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Yeah, there's enough uranium that we don't need to worry about what comes after uranium. And no, this isn't like saying "the oil will last forever!" There really is enough uranium that it's almost inconceivable that we'd still be using nuclear reactors as they exist now by the time extraction becomes an issue. Even if we somehow magically went hard into nuclear power, it's difficult to imagine that we wouldn't still be like 80-90% renewable in a few hundred years.
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Oct 15, 2019 16:59
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Marxalot posted:Catching a few parts per billion worth of uranium would be extremely hard. It's a lot more realistic to say that we'd be pulling in fissile material from space by the time it gets sparse enough in easily accessible parts of the crust to make that viable.
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Oct 15, 2019 17:00
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Tab8715 posted:Does that indicate the world has a limitless supply of uranium for nuclear reactors? A current breeder reactor takes 70% of the energy out of uranium, a current non-breeder reactor takes like 0.8% We don't use breeder reactors because of cold war agreements because a breeder reactor involves enriching uranium and does not make weapons grade uranium but is a major step towards making it. But it's not any sort of sci-fi technology or anything, it's a thing we had in the 1950s and stopped using and a thing that is part of all sorts of nuclear programs now instead of a hypothetical future thing like a lot of energy stuff. But it's another major reason stuff is hesitant about solutions that seal away 'spent' fuel in hard to retrieve ways. It's pretty open that everyone knows we are going to want to retrieve it at some point.
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Oct 15, 2019 17:00
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Tab8715 posted:Does that indicate the world has a limitless supply of uranium for nuclear reactors? Yes. http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/references/docs/pad11983cohen.pdf Marxalot posted:Catching a few parts per billion worth of uranium would be extremely hard. It's a lot more realistic to say that we'd be pulling in fissile material from space by the time it gets sparse enough in easily accessible parts of the crust to make that viable. It's not extremely hard at all. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1385894719316304 quote:Hell, it's more realistic to say fusion will be everyone's favorite power generation method by then (ITER is supposed to go online soonish, and they have practically no budget) Nah, adsorbtion of uranium from seawater is a thing that actually happens. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Oct 15, 2019 |
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Oct 15, 2019 17:01
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Rent-A-Cop posted:It's functionally limitless even without reprocessing. Uranium makes up something like 2% of the Earth's crust. This is way overestimating the abundance of uranium (a site I found estimated it at 0.0004%), but it is true that the abundance of uranium isn’t really a barrier to nuclear electricity. Almost all of claims regarding elemental resource scarcity end up being wrong. Often the scale of the usage and the current availability is misreported or not really understood by the author. When this isn’t the case, almost always happens is that we get smarter and more efficient about how we use the scarce resource, find a replacement, and/or get smarter and/or more efficient at its extraction. There is something provocative about claims of elemental scarcity that really captures the attention of the reptilian portion of the human brain. This is why there have been thousands of bogus news articles written about element scarcity. This kind of narrative is also the same reason why we have the Book of Revelation in the Bible, and why this sub forum is loaded with posters who frankly get a perverse thrill out of posting about economic collapse and climate change.
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Oct 15, 2019 17:05
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Marxalot posted:Catching a few parts per billion worth of uranium would be extremely hard. It's a lot more realistic to say that we'd be pulling in fissile material from space by the time it gets sparse enough in easily accessible parts of the crust to make that viable. Seawater extraction of Uranium is not that difficult, just more costly than pulling it out of the ground. https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4514 I don't think we will ever be bringing fuel down from space when we could just use it in space. 
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Oct 15, 2019 17:10
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Seawater extraction of Uranium is not that difficult, just more costly than pulling it out of the ground. https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4514 I image if we had a whole space industrial base going and Automated Asteroid Mining Shiop #4938 is extracting thousands of tons of uranium a month it would be minor to toss a bit of that down to earth if it means earth can follow through with shutting down its last few mines and complete it's de-industrialization process.
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Oct 15, 2019 17:14
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Asteroid mining is just "God will provide" for futurists. It's totally nonsense.
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Oct 15, 2019 17:16
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Asteroid mining is just "God will provide" for futurists. It's totally nonsense. I don't agree with that, bt at the same time it is not a solution to any current problem. We won't be "mining" anything for at least 50-100 years.
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Oct 15, 2019 17:21
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GABA ghoul posted:At least in Germany, there had been a lot of pro-nuclear advocacy. At one point I remember that our entire school was assembled and had to listen to a long presentation on the safety and bright future of nuclear energy by charismatic engineers, scientists and PR people. Everyone got handed an expensive professionally created information folder to take home(supposedly to reach the parents). This is the only time I remember an assembly like this happening at our school( except for graduations etc.) It's amazing how a total gently caress-up like Fukushima can taint an entire industry. Oh wait, it isn't.
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Oct 15, 2019 18:32
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:I don't agree with that, bt at the same time it is not a solution to any current problem. We won't be "mining" anything for at least 50-100 years. Yeah, it's not some solution to climate change or anything we'll be going after for a long time. First we need to survive climate change, find a new sustainable economic and social order for the earth, and then once that's settled maybe think about eating some space rocks.
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Oct 15, 2019 19:23
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Baronjutter posted:I image if we had a whole space industrial base going and Automated Asteroid Mining Shiop #4938 is extracting thousands of tons of uranium a month it would be minor to toss a bit of that down to earth if it means earth can follow through with shutting down its last few mines and complete it's de-industrialization process. Why any one would want the "de-industrialization process"?
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Oct 15, 2019 19:41
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Asteroid mining is just "God will provide" for futurists. It's totally nonsense. Most of our uranium is locked beneath the crust and if we're talking about "what will come after nuclear fission if fusion doesn't happen??" then we're already dealing with a several hundred year timeline. It's reasonable within that kind of timespan and easily doable within known physics. Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Seawater extraction of Uranium is not that difficult, just more costly than pulling it out of the ground. https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4514 Yeah the thing I found about seawater extraction before I posted earlier was a very labor intensive sounding thing that involved a couple grams of captured uranium oxides in about a kilogram of absorbent material strung along the seafloor. Much easier to just get the stuff out of the ground tbh. Otherwise yeah there isn't a lot of sense in bringing down most resources from space unless we're discussing something that's fairly rare in the crust or something about the extraction/refining process tends to damage the hell out of the environment. Dropping refined uranium down on a theoretical non-fusion-capable human society 200 years from now -seems- like it could fit that standard. Marxalot fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Oct 15, 2019 |
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Oct 15, 2019 19:46
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Phanatic posted:Yes. PNNL is actually looking at updating the 1970s work that a Japanese research group did. It's pretty neat.
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Oct 15, 2019 20:49
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nepetaMisekiryoiki posted:Why any one would want the "de-industrialization process"? So there's no pollution on earth? Seems like something the climate and environment would enjoy.
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Oct 16, 2019 15:10
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Deindustrialzation will kill several billion people. Whatever the way forward is, it ain't that.
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Oct 16, 2019 23:53
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Dameius posted:Deindustrialzation will kill several billion people. Whatever the way forward is, it ain't that.
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Oct 17, 2019 01:09
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Dameius posted:Deindustrialzation will kill several billion people. Whatever the way forward is, it ain't that. I think we're using the term differently. I'm not using it in the anarcho-primitivist sense of regressing to a pre-industrial society. I just mean relocating most of our mining and heavy industry to space while earth can just enjoy the fruits of fully automated luxury space communism. The population could double with people living in platinum-clad hive cities fed by asteroid mining and orbiting solar arrays while our ecological footprint shrinks to a fraction of what is was. Just pure far-future utopian fantasies that keep me going in this hell world. I have to tell my self that'll still be a possibility for our species one day if we can survive capitalism and climate change. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Oct 17, 2019 |
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Oct 17, 2019 01:11
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Curious, If somehow we “reset” the planet or never ruined it liked we have and only used renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, nuclear, etc. are there any theories on what that modern society would have looked like?
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Oct 17, 2019 01:18
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Baronjutter posted:I think we're using the term differently. I'm not using it in the anarcho-primitivist sense of regressing to a pre-industrial society. I just mean relocating most of our mining and heavy industry to space while earth can just enjoy the fruits of fully automated luxury space communism. The population could double with people living in platinum-clad hive cities fed by asteroid mining and orbiting solar arrays while our ecological footprint shrinks to a fraction of what is was. Just pure far-future utopian fantasies that keep me going in this hell world. I have to tell my self that'll still be a possibility for our species one day if we can survive capitalism and climate change. I too like fantasy stories. Look, this ain't happening either unless people embrace nuclear propulsion.
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Oct 17, 2019 01:25
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Project Orion was good. But we really shouldn't be eyeing space at the moment until we sort out our climate. The tech-bro fantasy of just colonizing mars or something instead of dealing with climate change ain't happening. I'm 100% for strapping Bezos and Musk to a rocket to mars though.
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Oct 17, 2019 01:39
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Baronjutter posted:But we really shouldn't be eyeing space at the moment until we sort out our climate. It's not like the human race needs to or even could collectively decide all the problems then rank them and do them in some order. There isn't any specific way space research steals money from climate research in any way more than any dollar spent on literally anything does. Plus, it's an especially weird objection since almost all climate science has heavily involved space flight and almost everything we know about the climate has involved satellites.
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Oct 17, 2019 01:58
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Baronjutter posted:Project Orion was good. NERVA is where its at.
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Oct 17, 2019 02:11
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CommieGIR posted:NERVA is where its at. Not for in atmosphere. Same for Orion. They both leave devastation in their wake. Once out of Earth's orbit go hog wild with both. Orion is essentially a doomsday mega weapon. NERVA is just a WMD of horrific scale.
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Oct 17, 2019 02:16
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Not for in atmosphere. Same for Orion. They both leave devastation in their wake. Once out of Earth's orbit go hog wild with both. I thought the problem with NERVA in atmosphere was insufficient thrust to weight ratio, not radioactive exhaust? The exhaust is supposed to be nuclear heated hydrogen.
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Oct 17, 2019 02:27
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Not for in atmosphere. Same for Orion. They both leave devastation in their wake. Once out of Earth's orbit go hog wild with both. Well, yeah, NERVA really wouldn't provide suitable thrust in atmosphere. Its always for vacuum. Normal chemical rockets for atmospheric. Nobody would honestly suggest using NERVA in atmosphere. Smiling Demon posted:I thought the problem with NERVA in atmosphere was insufficient thrust to weight ratio, not radioactive exhaust? The exhaust is supposed to be nuclear heated hydrogen. Yeah, its not its purpose at all. Its supposed to be carried to orbit then used. They planned to use NERVA for inter-planet shuttles and stuff because its loving efficient and has decent thrust in vacuum.
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Oct 17, 2019 02:32
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Harik posted:The de-industralization futurists talk about is moving the poo poo into space and turning the planet into a nature preserve. Like, 500+ years out, only fit for sci-fi novels. Baronjutter posted:I think we're using the term differently. I'm not using it in the anarcho-primitivist sense of regressing to a pre-industrial society. I just mean relocating most of our mining and heavy industry to space while earth can just enjoy the fruits of fully automated luxury space communism. The population could double with people living in platinum-clad hive cities fed by asteroid mining and orbiting solar arrays while our ecological footprint shrinks to a fraction of what is was. Just pure far-future utopian fantasies that keep me going in this hell world. I have to tell my self that'll still be a possibility for our species one day if we can survive capitalism and climate change. I've been reading too much of the Climate Change Thread, that use makes more sense here. It is about as likely as any other hail mary, but it is the direction we should probably be heading in, I'll agree to that. Couple of speed bumps between here and there though.
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Oct 17, 2019 05:00
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There is one theoretical nuclear rocket you could use in the atmosphere, I think it uses quartz windows to allow the thermal radiation from the reactor through while keeping the nuclear reactor wholly separated from the reaction mass.
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Oct 17, 2019 10:16
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:There is one theoretical nuclear rocket you could use in the atmosphere, I think it uses quartz windows to allow the thermal radiation from the reactor through while keeping the nuclear reactor wholly separated from the reaction mass. A properly-designed NTR won’t have radioactive exhaust. It’s just hot hydrogen. NERVA was at one point going to be an upper stage on the Saturn V stack. There is no reason you can’t build an NTR with enough thrust-to-weight to be useful to leave Earth with. What you’re describing is a gas-core NTR. We have less of an idea of how to build one of those than we do of how to make fusion commercially viable.
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Oct 17, 2019 13:29
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We have blown up thousands of nuclear bombs on earth already, none of it was maybe the best possible idea and collectively they have all had a cost in human lives from statistical increases in cancer, but it's not like everyone keels over dead if a nuclear explosion happens anywhere. If someone needs to send a rocket to alpha centauri I am sure the US can manage having 221 instead of 219 atmospheric nuclear tests in it's history.
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Oct 17, 2019 15:04
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:We have blown up thousands of nuclear bombs on earth already, none of it was maybe the best possible idea and collectively they have all had a cost in human lives from statistical increases in cancer, but it's not like everyone keels over dead if a nuclear explosion happens anywhere. If someone needs to send a rocket to alpha centauri I am sure the US can manage having 221 instead of 219 atmospheric nuclear tests in it's history. The design that would have delivered a manned mission to Saturn in 1970 would have been setting off .35 kiloton bombs to get off the ground, increasing to 15 kiloton bombs in space. Total yield to reach 125,000' would have been 250 kilotons. Total yield to reach LEO would have been 9 megatons. We set off a 15 megaton bomb accidentally, it was only supposed to have been 6 MT.. The Soviets set off a 50 megaton bomb just because. Stupid test ban treaty.
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Oct 17, 2019 15:27
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You really don't need (explosive) nuclear propulsion to get things off the ground. Giant fuckoff It's also wasteful in space since if you're talking about "orbital infrastructure exists" levels of investment and engineering you should just be using a reactor to power some flavor of giant fuckoff ion thruster or nuclear thermal engine. Baronjutter posted:Project Orion was good. Nobody talking about putting more than a scientific research outpost on mars within a venture or two is worth listening to. That's even assuming money/political will isn't a factor. Orbital material processing/refinement would be a relatively cheaper/easier engineering feat and potentially bring a lot of incredibly rare materials down to earth. There's a lot of really cool things that can be done with modern materials science that just arent feasible because whatever semi-theoretical wonder-battery some team designed in a lab would cost $1/mAh. (or you could spend about the same amount of money and literally geoengineer the planet via carbon sequestration but idk) e: Look I just want to see us outdo that bullshit at giza but with inert carbon bricks. Marxalot fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 06:50
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:We have blown up thousands of nuclear bombs on earth already, none of it was maybe the best possible idea and collectively they have all had a cost in human lives from statistical increases in cancer We can’t even say that. The linear, no‐threshold model isn’t correct. We act as though it is correct because it’s conservative, but we know it doesn’t fit the data. Phanatic posted:The design that would have delivered a manned mission to Saturn in 1970 would have been setting off .35 kiloton bombs to get off the ground, increasing to 15 kiloton bombs in space. Total yield to reach 125,000' would have been 250 kilotons. Total yield to reach LEO would have been 9 megatons. Yeah but you can’t just compare kilotons to kilotons. Small fission weapons are disproportionately dirty. Per ton of yield, that fifty megaton bomb was the cleanest ever detonated.
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Oct 18, 2019 10:34
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Platystemon posted:Small fission weapons are disproportionately dirty. Per ton of yield, that fifty megaton bomb was the cleanest ever detonated. It's more accurate to say "any given nuclear bomb is going to have roughly the same radioisotope fallout that we don't want". The thermonuclear bombs are basically a regular nukes wrapped around a tritium/deuterium/lithium sandwich, because nobody has a good method for compressing that into a fusion reaction without using massive X-Ray compression that a fission bomb can yield. Any given fission bomb has some minimum mass X which is required to achieve a supercritical event (the 'boom' part of the bomb), where X is dependent on the fissile material used, plus or minus some neutron reflector stuff to alter the math a bit.
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Oct 18, 2019 16:45
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Platystemon posted:We can’t even say that. I mean, we irradiated stuff a lot with nuclear bomb testing. It was overall a real bad thing, but like, the 221st nuclear bomb isn't going to be make or break for human life on earth at this point if we have some good reason to need a space craft launch occasionally.
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Oct 18, 2019 17:38
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Platystemon posted:We can’t even say that. Castle Bravo sure wasn't. That's one of the nicer things about Orion: it scales like mad.
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Oct 18, 2019 17:51
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Phanatic posted:Castle Bravo sure wasn't. Castle Bravo wasn't because they didn't understand that Lithium-7 was not inert. So instead of just burning the Lithium-6 and creating a 5 megaton device, they also burned the VERY NOT INERT Lithium 7 and tripling the expected yield. quote:It was assumed that the lithium-7 would absorb one neutron, producing lithium-8, which decays (through beryllium-8) to a pair of alpha particles on a timescale of seconds, vastly longer than the timescale of nuclear detonation. When lithium-7 is bombarded with energetic neutrons, rather than simply absorbing a neutron, it captures the neutron and decays almost instantly into an alpha particle, a tritium nucleus, and another neutron. As a result, much more tritium was produced than expected, the extra tritium fusing with deuterium and producing an extra neutron. The extra neutron produced by fusion and the extra neutron released directly by lithium-7 decay produced a much larger neutron flux. The result was greatly increased fissioning of the uranium tamper and increased yield.
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Oct 18, 2019 18:03
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It was also because Castle Bravo was a surface burst, which excavated a good deal of the island, and threw enormous amounts of fallout into the air. The crater was 250 feet deep.
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Oct 18, 2019 19:04
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A coral reef is very nearly the worst thing on the planet to detonate a bomb next, for fallout purposes.
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Oct 20, 2019 22:30
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Plus most of those additional neutrons from the Li-7 reaction went and fast-fissioned the U238 tamper.
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Oct 20, 2019 22:57
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