Desalination costs are irrelevant to uranium extraction. Uranium is absorbed in special plastic fibers arrayed in ocean currents that are then post processed to recover the uranium—it doesn’t matter how many cubic km of water must pass the fiber mats to deposit the uranium because that process is, like wind, free. The economics have been demonstrated in pilot scale experiments at ~$1000/kg level, easily cheap enough making Uranium an effectively inexhaustible resource at current civilisational energy consumption levels even after we run out of easily mined resources. Lots of published research on this approach (as is to be expected when it is nearing cost competitiveness with mining).
As I wrote in the post, that number is fake, based on an inapplicable calculation.
Maybe you read something about that only being 6x or so as expensive, but whatever number you read is fake. I don’t want to see a comment from you unless you look into how that number was calculated and think real hard about whether it would be the only cost involved.
Fake cost estimates in papers are common for other topics too, like renewable fuels. Also, the volume of published research has little to do with cost competitiveness and a lot to do with what’s trendy among people who direct grant money.
Desalination costs are irrelevant to uranium extraction. Uranium is absorbed in special plastic fibers arrayed in ocean currents that are then post processed to recover the uranium—it doesn’t matter how many cubic km of water must pass the fiber mats to deposit the uranium because that process is, like wind, free. The economics have been demonstrated in pilot scale experiments at ~$1000/kg level, easily cheap enough making Uranium an effectively inexhaustible resource at current civilisational energy consumption levels even after we run out of easily mined resources. Lots of published research on this approach (as is to be expected when it is nearing cost competitiveness with mining).
As I wrote in the post, that number is fake, based on an inapplicable calculation.
Fake cost estimates in papers are common for other topics too, like renewable fuels. Also, the volume of published research has little to do with cost competitiveness and a lot to do with what’s trendy among people who direct grant money.