Re: Global heating and stupid greens

[Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>]

Jim Muckerheide wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know if the Japanese work on extracting U from seawater is still
> active? and the current cost estimate of such recovery?  I thought it had been
> only about 10 times mined U prices back before the prices dropped.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
muckerheide@mediaone.net
========================

This is from:
http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/upusa.html#SEAWATER

Seawater

Presidential Committee recommends research on uranium recovery from seawater

In a report released on August 2, 1999, the The President's Committee of
Advisors on Science And Technology (PCAST) recommended that the U.S. consider
participating in international research on extracting uranium from seawater: 

 "One possibility for maintaining fission as a major option without
reprocessing is low-cost extraction of uranium from seawater. The uranium
concentration of sea water is low (approximately 3 ppb) but the quantity of
contained uranium is vast - some 4 billion tonnes (about 700 times more than
known terrestrial resources recoverable at a price of up to $130 per kg). If
half of this resource could ultimately be recovered, it could support for
6,500 years 3,000 GW of nuclear capacity (75 percent capacity factor) based on
next-generation reactors (e.g., high-temperature gas-cooled reactors) operated
on once-through fuel cycles. Research on a process being developed in Japan
suggests that it might be feasible to recover uranium from seawater at a cost
of $120 per lb of U3O8. (40)  Although this is more than 10 times the current
uranium price, it would contribute just 0.5¢ per kWh to the cost of
electricity for a next-generation reactor operated on a once-through fuel
cycle-equivalent to the fuel cost for an oil-fired power plant burning
$3-a-barrel oil." [emphasis added] 40 Nobukawa 1994: H. Nobukawa "Development
of a Floating Type System for Uranium Extraction from Sea Water Using Sea
Current and Wave Power," in Proceedings of the 4th International Offshore and
Polar Engineering Conference (Osaka, Japan: 10-15 April 1994), pp. 294-300. 

 Source: Powerful Partnerships: The Federal Role In International Cooperation
On Energy Innovation. A Report From The President's Committee Of Advisors On
Science And Technology Panel On International Cooperation In Energy Research,
Development, Demonstration, And Deployment. Washington, DC, June 1999, p. 5-26
- 5-27 (download full text , 1.3M PDF format)

[The PDF link is to:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/html/P2E.pdf
which reports the page does not exist. But the PCAST Report is available from
other sources (maybe a web search).]
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