[mpweiher]

Mining exists and is cheap enough that there is no incentive to invest in something new, even if it might just as good. Particularly because "just as good" is rarely a good reason for changing and investing, it would have to be significantly better.

(Though I have no real opinion on whether seawater extraction really is just as good...somewhat dubios)

[defrost]

FWiW the latest in a long line of seawater extraction papers is (2020):

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ta/d0ta0...

https://sci-hub.ru/10.1039/D0TA07180C

which has the weasel phrases

     uranium production costs could be reduced to $80.70–86.25 per kg of uranium with this fiber, which is similar to the uranium spot price of $86.68 per kg of uranium

and

    suggests the possibility of economically producing nuclear fuel from the ocean.

Not to disrespect their work, many small scale lab tests confidently assert that costs could be reduced and might possibly be economic.

The fine print is that so far no pilot plants exist and no estimates on the capital plant costs for industrial scale extraction to achieve the possible unit throughput prices as yet exist.

This may yet happen.

There may also be a slip between paper and industrial plant at scale.

[mpweiher]

> This may yet happen.

Yeah. But probably not for a long time as Uranium from present sources is cheap (enough) and plentiful (enough) and if that should ever get more expensive we can start looking at the huge stockpiles of 95% unspent fuel that we call "nuclear waste". Burning that would (a) give us a lot of electricity and (b) reduce the radioactivity of whatever is left dramatically.

[stephenr]

To be clear: I'm not arguing for one or the other, I'm pointing out that one of the above statements doesn't align with the other.

If the other costs are equal (remember I said if) then extracting it from seawater would undoubtedly be easier overall simply because of abundance, and the non-destructive nature of collecting it would mean there's no issue with environmental challenges due to the destructive nature of mining.

[mpweiher]

Not really. If the costs are equal, then there is no point in investing in a new technology, new plants etc. that don't provide a competitive advantage.

What's the startup question again?

What about your new product is 10x better than the incumbent?

Not sure too many VCs have advised companies as follows: "Hey your new product is exactly as good as the incumbent, you have an absolute winner on your hands here. Where do we need to send the check?"

[stephenr]

> What about your new product is 10x better than the incumbent?

Well let's just ignore the idea that mining megacorps operate in any way like a startup does. At the top of the uranium mining food chain, even a 1% reduction in costs (or increase in extraction) would be add around $13M a year to their revenue, so fuck it lets play hypoethetical.

If someone came along and said "hey we have a startup that's exactly as profitable as YouTube, but there's essentially no risk of people protesting our business and using ad-blockers to deprive us of revenue" the VC vultures would be on that shit like a fat kid on cake.

As I said before: seawater is ubiquitous and for the purposes of human scale, essentially limitless everywhere, unlike mined uranium which to be cost effective, is only mined in certain areas where the return is higher.

[mpweiher]

1. Not lower cost, same cost. Maybe.

2. Who said anything about no risk?