[Kosh]

Geology majors, any truth to it?

[watsisname]

Huh.  Well it's definitely not a renewable resource, but I find it difficult to believe that our stockpiles would run out that soon and we haven't really done anything about it yet.  Yeah, solar and wind and all, but the dent they've made on our need for nuclear power isn't that great.

That said, I'm just talking out of my butt.

[Uchuujinsan]

Not a geology major, but with all resource shortages (like oil, copper, gold, platin, silver..) it doesn't mean it becomes unavailable, only that it becomes more expensive.
So as a result, nuclear energy will become (a little) more expensive. While it might have long term influences, a sudden break down of modern life? Nope.

[lostllama]

Can't recall anything specific about a shortfall during my lectures on nuclear energy and waste, but that's going back some time and I haven't been keeping tabs on developments. Shame that I can't remember much about the subject. Like the oil crisis, I'm not certain that, if the shortage is true, that we'll be able to "explore" our way out of it by discovering new finds. If I manage to dig out anything relevent from my notes I'll contribute more to this thread.

Perhaps a shortage might provide an impetus for full nuclear disarmament, but I don't see that being a popular move for some reason.

[Macfie]

Perhaps they could start reprocessing nuclear fuel.

[Mefustae]

Perhaps a shortage might provide an impetus for full nuclear disarmament, but I don't see that being a popular move for some reason.

Or a recreation of the entire opening cinematic of the game Fallout.

[lostllama]

Reprocessing has been ongoing for several decades now, at least in Europe. For example, fast breeder reactors use spent actinides to produce more fissile material, and plutonium (a fission byproduct of uranium) can be used to form MOX (Mixed OXide) fuel as an alternative to light enriched uranium (alternatively the plutonium could be used for nuclear warheads ).

[Janos]

You can always extract uranium from seawater, but the infrastructure for it does not exist.

[Macfie]

Unfortunately fuel reprocessing has been shutdown in the US since the late 70's.  A legacy of former president Jimmy Carter.  Due to the low enrichment of commercial nuclear fuel there is a significant amount of fissile and fissionable material produced during a fuel cycle and remaining in the fuel.  There also is a significant amount of spent fuel that is sitting in fuel pools and dry storage that could be reclaimed and reused.  The use of MOX does not siginificantly affect the operation of the power plant and could be used with little or no modification.  Reprocessing would also help relieve the nuclear waste storage problem somewhat.

[Thaeris]

It's fascinating what you learn from a chemistry course. Quite frankly, a great deal of the "nuclear waste" isn't necessarily waste if you care to process it properly. Before that good stuff starts happening though, you'll have to talk or manage to vote some sense into you political leaders.

[Flaser]

It's the inane idea that reprocessing would make it easier for terrorists to get their hands on plutonium and other weapons grade fissionables...

...which is bollocks. Reprocessing plants are a lot more secure and manageable then research reactors (which strangely are not *that* well protected) as they tend to be big and centralized installations.

[perihelion]

Well, that, and the fact that some reprocessing techniques never create weapons-grade material in the first place.  Pyroprocessing is just one example, but in this method, your fuel is never "purified" to the point where it could be used in a nuclear weapon.