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Comment by peoplefromibiza | Hacker News Reader

> Uranium is actually pretty rare

> estimate is something like 50 years

those are pretty pessimistic estimates.

From a 2009 article on Scientific America

According to the NEA, identified uranium resources total 5.5 million metric tons, and an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered—a roughly 230-year supply at today's consumption rate in total

the extraction of uranium from seawater would make available 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium—a 60,000-year supply at present rates

fuel-recycling fast-breeder reactors, which generate more fuel than they consume, would use less than 1 percent of the uranium needed for current LWRs. Breeder reactors could match today's nuclear output for 30,000 years using only the NEA-estimated supplies.

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Yeah, and to my understanding we're not specifically looking for it as the uranium isn't really that expensive at the moment. The largest plant in Finland needs 128 tons of uranium for the fuel to be fully loaded which on a quick calculation is $57 per pound * 2.2 pounds per kilo * 128000 kilos = around $16M and based on a quick search it lasts from three to five years.

Since the fuel is cooled in water ponds for decades before it is processed, even in the case of a nuclear industry boom there's ample lead time to alter the plans if running out of materials seems to become an issue. I'd be much more worried about usage of oil as it is the base material for a lot of different things like medicines, and we're burning the stuff away (granted, we can do synthetic hydrocarbons, but the whole thing with oil is a bigger problem in my books than running out of uranium; it's still there to be retrieved if it really comes down to it).

Also, stuff that we need at scale to keep things running, but are somewhat harder to source like sulphur... Which is used for agriculture.

> an additional 10.5 million metric tons remain undiscovered

If it's "undiscovered", presumably that 0.5 metric tons amounts to spurious precision. Call it ten million, and it becomes clear that it's a wild guesstimate.

Also: the location of these Uranium deposits is not evenly distributed. I understand that substantially all of France's Uranium, for example, comes from Niger, a politically-unstable country where much of the mining is controlled by the Wagner Group.

Niger has been on the wane for some time as two of the three Orano (formerly Areva) group mines hit near exhaustion.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/08/04/h...

( Or, if you prefer, the Nuclear Energy "Red Book":

https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_79960/uranium-2022-resource...

    In France, although no domestic uranium exploration and mine development activities have been carried out since 1999, majority government-owned Orano (formerly Areva) and its subsidiaries remain active abroad.

    As of 2020, Orano S.A. has been working outside France, focusing on discovery of exploitable resources in Canada, Gabon, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Namibia and Niger. In Canada, Kazakhstan and Niger, Orano is also involved in uranium mining operations.

    In addition, as a non-operator, Orano holds shares in several mining operations and research projects in different countries. In 2020, Orano started exploration in Uzbekistan.

    Total nondomestic exploration expenditures remained relatively steady from 2017 to 2018 at about USD 30 million per year, before declining by 17% to around USD 25 million in 2019 and 2020.

)

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