Giving Compass' Take:

• News Deeply reports on efforts by scientists to extract uranium from the ocean, in hopes that it can be a renewable source. But plenty of obstacles and concerns remain.

• While alternate energy solutions should be explored, how much damage would we do to our biodiversity by going all-in on ideas like this — and what about the dangers of nuclear power? Is it worth the trade-off?

• Before new uranium mining, consider toxic legacy.

Gary Gill wants a shot at the biggest uranium deposit in the world. So do dozens of other researchers who one day may open up a mine they see as virtually inexhaustible: the ocean.

There is enough uranium dissolved in seawater to power nuclear power plants for centuries. Scientists have known this for decades, but the problem has been how to collect highly dispersed uranium molecules.

Gill, a researcher at the United States Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has a vision of a vast underwater field of fibers waving in the currents, gradually pulling uranium molecules out of the water. Others envision chains of wiffle-ball-like spheres doing the same, while dangling off the base of offshore wind turbines.

These ideas are likely decades or more away from reality, at least on any large scale, but researchers are refining the technology needed to extract uranium efficiently. Their aim is to close the gap between what it costs to mine the metal on land and what it might cost to take it out of the ocean.

A recent breakthrough recently came from Gill’s marine lab in Sequim, Washington, in partnership with Idaho-based energy firm LCW Supercritical Technologies. In the lab they were able to create 5g (0.2oz) of yellowcake – the powdered form of uranium used in nuclear power plants – collected from seawater.

If this extraction process can be scaled up, it would open up what Gill calls an “essentially renewable” uranium reserve, potentially eliminating the need for dangerous and environmentally damaging uranium mining.

Read the full article about extracting uranium from the sea by Matthew O. Berger at News Deeply.