Oak Ridge develops improved way of extracting uranium from seawater

The world’s estimated reserves of uranium are only 5.5 million tonnes (6 million tons) and with the growing demand for reliable energy free of greenhouse emissions leading to more and more nuclear plants being built, that supply may not last very long. Some estimates place the time before all the uranium is gone at between 50 and 200 years. However, the oceans of the world contain 4.1 billion tonnes (4.5 billion tons) of uranium dissolved in seawater. That’s enough to last something on the order of 6,500 years. The tricky bit is getting it out, but a team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee has come a step closer to economically extracting uranium from seawater with a new material that is much more efficient than previous methods... Continue Reading Oak Ridge develops improved way of extracting uranium from seawater