I explained this in the first comment to which you responded [1]. Hydroelectricity is by far the most effective source of energy generation, although it has the distinct disadvantage of being geographically limited. Nuclear power is the most effective dispatchable source after that. Every country that has decarbonized their electricity grid has done so primary through a combination of hydroelectricity and nuclear power. No developed country has deployed a majority wind and solar grid, ever.
Mined, from the earth. Unlike lithium [1] uranium prices are not experiencing cost overruns. And unlike grid storage, nuclear power already makes up 10% of the world's electricity generation. We only need an 8x increase (another 10% of electricity already comes from hydro) instead of a 1000x increase like we do with grid storage. The thing about nuclear energy is that there's so much energy contained in uranium that more exotic forms of extraction like seawater absorption [2] is feasible. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of lithium. Some estimates predict that lithium reserves may be exhausted by EV production alone [3]. The volume of lithium required for batteries is considerably greater than the amount of uranium needed for fission, which makes seawater extraction non-viable.
> Unlike lithium [1] uranium prices are not experience cost overruns
The 2007 Uranium bubble called. They would like to sell you some lithium futures for delivery on 2028 at costs based on an exponential fit.
> And unlike lithium, nuclear power already makes up 10% of the world's electricity generation. We only need an 8x increase (another 10% of electricity already comes from hydro) instead of a 1000x increase like we do with grid storage.
So after adding the first load for these reactors using hope, then operating them for 15 years, what do we do about the other 12TW of energy? What about the heavy casting facilities needed for thousands of reactor vessels? All the other critical minerals such as around half of the world's chromium production, vast quantities of precious metals and 100s of billions of litres a year of sulfuric acid production to process all the incredibly low grade uranium ore?
> The thing about nuclear energy is that there's so much energy contained in uranium that more exotic forms of extraction like seawater absorption [2] is feasible
I thought things that hadn't been done were completely impossible? Or do we get to acknowledge the TWh scale sodium ion supply chains and 100GW per year electrolyser supply chains that are being built right now as being vastly more realistic?
In any event, either this is a complete fantasy or the Vanadium that you necessarily get in much larger quantities even when using a sorbent that is as selective as possible for Uranium will provide half an hour to two hours of storage for capacity exceeding that of the nuclear reactor every time you refuel it. So at least filling the ocean with broken polymer ribbons will have a minor long term benefit.
> The 2007 Uranium bubble called. They would like to sell you some lithium futures for delivery on 2028.
Was this due to a sudden increase in reactor construction? There was no spike in nuclear power plant operation in 2007. Speculative bubbles are different from actual commodity shortages.
> So after adding the first load for these reactors using hope, then operating them for 15 years, what do we do about the other 12TW of energy?
By "the other 12 TW of energy" you mean other sources of primary energy? The good thing about nuclear power is that it produces thermal energy. This enables things like thermochemical hydrogen splitting which is more suitable to production of hydrogen for transportation fuel and green smelting. The waste heat from nuclear plants can be scavenged for heating and desalination. This is a distinct advantage over wind and solar that do not directly produce thermal energy and have to be converted from electricity to thermal energy.
> What about the heavy casting facilities needed for thousands of reactor vessels?
What about them? The amount of steel needed for reactor vessels is a drop in the bucket of the overall steel market.
> All the other critical minerals such as around half of the world's chromium production, vast quantities of precious metals and 100s of billions of litres a year of sulfuric acid production to process all the incredibly low grade uranium ore?
Again, what about them? Chromium is widely used for stainless steel. Sulfuric acid is widely used for plenty of things like fertilizer production, hydrocarbon refining, and car batteries. An 8x increase in nuclear power wouldn't substantially affect the markets for these resources. Do you have a reason to think that nuclear power production will cause shortages in chromium or sulfuric acid? If so, let's see that analysis instead of just postulating it as fact.
> I thought things that hadn't been done were completely impossible? Or do we get to acknowledge the TWh scale sodium ion supply chains and 100GW per year electrolyser supply chains that are being built right now as being vastly more realistic?
Please read sources before commenting on them: uranium seawater extraction has been successfully performed - not at costs competitive with traditional mining, but as explained in the source the cost of raw uranium is negligible for nuclear power
> In any event, either this is a complete fantasy or the Vanadium that you necessarily get in much larger quantities even when using a sorbent that is as selective as possible for Uranium will provide half an hour to two hours of storage for capacity exceeding that of the nuclear reactor every time you refuel it. So at least filling the ocean will have a minor long term benefit.
This is not how seawater extraction works. The same mass of adsorbent won't collect larger quantities of other elements. The 6 grams of uranium collected per kilogram of adsorbent doesn't turn into a 6 kilograms of material per Kg of adsorbent for a material that's 1000x as concentrated in the ocean. It will fill up faster for a more concentrated element, but you're still retrieving similar amounts of material for the same amount of adsorbent. You have to make 1000x as many trips to collect 1000x as much material, regardless of concentration.
The cost of this extraction is entirely comprised of deploying and retrieving the adsorbent material - letting a buoy sit in the ocean for 2 months instead of 1 week costs nothing. This is why seawater extraction is prohibitively expensive for most applications, uranium's incredible energy density is what makes it a viable application.