We know we could extract uranium from seawater. The prototypes would scale. The reason we don’t do that is that there is no economic reason to do that: it would be more expensive than mining, so why bother? However, even at that higher cost, it would still be plenty cheap enough to use in our power plants.
You complain about people overblowing a minor concern with solar, but you do the same with uranium extraction.
Also, I take issue with your suggestion that we can do pumped storage at scale: we can’t. There are not a lot of suitable sites for that: we either lack enough altitude delta, or lack water, or would have to flood huge swaths of land, often already more productively used. I like hydro, and I like pumped storage, but unlike nuclear, you can’t do it just about anywhere.
US is actually particularly lucky when it comes to hydro: most other countries are too flat, too dry, or too short on wastelands. Even if we could pull it off, most can’t, and they need power too.
Pumped storage can be constructed out of concrete. It's not necessary for there to be a preexisting basin. This isn't often done because there's not much demand for it and it's very expensive compared to fossil fuels (which pretty much everything is), but it is entirely industrially feasible and is still generally cheaper than any other kind of battery. I realize you are arguing that extracting uranium from seawater is in the same category, but it's not: there are no industrial scale mining operations extracting uranium from seawater, and there is no evidence that existing prototypes would scale up to global power requirements (in addition to the other issues mentioned by the neighboring comment).
> but it is entirely industrially feasible and is still generally cheaper than any other kind of battery.
Really? That sounds interesting. Can you send me some materials on this?
> there are no industrial scale mining operations extracting uranium from seawater, and there is no evidence that existing prototypes would scale up to global power requirements
This is true, but again, hardly relevant, because nobody really tried to do that at scale, as there is no good reason for it for as long as mined uranium is cheap.
If I remember correctly the tested uranyl ion collectors were not very specific and they concentrated other radioactive heavy elements to a dangerous degree for the lifeforms flowing through.
Pumped storage is simply a gravity battery. There are vertical gravity batteries that can be built anywhere. Basically they are giant cranes that lift heavy blocks high up. This is the storage component and requires electricity. When we need to drain electricity they move the high blocks to a lower elevation using the crane. This generates electricity. This seems like the perfect type of battery to me for urban cities with large towers already.
The sort of battery you describe is utterly non-viable. The amount of energy you can store with solid blocks is extremely small relative to the cost of the structure. Do the math. With 100 tons weight and 100 meters lift (an enormous structure) you get something like 1 (one) dollar worth of electricity, which is bupkis.
Pumped storage works, because it pumps absolutely enormous amounts of water. You can't handle comparable amounts of solid blocks similarly easily.
You complain about people overblowing a minor concern with solar, but you do the same with uranium extraction.
Also, I take issue with your suggestion that we can do pumped storage at scale: we can’t. There are not a lot of suitable sites for that: we either lack enough altitude delta, or lack water, or would have to flood huge swaths of land, often already more productively used. I like hydro, and I like pumped storage, but unlike nuclear, you can’t do it just about anywhere.
US is actually particularly lucky when it comes to hydro: most other countries are too flat, too dry, or too short on wastelands. Even if we could pull it off, most can’t, and they need power too.