Posted on 10/25/2020 7:25:34 AM PDT by carcraft
We have millions of tons of coal and also coal ash piles just sitting around. No shortage in the USA lack of political will and our prior administrations selling us out to China is the reason.
https://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/rare-earth-elements/program-overview/background
Also Tesla and Panasonic both are moving to cobalt free lithium cells this year.
Tesla are already rare earth free motors. That’s why they are called tesla who invented the asynchronous induction motors that Tesla used to drive their cars.
BMW is going REE free in 2021
https://roskill.com/news/rare-earths-bmws-fifth-generation-ree-free-electric-drivetrain/
Bamma is nearly done making rare earth free perm magnets as good or better than REE
https://arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/projects/rare-earth-free-nanostructure-magnets
This is the commercial spin off
https://arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/projects/rare-earth-free-traction-motor
No need to stop mine the earth. Ocean water and muds are loaded with the elements and the technology is available if not quite yet commercial in economics to get them.
Or from desalination brines
https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/1640509
Or from seafloor muds
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23948-5
Or seafloor nodules
Uranium from seawater via the Japanese or Livermore labs methods is going to happen as uranium costs will eventually justify the $250kg cost of recovery. Even at $250 kg the gross fuel cost of 4.5% LEU fuel per too will be less than reprocessing spent fuel vs direct disposal down deep bore holes. Which is the best way to seal them up for billions of years.
$250kg UO2
$8kg conversion
$100 SWU enrichment
$250kg fuel element fab cost
250*9kg= $2250
8*9kg=$72
9*9kg@$100 SWU enrichment = $900 yields 1kg 4.5% U235 LEU fuel
$250kg LEU fuel fabrication =$250
Total = $3472 per kg LEU fuel
$3.472e6 per ton of fuel
45 gigawatt days per metric ton of LEU burn up over 18 months fuelcycle in a modern PWR reactor.
45*24hr*1e6 kwh= 1.08e9 kWh per ton of fuel.
Retail sales at 2 cents wholesale to the power bid pool equal to $20/mwh which is way below the peaker rates of $50 to $130 for comparison.
1.08e9* $20/kWh = $21.6e6 in retail sales
Thare 21 million dollars for 3 million in fuel costs or on a per kWh basis.
$3.472e6 / 1.08e9 = 0.321 CENTS per kilowatt hour in fuel costs, less than 4 tenths of a cent in costs for fuel. That’s with seawater uranium recovery costs at $250 kg the current spot price at market close Friday was $77 per kg.
The environmental commies and the Greenpeace activists have inflated via lawsuits nuclear capital costs into the $5000+kWh installed in counties like Korea where they are not allowed to endlessly sue capital costs are $1500kw
Korea plans to deep borehole their wastes t $700 per ton of heavy metal that means the $21 million in retail power sales has a disposal cost for direct wastes of $700 for comparison reprocessing is $1000 ton plus $1500 per ton for MOX fab costs best to just entomb the stuff under a few 1000 meters of granite. The long term movement under basement anoxic water conditions is negligible for wastes insoluble in such environments which all the transuraniums are as are the Nobel fission products and the rare earth fission products as well. Only iodine, technium and strontium are mobile but w/o connective flow or vertical advection there is no way to migrate upwards to the biosphere. Yes I am a geologist, a hydro geologist and a petroleum geologist as well I consult for both.
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