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But a better way might be to fish it out with nanofibers of chitin—the stuff shrimp and lobster shells are made of. Rather than start from scratch, researchers spun threads of chitin from liquefied shrimp shells. They chemically modified the nanofibers to make them stick to uranium, and dropped them in uranium-spiked water. After three days, they found that the shrimp-shell fibers had indeed collected uranium from the solution. They presented that research at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (pdf).
It's still too early to know how efficient the process is. But researchers say the nanofibers' huge surface area should allow for more harvesting power than the current plastic thread method. And chitin's biodegradable, thus more environmentally friendly, which is after all, nuclear power’s selling point in a warming world.
—Christopher Intagliata
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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11 Comments
Add CommentWhy go to all this bother when there are huge supplies of thorium which is a safer nuclear fuel and would be used in safer reactors once we have let the Chinese develop one of our best but shunned energy ideas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy Not Use THORIUM. There's loads more of it than uranium, it's much safer than uranium or plutonium and you can't make bombs with it. The USA was running 3 Thorium reactors until Gerald Ford got in and closed them all down. Bet the oil companies were relieved about that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat must be a FIRST when 2 people commenting both agree!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll the worlds current nuke waste when burned in Gen IV reactors like the DMSR and IFR would power the world for a thousand years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo need for new thorium or uranium supplies.
Statements like: "...we know of enough uranium to power today's nuclear reactors for another 100 years..." need to be considered VERY DUBIOUS. They are based on proven & probable reserves which are in turn based on the current price of Uranium, which only costs 1/2 cent per kwh in old tech LWRs, including mining, enriching & fuel fabrication.. And it doesn't count what are called Speculative Reserves, which is what our economy runs on in most ALL minerals, including Oil, over time-frames longer than 50 yrs into the future.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNewer Nuclear Power plant designs are more fuel efficient, David Leblanc's simple-minded, Denatured Uranium Molten Salt reactor (DMSR) runs on 1/6th the fuel of a modern Light Water Reactor 1/4 the fuel of a CANDU, even without fuel reprocessing. Usual rule of thumb, double the price = 10X the reserves of a metal. So running at 1/6th the fuel consumption puts easily 100X the reserves available. And there are lots of ways to improve on that, fuel reprocessing, burning LWR waste in CANDUs or other PHWRs, fuel uprates & improvements including thorium, efficiency improvements and of course high burn reactors like the IFR, LFTR, Travelling Wave, LCFR, ADS or Fast Breeders like India is planning. When you add those not-difficult-and-already-proven tech, the Nuclear Fuel resource issue disappears for many millennium. And I haven't even gotten into Fusion tech yet.
Nuclear Fuel supply issues:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this#1: don't destroy Uranium 233 reserves by downblending, which the Criminal Idiots in the DOE are planning. That is important startup fuel for Thorium Molten Salt reactors, like LFTR.
#2: don't permanently bury Reactor Grade plutonium, like some "anti-proliferation" Nutballs, including Obama's pick for the new head of the NRC, want to do. That is important startup fuel for high burn reactors and won't do ZIP to reduce proliferation by any logical and rational analysis.
#3: don't downblend valuable highly enriched uranium, which can otherwise be used for Small Modular Reactors, Research Reactors and Medical Isotope reactors, enrichment levels of less than 50% are completely useless for weapons but have very considerable energy, research and medical applications.
#4: don't waste, bury or otherwise destroy Depleted Uranium which is valuable fuel for GenIV reactors like the IFR, MSR's, LCR's, ADS or Traveling Wave reactors.
#5: recognize the EXTRAORDINARILY high value of so-called "Nuclear Waste" or Spent Nuclear Fuel for Energy Production. Just the current 63k tons of USA Nuclear Spent Fuel will generate $70 trillion worth of clean, green, Zero Carbon Electricity, burnt in the above mentioned reactors.
glad to see a number of posters on the same page here in developing future nuclear power using thorium floride reactors. Sad that the US has chosen to allow china and india take the lead in nuclear technology so they can focusing on legacy tech. I think thorium floride reactors could make electrifying american rail viable. It may even have applications in large ocean going vessels. Can't understand the delay.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can understand the delay. Who backed Gerald Ford, and was part of the price the close down of the 3 experimental US Thorium reactors? Who killed the Electric Car? Who has been pushing that ludicrous idea of hydrogen fuel cell powered cars? (just do the maths if you don't believe me). Suprise Suprise its our 7 usual suspects. Nothing new there then!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTotally true. Big Oil/NG ensures it maintains and increases its already high market share by shutting out competition through its money-no-object bribery of politicians, media, ENGO's like Greenpeace & the Sierra Club and bureaucrats (note how Big Oil controlled the MMS, whereas Nuclear got stuck with the NRC - Nuclear Rejection Commission).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsidering all the issues of Climate Change, Peak Oil, Middle East Oil wars & supply disruptions, Oil imports Job Losses and deadly Fossil Fuel pollution, any rational analysis would DEMAND an IMMEDIATE and MASSIVE Fast Trak R&D program on Innovative New Nuclear Tech. The fact that ZIP is being spent on that is conclusive proof that Big Oil/NG and the super-rich elite 0.0001 percenters who control those companies and nations are the REAL POLITICAL power in the World. Politicians, democrat or republican just Rubber Stamp their directives.
I can understand big oil and the existing nuclear reactor industry but LFTRs would make a hydrogen economy much more economical as you can use the exhaust heat to crack water. If I was going to push fuel cells in a big way I'd want to own shares in the companies building LFTRs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the US this is called the Gen IV initiative but I have no idea of the extent of the funding. From what I understand darpa or some other R&D org is funding research into creating LFTRs for military bases because it allows them to sidestep some of the regulatory red tape. So even the military wants it. How crazy is that? You would think that with the US, China, India, Japan and the European Union we should have a working model now of something that was built and running in the 60's. I mean we are experiencing droughts world-wide and one of other things you can do with exhaust heat from LFTRs is sea water desalination. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop because this just seems to be too good to be true and yet no one is doing it. Well shouldn't say no one but it certainly isn't getting the same model our failed legacy tech is getting. I hate to believe in conspiracies but I think the Men in Black, Skull and Bones and the Templar Knights are colluding on this one.
Isn't there just as much gold in seawater as uranium, which could be harvested by this method?
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