Peak Uranium

That ignores breeding, which can extend the uranium fuel supply by a factor of about five.

But the better solution is to use thorium. Thorium fuel cycles are very difficult to weaponize, and there are thousands of years' worth of accessible thorium.

 

There is no one cure-all, we need to use a variety of power sources as we go into what some people call "peak-everything". Partly because of peaking petroleum, which will automatically affect a lot of other things, regardless of their supply; and partly because many things aren't that far from their own peak production anyway, like rare-earth elements used in many batteries. Obviously petroleum is used to power many things, including excavation equipment (although a good deal of that is actually electric in the mining industry), transportation including trains/ships, and the miscellany support stuff.

So expect everything to get more expensive. Oil actually isn't looking as bad (to me) as it used to, since we're finding more supplies, albeit expensive ones like the ultra-deep finds off the coast of Brazil or tar sands in Venezuela. We'll never run out, but it will get a lot more expensive in the next decade in particular and we probably won't ever produce more than we are now.

People have talked about a lithium shortage if electric cars take off, and Bolivia and China have the largest sources of that, although it turns out the U.S. has a fair bit not in production...so if the price is right...
Zinc-air batteries would be cool if they could be cost-effective - 3x the energy density of lithium, recyclable, and we have plenty of supply here in the U.S. It could also be used in the large scale for power-line storage (think wind and solar). We should be putting defense dollars into that type of research, IMO, as that could be much more cost-effective than invading other oil-rich countries to try to keep our oil supplies stable. Or in funding this on-again, off-again research into the elusive "clean-coal" technology.

 

The nice thing about the metals is that they can be recycled over and over again, unlike plastics. Lead, for example, is heavily recycled. This sort of thing will only become more prevalent as metals become more expensive. It's not going into a landfill if it's worth something. So I'm not too worried about the metals.As the human population peaks and then declines (as people get more affluent or we trash the planet) a lot of the pressure will abate (also as we get more efficient and conserve more). Oil will be interesting. We're finding more, but as the large, landbased fields peak and decline, I don't see how the production rates will keep pace. None of the fields that have been discovered recently are really that big when you consider something like 300 million chinese achieving an american standard of living. Then 300 million indians. There's just no way global oil production will keep page with that... ever. Just ain't enough oil.

Anyone know why thorium isn't being used more extensively in reactors?

 

The important thing to note, is things really are not peaking at the same time. There may be shortages in investment if prices are kept artificially low for some scarce resource though.

Wind is getting a little more expensive with the costs of raw materials. Solar and biofuels are getting less expensive. As oil gets more expensive, more of the marginal fields become viable, but oil gets higher relative to other sources of energy. If BEV, PHEV, and biofuel vehicles are not available then people will be locked into this more expensive source.

Lithium is not a rare earth metal. There is plenty of it for widespread adoption of electrified vehicles (HV, PHEV, EV) and electronic devices. It is only mined at a certain rate though so price may increase.

The DOE through various programs is funding a great deal of research. There is no reason to militarize reusable energy or alternative fuel vehicles.

European style colonialism stated by the carter doctrine (war for oil), and Regan natural expansion (let's stop the iranian blockade to help sadam because our wahabi friends in saudi say he's better than the iranians even if he does use chemical weapons) do not produce more oil or make it cheaper for US citizens. We have experienced blow back from the proxy war in afghanistan against the russians and the afghan people, and the support of a vicious neighborhood war in iran/iraq. This came from following the ugly racist european example. It has nothing to do with legitimate us interests.

If you look at the world realistically, coal is not going away. China and India have a great deal of energy growth, and much of it will come from coal. Clean coal research is thus a strategic area for the use to invest in. It should not be done in the stupid clumsy way that it has been though.

its going to take a lot of coal and wind along with bev and phevs, oil isn't really an option with the billions of indians and chinese wanting cars.

In the US it is because the nuclear power plants were built a long time ago, then 3-mile island and Chernobyl happened. This was before thorium technology was developed. Loans have been guaranteed for a couple of new plants, but no one knows if they will actually be built. Uranium is not running out, so to my knowledge India is the only country seriously building commercial plants. The US, Canadian, German reactors were all experimental.

 

Expense. A very large infrastructure to mine, refine, seed, and optimize new plants vs. the performance of existing plants and technology has not come close to the tipping point yet. Naval Reactors took a very hard look at Thorium decades ago and came to the conclusion that Uranium stocks were sufficient for quite a few decades longer. Since there was no real performance difference, the money needed was not justifiable, even when the US was quite up about nuclear power.

Edit note-The discussion was recorded in the Congressional Record from Adm Rickover some time before 1980. I remember reading it, but finding it among the billions of pages of congressional bolviating would be beyond my ability now.

 

Peak uranium is a joke. As the uranium supply tightens reprocessing here or abroad will be come more economical. The price of uranium could go up by 4x and have little effect on the price of nuclear power, so as the price goes up, more supply can be found/created. A nuclear power plants primary cost is its huge up front price, and its secondary cost is labor/maintenance. Fuel is a very small cost for a nuclear power plant.

If the price of natural gas went up (from current levels) 4x, a gas fired power plant would be shut down because it would no longer be economical.

The price of uranium may rise, even by many times, but we are no where near running out.

 

I call dibs on the phrase 'peak air'. Hopefully it's hundreds of years too soon....

 

Quite true. It's the fastest growing energy source globally. However, even that will come under enormous pressure, esp if it has to take some of oil's burden. Case in point, in the 1970's the US had 600 years of coal reserves. After well over a decade during which we added 16GW of coal fired electricity production each year, we're now down to ~250 yrs. We have the largest coal reserves of any country by quite a lot and we're vaporizing it pretty quickly. China is doing the same (even more so, actually) to their reserves so we may see the rapid increase in the price of coal in the coming decades. If I recall, we were already starting to see it a few years back.

 

The title of this thread sounds like a mountain I don't want to climb: "Peak Uranium".

Tom

 

Coal reserve numbers have always been rubbery. They depend on the definition of gettable coal. The bigger numbers can include coal that for all practical purposes isn't gettable because it's too deep in thin seams or too low a quality to be worth mining or conditions aren't right for mining it.

I haven't had a lot of interest in coal since I worked in a coal mining related industry for a year close to 40 years ago, for all I know their guestimates are more honest now.

 

Part of the overestimate is consumption figure which is very hard to estimate. I would go with the figure 100+ years of coal assuming that world wide demand will lead to exports. The question is will mankind be able to transition to other sources of energy in that timeframe. If fusion power becomes viable this becomes no problem at all. For countries like the US, there is plenty of land to transition to wind, biofuels, and solar. For China and India population density might make this more difficult, so power sources like thorium nuclear plants may be the solution.

When you are in china, you can see the problem of the high sulfer coal power plants in the form of air polution. This is independant of Green house gasses or short supply. Using cleaner coal technology plants can be built with greater than 40% efficiency and removal of almost all of the particulates, SO2 and NOx emissions.

 

Where else would you find 'peak air'?

 

The changing numbers largely reflect the power of compound interest, if you will. Growing at 7%/per will result in double value after 10 years (or half in our case). That's the big reason the coal reserve numbers changed so much... we really ramped up our consumption.

Austingreen, don't forget Geothermal power. We don't need fusion to serve as baseload. Geothermal could to that today. It could easily meet 100% of our energy needs. Of course, that wouldn't be cheap, but quite attainable.

 

You must be thinking of Lignite. Anthracite is pretty darned hard.



Tom

 

India and certain Mideast oil countries are funding thorium development. They see the writing on the wall. If the US refuses to do so it'll have to buy the technology later.

 

The supply is irrelevant. As long as they make more money exporting oil than by burning it for electricity they'll do it.

 

I don't understand your comment. Which point do you doubt?

 

He's being sarcastic. Middle east countries are pumping up their renewable and nuclear power programs as they very well know that the oil isn't going to last forever. Most oil rich middle east countries get most of their electricity from oil.