Comment by jandrese 4 hours ago
Fundamentally the problem is that Uranium is so damn energy dense and abundant enough that there's little need to set up these complicated recycling systems. If we start to run out of Uranium then this technology starts to look appealing, but in the modern day it just doesn't make economic sense.
> Uranium can be stockpiled for years in advance, relatively easily
So can oil. Energy security is an important priority for a global power.
Stockpiles are good. Own supply chains are better.
Uranium is far, far energy denser than any fossil fuel, and thus much easier to stockpile.
> Uranium is far, far energy denser than any fossil fuel, and thus much easier to stockpile
Sure. That doesn't remove stockpiles' inherent disadvantages: finiteness and vulnerability. Relying on uranium stockpiles would immediately put China at a known limit in a war of attrition that wouldn't constrain their adversaries.
> they can bring it in by rail from Russia
Uranium is better for Chinese energy security than oil. But this still leaves China at Moscow's mercy. That's not too differet, energywise, than the situation is now.
There's not that much Uranium actually that's economically sensible to extract. The NEA says in their 2024 report on Uranium [1]:
> Considering both the low and high nuclear capacity scenarios to 2050 presented in this edition, and assuming their 2050 capacity is maintained for the rest of the century, the quantities of uranium required by the global fleet – based on the current once-through fuel cycle – would likely surpass the currently identified uranium resource base in the highest cost category before the 2110s.
Their "high" scenario assumes having a bit more than double of today's capacity by 2050; today we have about 4-5% supply from nuclear energy worldwide.
[1] https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_103179/uranium-2024-resourc...
Out of curioosity, do they forecast at what point it becomes cheaper to breed than mine?
Sorry, but there are quite a few things you are missing. Nuclear engineering is well, nuclear engineering. The first big difference is that you can use the Thorium in a liquid fueled reactor instead of a solid fueled one. This allows you to burn far more of the fuel. For example, 2-4% of a solid fuel rod would fission, while in a liquid fueled reactor you can get to 90+%. This is good economically for 2 reasons: 1) more energy per unit of fuel and 2) the waste lasts far less time.
There are also other advantages of a liquid fueled reactor. The big one is that it is far easier to run because it self regulates. When a liquid heats up it expands (slowing the reaction) and when it cools it contracts (speeding up the reaction). So its safer to run, makes less waste and gets 20+X more power per unit of fuel.
There is one final thing to know about this stuff. A nuclear reactor is several billion in infrastructure supporting reactors that cost 10s of millions using a fuel load that costs less than your car. The way we scale and handle nuclear reactors just makes no sense economically. Each NPP is custom and they are built so rarely that everything has to be custom made. When you start building stock reactor designs with consistent supply chains, the cost goes way down. And most of the cost is lawsuits, lobbyists and PR. For developed countries, using or not using nuclear power is a political choice. One that we have been making badly. When you realize that the only real choices for baseload are FF and nuclear, the real political situation makes sense. Once again, the cause is just the excuse, not the real issue.
> Nuclear engineering is well, nuclear engineering.
Not sure I get what you are trying to say. Are you saying that you are a nuclear engineer and I am not? Because, frankly, the rest of your comment does not read as one written by a nuclear engineer.
> we still don't know where to store the trash
We really do. Nuclear waste is less toxic than plenty of trash we just bury. And calling it "waste" is a bit reductive, given it almost certainly becomes valuable to reprocess within another century or two.
No, you really do not.
Long term storage is still up in the air in the US. Yucca mountain was the plan but didn't happen
Correct me if I'm with m wrong
That's a political problem, not a technical one.
We also know that we could re-cycle nuclear waste with other nuclear plant designs, but the US chooses not to.
> Uranium is so damn energy dense and abundant enough that there's little need to set up these complicated recycling systems
Uranium is abundant, but not homogenously so [1]. (China has some. But not a lot. And it's bound up expensively. And it's by their population centres.)
For the Americas, Europe, Australia, southern Africa and Eastern Mediterranean, burning uranium makes sense. For China, it trades the Strait of Malacca for dependence on Russia and Central Asia.
[1] https://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/Pub1800.pdf