Scientists Extract Uranium Powder from Seawater with Yarn

[Judi Lynn]

August 19, 2018 1:20 AM
Faith Lapidus

The world's oceans are filled with trace amounts of uranium, the primary fuel for nuclear power reactors. The trick is extracting it from the seawater. Now, scientists in the U.S. say they have done that using yarn, and extracted 5 grams of the powdered form of uranium used to produce reactor fuel. Faith Lapidus reports.

Video at link:
https://www.voanews.com/a/scientists-extract-uranium-powder-from-seawater-with-yarn/4534769.html

[kaotikross]

1. quick! somebody tell dotard

maybe we can get him to use the rest of his term to stand in the Potomac with yarn hoping to collect uranium for Putie and Kim Un!

[hunter]

2. Sadly, there's enough cheap natural gas to destroy what's left...

... of our planet's natural environment.

People think nuclear power is the devil, but hybrid gas-solar-wind electric power systems, and fuels made from natural gas or agricultural products (for example: hydrogen, synthetic gasoline, ethanol, bio-diesel...) will be the ruin of our world civilization.

A world economy powered by nuclear power or purely "renewable" sources like wind or solar power would look nothing like the high energy consumer economy many affluent people now enjoy.

The only way to quit fossil fuels is to quit fossil fuels. It's like smoking. You haven't quit smoking if you've switched to "light" cigarettes, or cut a pack-a-day habit to half-a-pack-a-day habit.

Hybrid natural gas-wind systems are a half-a-pack a day habit.

Sadly the largest industrial projects on earth today involve the extraction and distribution of natural gas. This will destroy the world we know.

We might not have to mine uranium from the ocean for a long time. We could build nuclear power plants that utilize existing stockpiles of depleted uranium, plutonium from nuclear weapons, spent fuel from existing light water nuclear power plants, and mine tailings.

If we do start mining uranium from the ocean a few centuries from now, the supply is continuously replenished by natural geologic processes.

It may all seem like magic, and a dangerous magic to some people, but the science is sound.

The U.S. Navy is doing some interesting research applicable to a future without fossil fuels. They are also devising systems that use nuclear energy to extract carbon dioxide from seawater to make fuels for aircraft, turbines, and diesel engines.

Fuel from Seawater? What’s the Catch?
Scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory recently flew a model plane using a liquid hydrocarbon fuel they sourced from the ocean

--more--

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/fuel-seawater-whats-catch-180953623/

[cstanleytech]

3. Big "if" there for getting the fuel from the oceans so until then we would have to

continue with mining to get it and then there are the issues of long term storage as the waste will be radioactive for a long time.