality cost.

Everything has externalities, even the "renewables" (which are not, by definition, because nothing is renewable) - if you want to have an adult conversation you need to talk in terms of pros and cons across multiple dimensions.

[Brusco_RF]

This is disinformation and you should delete it. I don't use that term lightly, Nuclear FUD is spread by Russia to keep the west dependent on their oil, and you're helping them whether you know it or not.

In reality, Uranium is mostly mined by leaching which is the least destructive form of mining. Not to mention the quantity actually mined is several orders of magnitude less than other things we mine in much more destructive fashions like Copper, nickel, zinc etc

[flangola7]

I don't know anything any mining. What makes it so destructive? Or more destructive than other mining?

[trenchgun]

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.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

You’re wrong.

Zoom right in on Olympic Dam on Google maps.

This is the largest known single deposit of uranium in the world.

Now zoom out. Keep zooming out. Now zoom out further. Australia is big.

Uranium mining causes approximately zero damage.

[titzer]

Compared to coal and natural gas, though?

[tsimionescu]

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.

[titzer]

> 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/2018/0...

> 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-glo...

[peoplefromibiza]

> 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.

[Mrdarknezz]

With breeder reactors we have enough uranium to last us until the sun goes out https://whatisnuclear.com/nuclear-sustainability.html

[pjc50]

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.

[credit_guy]

> 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_r...

[2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figu...

[3] https://aris.iaea.org/sites/burnup.html

[ekianjo]

> Uranium is actually pretty rare

Where did you get that notion?