Uranium Seawater Extraction Makes Nuclear Power Completely Renewable

Discussion in 'Science' started by Herkdriver, Jul 5, 2016.

  1. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Many countries, in particular Western Europe, are turning their backs on nuclear power and instead pursuing wind and solar as the energy of the future. I think it's a mistake and here's why. What was holding back the technology was the economic cost to extract the Uranium, and now new absorbents developed by a team of American scientists have reduced the cost of extracting Uranium from seawater by 3 to 4 times.

    http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/04/nearing-affordable-extraction-of.html

    https://www.ornl.gov/news/advances-extracting-uranium-seawater-announced-special-issue
     
  2. DarkDaimon

    DarkDaimon Well-Known Member

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    The problem really has not been access to fuel, put rather the fear of accidents, what to do with the radioactive waste and the possibility of a rouge nation using the technology to create nuclear weapons. Until those are addressed, all the Uranium in the galaxy isn't going to mainstream nuclear power.
     
  3. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    The U.S. saves $12 billion dollars each year for energy costs because of nuclear power.

    Converting Uranium to weapons grade takes advanced technology, the issue is not access to Uranium itself. There is nothing to stop any nation from possessing Uranium, it is the technology that converts it to weapons grade.

    Uranium is a non-renewable resource, the point of my article is that it needn't be.

    Enough Uranium in seawater exists to produce 6 times the world’s present electricity usage, and almost the world’s present total energy consumption.

    Uranium in the land erodes and makes it's way into rivers and streams and eventually the oceans. Therefore it is always renewing the oceans' supply of it. There's enough of it be producing energy for million of years. What has been missing is an economical way to extract the Uranium and right now it is a Global competition to do this with America leading the way.

    It would be a mistake to completely ignore this is a potential renewable and sustainable energy source. It is a mistake to resume there is no solution to dispose of thenuclear waste being generated.

    Also, no member of the public has ever been injured or killed in the entire 50-year history of commercial nuclear power in the U.S.

    Can we say that about coal?

    Coal is both an environmental pollutant and thousands have died extracting it from the Earth.

    Yet 1/3rd of U.S. electricity demands are from coal power.

    2/3rds of our electricity is generated from non-renewable fossil fuels.

    Uranium can be non-renewable! and it is a non-fossil fuel meaning it is low-carbon emission.

    Only the closed minded will ignore the potential of nuclear power as both a renewable and sustainable source of energy for America's future.
     
  4. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    False. The atomic industry are pathological liars.

    Chernobyl Death Toll: 985,000, Mostly from Cancer
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/new-bo...l-death-toll-985-000-mostly-from-cancer/20908

    NOTHING has more potential to devastate the human race than radiation short of a massive asteroid obliterating earth.

    Nuclear power also is astronomically expensive.
     
  5. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Chernobyl is in the U.S.?

    You need better reading skills.

    Also, no member of the public has ever been injured or killed in the entire 50-year history of commercial nuclear power in the U.S.

    Meanwhile let's talk about coal.

    Air pollution:

    Burning coal causes smog, soot, acid rain, global warming, and toxic air emissions. Wastes generated: Ash, sludge, toxic chemicals, and waste heat create more environmental problems. Whenever it is burned, gases are given off and particles of ash, called "fly ash," are released. The sulfur in coal combines with oxygen to form sulfur dioxide, which can be a major source of air pollution if emitted in large enough quantities.

    A typical (500 megawatt) coal plant burns 1.4 million tons of coal each year. As of 2012, there are 572 operational coal plants in the U.S.

    Coal plants are the nation's top source of carbon dioxide (CO2)

    or how about this....

    Coal generates 44% of our electricity, and is the single biggest air polluter in the U.S.

    Source: http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c01.html#.V3vpfk1f35o
     
  6. PARTIZAN1

    PARTIZAN1 Well-Known Member

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    Exactly it,s an issue of safety and waste disposal. It is also a question of finding a way to transform hazardous type of uranium go a safer firm or fusion.

    Speaking of safety the world needs to ban Russians from having nuclear power just look at what those idiots did to the countries of Ukraine and Belorus when the Russian Communist idiots controlled Chornobyl .
     
  7. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Tens of thousands of coal miners died at work through the 20th Century.

    The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates of over 29,000 cases of mesothelioma and 26,000 cases of Black Lung from 2000-2010.

    I notice that is conveniently ignored.

    Meanwhile...
    The U.S. government continues to aggressively fund coal-related projects despite all that is known about coal’s impacts on health, climate and the economy.

    The Department of Energy is currently seeking $648 million for “clean coal” projects in its 2009 budget request, “representing the largest budget request for coal RD&D in over 25 years.”

    all for a non-renewable and polluting energy source....

    The Earth has warmed what is approaching 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 5 decades, in no small part due to the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, coal, natural gas, and gasoline.to produce the near insatiable global demand for energy.

    There exists enough naturally occurring Uranium in the world's oceans to meet energy demands for thousands, if not million of years...and the process is done as low carbon emitters.
     
  8. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There have been more than 20 nuclear and radiation accidents involving fatalities.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll

    Nuclear Power Causes Cancer: What Industry Doesn’t Want You To Know

    Columbia University researchers showed that cancer cases within a 10 mile radius of the Three Mile Island plant soared 64% in the first five years after the 1979 meltdown. Following the federal government’s party line, they claimed that “stress” rather than radiation caused this increase. But the cat was out of the bag. Dr. Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina published a paper using the same data confirming the radiation-cancer link.

    Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA, Executive Director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, has authored 23 scientific articles since the mid-1990s documenting high local cancer rates near nukes. One study showed child cancer exceeded the national rate near 14 of 14 plants in the eastern U.S. Another showed that when U.S. nuclear plants closed, local infant deaths and child cancer cases plunged immediately after shutdown.

    Other publications by Mangano have shown rising levels of radioactive Strontium-90, emitted by reactors, in baby teeth of children living near reactors, which were closely linked with trends in childhood cancer rates.

    The young aren’t the only ones affected by reactor emissions. New evidence has examined adult rates of thyroid cancer, a disease especially sensitive to radiation. Thyroid is the fastest-rising cancer in the U.S., nearly tripling since 1980. This evidence proves that most U.S. counties with the highest thyroid cancer rates are within a 90-mile radius covering eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and southern New York. This area has 16 nuclear reactors (13 still in operation) at 7 plants, the densest concentration of reactors in the U.S.

    A November 2007 article on U.S. child leukemia deaths updated the 1990 National Cancer Institute study and showed local rates rose as nuclear plants aged — except near plants that shut down.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/nuclear-power-causes-canc_b_251057.html
     
  9. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nuclear Energy: Fatal Birth Defects Surge in the US Due to Radiation Exposure

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/fatal-birth-defects-surge-in-the-us-due-to-radiation-exposure/5417219

    400 % Spike in Rare Birth Defects Near Leaking Hanford Nuclear Site

    http://nsnbc.me/2014/04/24/400-spike-in-rare-birth-defects-near-leaking-hanford-nuclear-site/


    “Worrisome” spike in deadly birth defects around leaking U.S. nuclear site

    http://enenews.com/worrisome-spike-...s-fail-to-mention-its-nearby-most-contaminate

    The Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant accident in 1979 caused many health problems in the area, and there were also plant anomalies.

    http://www.nuclearreader.info/chapter7.html

    The nuclear power plant within sight of our home developed a crack in the containment chamber. The estimate to repair the crack was in excess of $2,000,000,000.00 and it was shutdown.
     
  10. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Coal Pollution Damages Human Health at Every Stage of Coal Life Cycle, Reports Physicians for Social Responsibility

    Viewed in this way, the totality of coal's impact on health becomes clear. Coal pollutants affect all major body organ systems and contribute to four of the five leading causes of mortality in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases.

    •Respiratory Effects: Air pollutants produced by coal combustion act on the respiratory system, contributing to serious health effects including asthma, lung disease and lung cancer, and adversely affect normal lung development in children.

    •Cardiovascular Effects: Pollutants produced by coal combustion lead to cardiovascular disease, such as arterial occlusion (artery blockages, leading to heart attacks) and infarct formation (tissue death due to oxygen deprivation, leading to permanent heart damage), as well as cardiac arrhythmias and congestive heart failure. Exposure to chronic air pollution over many years increases cardiovascular mortality.

    •Nervous System Effects: Studies show a correlation between coal-related air pollutants and stroke. Coal pollutants also act on the nervous system to cause loss of intellectual capacity, primarily through mercury. Researchers estimate that between 317,000 and 631,000 children are born in the U.S. each year with blood mercury levels high enough to reduce IQ scores and cause lifelong loss of intelligence.

    Source: http://www.psr.org/news-events/press-releases/coal-pollution-damages-human-health.html

    and...


    [​IMG]
     
  11. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Coal does not alter DNA and thus literally alter the human race. Coal does not cause birth defects.

    $648 million is NOTHING compared to the cost of just ONE nuclear power plant that cost BILLIONS of dollars each. They also are extremely costly to operate. Here, with the nuclear power plant having to be closed due to a crack that would cost over $2 billion to repair, everyone's electric bills were increased 50% to pay for the cost of building a new one. Yet even a 50% increase for 10 YEARS would not pay to build one, so that project was shut down too.

    Even if you don't care about birth defects and even if you don't care about cancer deaths, nuclear power is astronomically expensive to build and operate - and that does not consider the costs of what to with the most deadly wastes on earth they produce.
     
  12. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    How coal kills. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-coal-kills/

    Death and Disease from Power Plants http://www.catf.us/fossil/problems/power_plants/

    Emissions from more than 50 coal plants across Europe could have caused greater health impacts than a power station in Italy closed this week as part of a manslaughter investigation – according an analysis of 2010 EU-wide data. http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/20...plant-closed-part-manslaughter-investigation/


    The Enormous Social Cost of Cheap Coal http://www.citylab.com/weather/2015/09/the-enormous-social-cost-of-cheap-coal/405730/

    Reduction in life expectancy (particulates, sulfur dioxide, ozone, heavy metals, benzene, radionuclides, etc.)
    Respiratory hospital admissions (particulates, ozone, sulfur dioxide)
    Black lung from coal dust
    Congestive heart failure (particulates and carbon monoxide)
    Non-fatal cancer, osteroporosia, ataxia, renal dysfunction (benzene, radionuclides, heavy metals, etc.)
    Chronic bronchitis, asthma attacks, etc. (particulates, ozone)
    Loss of IQ from air and water pollution and nervous system damage (mercury)
    Degradation and soiling of buildings that can effect human health (sulfur dioxide, acid deposition, particulates)
    Global warming (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide)
    Ecosystem loss and degradation, with negative effects on health and quality of life.http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Health_effects_of_coal
     
  13. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Coal produces carcinogenic wastes...by definition a carcinogen is a mutagen...in other words it changes DNA

    If you're going to argue at least know something you're talking about.

    In many places, nuclear energy is competitive with fossil fuels as a means of electricity generation.
    Yes they are expensive to build but they are cheap to run.

    Given the almost limitless supply of naturally occurring Uranium in the World's oceans, theoretically a nuclear power plant build today can be producing electricity 10,000 years from now.

    You can't say that about burning fossil fuels to create electricity..as they are non-renewable in the strictest sense of the term.

    Plus the environmentally pollutants don't contribute to an already warming planet.

    At the current pace of a warming planet, many parts of it will be uninhabitable because of excessive heat by the year 2100. Burning fossil fuels is only exacerbating the trend.

    A person can be against nuclear power as the energy of the future, I'm fine with that, there are hazards, however to think America's current means of producing electricity, namely burning coal and other fossil fuels is without risks, well it's a form of ignorance.

    The future is not COAL, that much we know. Whether there's a place for nuclear power is debatable but the status quo of burning fossil fuels to power your lights, A/C and your computers is not sustainable.

    Something needs to change, and in my opinion, there's a place for nuclear power among the solutions.
     
  14. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A coal powered plant can not break down and render an entire region uninhabitable for 10,000 years. It can not cause radiation levels in the oceans to increase for 100,000 years.

    Here, when the nuclear power plant was still operating before they finally admitted it had a crack that would cost over $2 billion to repair - and at the water's edge for one of the primary seafood sources and breeding grounds for Gulf sealife - everyone was informed that if a warning siren went off of a nuclear accident, everyone was to immediately go in their houses and close all doors and windows.

    What was curious is that while there was a protocol for a nuclear meltdown warning, there was NO protocol for any "all clear" siren notice. So it was "go in your house and die there so we know to find all the bodies.

    Even with the nuclear plant permanently closed and a total lose now, it takes many employees to maintain it. Because radiation building up in the body permanently, no employee has more than a 2 year job. They claim this results in an acceptable increased cancer risk.

    The nuclear industry works off "acceptable risk" factors. If cancers and birth defects go up 50% or 400%, they simply claim you can't prove the nuclear power plant caused it and that the radiation levels in children's teeth and people's bodies are higher also is declared irrelevant. They lie.
     
  15. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You're being a junkie to the PR advertising of the nuclear industry does not create truth. IN FACT, you have totally ignored all I have posted because you don't care, you just think nuclear power is techy neato, when they are ancient primitive designs half a century old as similar to building a 100 foot tall and 1000 foot long diesel motor for a generation. They are massive 1950s submarine motors that continuously irradiate their cooling water and the released cooling steam, as the power plant itself increasingly becomes more radioactive as simple scientific fact. This then also magnifies thru the food chain.

    Some people are junkies to radiation. In the past, bottles of radioactive water were sold as health cures. Sadly for you they are no longer available for you to benefit from.
     
  16. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    You're being bombarded by radiation every day of your life.

    The Sun produces cosmic rays that are known to be mutagens. I suppose you've never heard of melanoma? or basal cell carcinoma? The leading cancer in America today is in fact skin cancer, attributable to the Sun's radioactive energy output.

    There is naturally occurring radon gas in many basement homes. Radon is radioactive.

    Radioactive particles are literally an everyday part of your life, indoors or outdoors. You just can't see them as humans can only see a small spectrum of energy wavelengths we refer to as visible light.

    The danger of radioactivity is only posed when exposure exceeds safe human limits. Otherwise, it is a naturally occurring event every man, woman and child on planet Earth is exposed to, every second they are alive...indoors or outdoors. It's referred to as background radiation.

    Burning fossil fuels also produces carcinogens, in the form of chemicals that can and have mutated human DNA...they cause cancer in other words.

    Do a search using "China pollution" as your terms. It's epidemic and in large part coal burning power plants are creating a literal soup of air pollution. Not from nuclear power, from burning fossil fuels.

    In addition to that burning fossil fuels adds millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which can and does trap reflected solar heat from the surface of Earth...thereby creating a greenhouse effect. This translates to warmer surface temperatures and indeed the Earth has warmed 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 5 decades. Burning fossil fuels therefore is a contributory factor in climate change.
     
  17. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    What is Uranium?

    Uranium is a naturally occurring element that can be found in low levels within all rock, soil, and water. Uranium is the 51st element in order of abundance in the Earth's crust.

    This is not a man-made element. A laboratory does not "create" Uranium...it exists naturally in rocks, soil and water. There is currently 4 billion tons of natural Uranium in the World's oceans. This is replenished by further erosion of soil which sends the Uranium into streams and rivers that eventually end up in the oceans.

    After natural Uranium is mined, how is then used as a fuel to generate electricity or in a nuclear bomb?

    Uranium-235, an isotope that makes up less than 1 percent of all natural uranium, this provides the fuel for nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs, while uranium-238, an isotope that makes up 99 percent of natural uranium, has no potential for nuclear fuel or weapons.

    The key to their separation is that atoms of uranium-235 weigh slightly less than atoms of uranium-238.
    The tiny quantity of uranium-235 that is present in every natural sample of uranium ore is what is used for nuclear energy and nuclear weapons...

    Uranium-235 is the only fissile radioactive isotope which is a primordial nuclide existing in nature in its present form since before the creation of Earth.

    It is not a man-made, laboratory creation "Frankenstein" element.

    U-235 is as natural as your granite counter-top, which by the way...is slightly radioactive.
     
  18. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    I don't create a thread to be the only poster, so my final words on the topic will be an article.

    Coal and gas are far more harmful than nuclear power
    Source: http://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-harmful-than-nuclear-power/

    Of course some will argue NASA is nothing but a political tool of the progressive. Climate change hawks looking for Democratic funding.

    While not perfect, NASA does represent, in many ways, our nation's best and brightest. it's mind boggling we have the technology to send a small machine that is now in orbit around Jupiter.

    Truly impressive.

    I don't think NASA is a Leftist organization, I tend to heed their advice.

    Here is the article's basic synopsis, and I quote...


    I didn't start this thread to "hawk" nuclear energy, I thought it was interesting that scientists are working on an economical way to extract a near limitless supply of Uranium from the World's oceans. That's pretty much all I was trying to communicate, and of course was met with what could be regarded as hostility.

    Indeed nuclear power has it's detractions and catastrophic failings, but plain as day...the status quo of burning fossil fuels is doing more harm to our environment to our fellow humans, than nuclear power.

    Nuclear power may not be THE answer, but it's vital that some type of ANSWER, is needed. The status quo of burning fossil fuels to meet energy demands is increasingly a dangerous trend to human existence, to our planet's well being.

    that is all..and these are my final words on the topic.
     

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