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Comment by L_gates | Hacker News Reader

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Uranium requires mining and is recyclable at most once (solar panels components are way better).

Recyclable wind turbines blades are appearing (RecyclableBlade, ZEBRA, PECAN...) and even existing ones (today, decommissioned blades are burned in cement plants, thus providing energy) may become so (check the 'CETEC initiative')

Uranium actually does not require mining. Most uranium is extracted using underground wells where water is pumped underground and the Uranium is extracted from the water. Also extracting Uranium from sea water (which would be basically unlimited) is close to being commercially viable and has received a lot of lab-scale research.

Also, Uranium is only recyclable once with light water reactors. With breeder reactors (which have been built in the past) it can be recycled a hundred times.

Sea water: "it is clear that it would be very risky today, to have a long-term industrial strategy based on significant production of uranium from seawater with an affordable cost" ( https://www.epj-n.org/articles/epjn/full_html/2016/01/epjn15... )

> With breeder reactors

After decades of expensive R&D... there is no model of industrial breeder reactor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Notable_reacto... ). Can you name one?

Russia is by far the most advanced. However, its "BN-800" reactor, which began operating in 2014, is so uninspiring that they abstain from deploying any of them, preferring the classic "VVER" (non-breeder) models, and its planned successor, named "BN-1200M," has been postponed to 2035.

This doesn't represent an abandonment of breeder reactors, as this nation is actively exploring another avenue: the "BREST" architecture (lead coolant rather than sodium), with a small demonstration reactor (300 MW) whose construction began in 2021, essentially "back to square one."

> Most uranium is extracted using underground wells where water is pumped underground and the Uranium is extracted from the water.

... I mean that's mining?

Arguably yes! But it avoids a lot of the safety and environmental hazards of traditional methods.

Your uranium grows on trees, mh?

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