Abstract
With the rapid growth of global energy demand, interest in extracting uranium from seawater for nuclear energy has been renewed. While extracting seawater uranium is not yet commercially viable, it serves as a “backstop” to the conventional uranium resources and provides an essentially unlimited supply of uranium resource. With recent technology advances, extracting uranium from seawater could be economically feasible only when the extraction devices are deployed at a large scale (e.g., several hundred km2). There is concern however that the large scale deployment of adsorbent farms could result in potential impacts to the hydrodynamic flow field in an oceanic setting. In this study, a kelp-type structure module based on the classic momentum sink approach was incorporated into a coastal ocean model to simulate the blockage effect of a farm of passive uranium extraction devices on the flow field. The module was quantitatively validated against laboratory flume experiments for both velocity and turbulence profiles.Model results suggest that the reduction in ambient currents could range from 4% to 10% using adsorbent farm dimensions and mooring densities previously described in the literature and with typical drag coefficients.
Highlights
Uranium fuels more than 400 nuclear reactors worldwide and provides over 13% of the world’s electricity
A kelp-type structure module was incorporated into the coastal ocean model FVCOM based on the commonly used momentum sink approach in which the resistance force exerted by kelp-type structures is parameterized as additional form drag in the momentum equations
The module was reasonably validated using observations from both laboratory flume experiments and field surveys conducted in the kelp forest near Pt
Summary
Uranium fuels more than 400 nuclear reactors worldwide and provides over 13% of the world’s electricity. The uranium ore in the ground has remained as the single most important conventional uranium resource. Based on current consumption rates, the known uranium ore resources that can be mined at current costs are estimated to be sufficient to produce fuel for about a century. The possibility of recovery of seawater uranium by ion-exchange resins was studied shortly after World War II, but was not economically viable compared to exploitation of known uranium ores on land [2]. While extracting seawater uranium is not yet commercially viable, it serves as a ―backstop‖ to the conventional uranium resources and provides an essentially unlimited (~6500 years) supply of uranium [3]. Driven by the rapid growth of global energy demand in recent decades, interest in extracting uranium from seawater for nuclear energy has been renewed. With recent advances in seawater uranium extraction technology, extracting uranium from seawater could become economically feasible especially when the extraction devices are deployed at large scales of several hundred km2 [4]
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