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by DennisP 4353 days ago
That estimate for uranium assumes conventional reactors, which fission U-235. That's 0.7% of natural uranium.

For a real comparison, you should look at fast reactors, which use the rest of the uranium. That takes your estimate up to about a thousand years. But the estimate is looking at economically recoverable reserves, and if the same ore produces a hundred times as much energy, a lot more becomes economically recoverable.

Thorium would be 3-4 times more abundant than that. (But if seawater extraction works out, uranium will have the advantage again.)