The people determined to live with their head in the sand will either never see it or tune it out. America is still a country in denial and that fact still disturbs me.

When gasoline, due to whatever cause, spiked up to a national average of over $4/gallon, people started to re-think habits and were beginning to open up to the possibility that things would have to change. Just a couple of months later the knuckle draggers are doing 80-85 mph on 70 mph Interstate in 16 MPG trucks carrying nothing--just like before. They are getting back on their ATVs and riding circles in the dirt/mud/sand and driving the pickup to the mailbox. The lines at drive through windows- so short a couple of months ago- are as full as I have ever seen.

It's not about being ignorant as much as willfully stupid. These are the racists and simpletons that are referred to as 'values voters' despite living in the least literate & educated part of the US and having the highest rate of divorce, incest, teen pregnancy and all the rest. Nothing short of a hard swung shovel to the head is going to get their attention- that or a histrionic preacher.

When the lights go out they will whine about how nobody warned them and that it's all a big conspiracy by or for whatever groups they blame their problems on. It's probably not going to be pretty.

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I did a similar article with more reasons, quoting Al Gore, Carl Pope and other experts. There are some emerging nuclear technologies that could be safer but they are a long way off. Read the full post on MNN.

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1. Length of time to come on stream: "at least 20 years" is clearly incorrect statement. The typical timescale for the planning and construction is around 10 years. Sometimes the planning stage could take longer thanks to slow moving regulatory and political system, but that has nothing to do with nuclear energy as such. Sweden constructed most of its considerable nuclear capacity during 80s and then its CO2 emission collapsed by 30%. This reduction corresponds to the rising share of nuclear energy in their primary energy supply. Similarly impressive figures can be found for other contries as well. Needless to say, the above reduction did not compromise swedish living standard in any way, quite the contrary.


2. Insurance: Reactors which have been constructed based on western safety standards have been running more than 10000 reactor years without human casualties. The "huge invisible cost" should be, like in all insurances, balanced with the likelyhood of serious accident. With the outrageous overestimate of 100 billion for the cost of an serious accident in a reactor running at 1GW, we get that insurance cost is around 10 million/year....surely not a huge figure compared to the value of the energy produced (500 million if the cost is 5 cents/kWh) and by far smaller subsidy than for any other source of energy. This hidden "subsidy" would be around 0.1 cents/kWh and is in practice unobservable in the market place.

3. Waste: Waste is naturally bad, but it is not a huge problem. When it comes to nuclear waste, the amount are actually very small compared to the energy produced and we know where the waste is and how to isolate it from living things. Please, rather than simply stating that radiation is bad, come up with some scenario by which human beings get more than around few 1mSv of dose per year (which is what we typically get from the natural sources in any case.) Furthermore, the stuff that is now called nuclear waste is a suitable fuel for new types of nuclear reactors. Around 99% of the available energy is still there, but cannot be reached with the typical reactors used today. When uranium is so cheap as it is today, financial considerations encourage wasteful fuel usage. In other words, with breeder reactors all the worlds nuclear reactors could run more than 1000 years with current nuclear "waste".


4. Cost: The cost of electricity from nuclear is in many countries on the order of few cents for 1 kWh. Nuclear power plants are hugely profitable for the companies owning them. Surely they know how much they are paying for their production?

5. Peak Uranium: Uranium is not particularly rare substance and it is not about to run out. The cheapest sources of uranium and current mines will at some point be depleted. However, the amount of ore is an estimate for the stuff that can be economically extracted with the current prices. When price goes up, the amount of uranium ore goes up very steeply. Furthermore, cost of exctraction depends on the technologies that are used. Looking for ores costs money and one doesn't do it unncessarily. One can move to very low grade ores without changing the economics of nuclear energy production substantially...and there is plenty of that stuff around. Uranium price is more likely to influence decision on whether to construct current reactor types or breeder reactors which require much less fuel.

6. Carbon Emissions: Lifecycle analysis for the CO2 emissions of nuclear power have been done in many places and the CO2 emission caused by the nuclear energy are similar to wind power. Some of the assumptions in these estimates are however potentially pessimistic. For example, some assume that all energy required for mining , enrichment, and decomissioning is produced with coal and one could use the nuclear energy for these processes as well. However, CO2 emission caused by nuclear energy are close to zero.

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1. Nuclear reactors can be built in just 4 or 5 years.

2. No one in the west has ever been killed by radiation from a nuclear reactor. The Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown killed no one because in the West we wisely house our reactors in containment structures that can withstand the impact of a 747.

3. Nuclear power plants produce 100 times less radioactive waste than coal power plants and less background radiation too. And if spent fuel was reprocessed and used for fuel, the residual waste in less than 1000 years would actually be less radioactive than the original ore that was mined. So nuclear power in the long run would actually reduce the amount of radiation in the environment.

4. Nuclear power in the US currently produces electricity cheaper than coal, natural gas, wind, and solar.

5. There is enough terrestrial uranium to power current nuclear capacity on the planet for at least 250 years. And that's without using the uranium and plutonium in spent fuel. Only if uranium were used to provide all of the energy on the planet would their be a shortage. However, if uranium from seawater was utilized, then uranium could power the total energy for our planet for more than 3000 years. If spent fuel were utilized, then nuclear energy could provide power for the entire planet for more than 5000 years. If breeding technology was also utilized then nuclear power could power the entire planet until the end of life on Earth.


6. Nuclear power has one of the lowest carbon footprints of any energy system-- even lower than solar. However, it could be even lower if nuclear power were also used to produce carbon neutral synfuels. Wind and solar, on the other hand,have to use carbon dioxide polluting fossil fuels as back up sources of power when the wind is not blowing and when the sun is not shining.

Marcel F. Williams
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/

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Good article, and Peak Oil is now.

The top story of the year is that global crude oil production peaked in 2008.

The media, governments, world leaders, and public should focus on this issue.

Global crude oil production had been rising briskly until 2004, then plateaued for four years. Because oil producers were extracting at maximum effort to profit from high oil prices, this plateau is a clear indication of Peak Oil.

Then in July and August of 2008 while oil prices were still very high, global crude oil production fell nearly one million barrels per day, clear evidence of Peak Oil (See Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of "Oil Watch Monthly," December 2008, page 1).

Peak Oil is now.

Credit for accurate Peak Oil predictions (within a few years) goes to the following (projected year for peak given in parentheses):

* Association for the Study of Peak Oil (2007)

* Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of “Oil Watch Monthly” (2008)

* Tony Eriksen, Oil stock analyst and Samuel Foucher, oil analyst (2008)

* Matthew Simmons, Energy investment banker, (2007)

* T. Boone Pickens, Oil and gas investor (2007)

* U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2005)

* Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Princeton professor and retired shell geologist (2005)

* Sam Sam Bakhtiari, Retired Iranian National Oil Company geologist (2005)

* Chris Skrebowski, Editor of “Petroleum Review” (2010)

* Sadad Al Husseini, former head of production and exploration, Saudi Aramco (2008)

* Energy Watch Group in Germany (2006)

Oil production will now begin to decline terminally.

Within a year or two, it is likely that oil prices will skyrocket as supply falls below demand. OPEC cuts could exacerbate the gap between supply and demand and drive prices even higher.

Independent studies indicate that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.

Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap.

With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.

It is time to focus on Peak Oil preparation and surviving Peak Oil.
http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

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Controlled leaks, the odd "terrorist attack" or "accidental" meltdown will work just as well as a planned war... Not to mention that if a country doesn't get in line it can be extorted with the threat of bombing this poison factory or the Haarp induced earthquake .. These dinosaurs should be banned.

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The oil industry spends billions monthly keeping oil off the market and suppressing the "real" alternatives and improvements... What do you think the EPA's and other so called green agencies real job is??? Its to keep supply low and create artificial scarcity for higher prices...PUKE OIL PROPAGANDIST MAKE ME VOMIT !

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All this may be true but nuclear does have the mass-of-scale advantage of conventional commercial power generation. Has anyone considered how much electricity it takes to run one aiport, just a medium-sized airport? Or a shopping mall? Or just one square block of Manhattan? Alternative energies just don't have the ability to generate electricty on that scale. But nuclear does. If the U.S. adopts a uniform reactor design the costs and lead time would be considerably less than is currently the case. France uses this system with great benefit and no accidents.What about the high tech and possibly highly dangerous fusion reactor? Those who object to nuclear power in a knee-jerk fashion may feel differently when the lights start going out.

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GOOGLE JAPANESE WATER CAR, NICOLAI TESLA, FREE ENERGY CONSPIRACY, POGUE CARBUERATOR, WILHELM REICH , STAN MYERS . WE SHOULD ALL HAVE HAD POWER GENERATION IN OUR HOMES DECADES AGO. THIS WHOLE BUSINESS IS 20 TRILLION A YEAR FRAUD.

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Coal and nuclear power plants are now no longer cost effective when compared to solar,and they take longer to construct than flexible solar film plants. Flexible solar panels also eliminate the need for reinventing the power distribution grid.
http://www.nanosolar.com/
The web site is a bit light on facts. But, my understanding is that they are able to cut the price of solar 90%, well below the real cost of Nuclear, Coal, and so-called natural gas.

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The author writes a truthful article on the dirty secrets of nuclear power and out come the Big Nuclear trolls. What they'll never ever tell you is that nuclear power requires more water and fossil fuels to build, operate, and maintain. Plus, since the waste is cheaper to manufacture into WMDs than putting it to resuse, the chances of compromising national security are even higher. Furthermore, gubbmint must subsidize it and it's gonna cost the taxpayers even more as if fossil fuel subsidization wasn't bad enough.

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Counting one's self as part of placing value into attempting to predict futures, that is part of a "universal calculus" (uc).

Starting here, visualize this:

Visualize a spread sheet with square grid lines equal in extention across and down the spread sheet, N rows (Nr), N columns (Nc).

Next,label the location on your left upper most corner the single cell (0,0), then the rows and columns can be identified for their locations with two "numerals" that are ordered set of indexing any cell within the boundaries of the outermost rows and columns with a common origin cell (0,0).

This allows one to establish a "diagonal" of cells, (steps) descending from the single cell (0,0) to (N,N), down from the upper left to the bottom right, and if you like abstractions, ... to (infinity, infinity) to grab the possible completeness with contradictions (Godel's Proofs).

Now Dear Readers and possible Robots, now or future, recent Nobel Prize Physics for 2008, three, 1/2,1/4, and 1/4, winners, have posted some comments about counting:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/
laureates/2008/maskawa-lecture_en.pdf

{{What Does CP Violation Tell Us?
ToshihideMaskawa
Kyoto Sangyo University

[32]
The N ×N unitary matrix U generally has N(N+1)/2 degrees of freedom for the complex phase.
If we subtract the above freedom of quark field phase change, then we are left with
N(N+1)/2 -(2N-1) = (N-2)(N-1)/2
as the net number of physical complex phases in the matrix U.
[33]
This number vanishes for N=1 and N=2, which correspond
to the two and four quark cases, respectively, explaining that
we have no complex phases in matrix U and thus no CP
violation for the two and four quark cases.
However, when we go to the N=3 generation case, i.e., the
six quark model, then this number is 1 and
the CP violation can occur for the first time!
[34]
We have thus completed our work. The origin of the CP
violation was revealed partially at least.
It, however, took a long time: more than 30 years and vast
efforts of many experimenters to really verify this theory.
I would like to thank here all the people in the world who
supported this grand project of humanity.
}}

[comments-rm: A social networking counting of the number of two way communication Links between N individuals without counting the link a single individual has to themselves, their mind/~/body, one may draw a circle of N individuals, and notice the L(N)= N(N-1)/2, thus L(3)=3(3-1)/2=3.

Including the self connection, add three more, that is, six units, and the units are the triplets, the 1/3 charged particles of the sub-nuclear universes.

The confusing is over nuclear fusion (joining), not fission (division).

Thirty years?? Why?

Answer: direct electrical power may be produceable from the resonance of nucleons within the elements: Deutrium, Tritium, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, ... up the stairway of Star evolution.

The energy that binds the elements by their electrical fractional charges (1/3, 1/9, ....1/3^nth) may well show the recent Nobel Prize Nobelists for Physics (2008) to have simplified counting abstract objects, and that includes idea about how we human do or don't reason.

Best, from rm

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From the article:
"When gasoline, due to whatever cause, spiked up to a national average of over $4/gallon, people started to re-think habits and were beginning to open up to the possibility that things would have to change. Just a couple of months later the knuckle draggers are doing 80-85 mph on 70 mph Interstate in 16 MPG trucks carrying nothing--just like before."

Why do you think gas prices have fallen so rapidly?

The rise of oil to $140 a barrel and gasoline to $4 plus a gallon was, in part, because oil companies were testing the waters for what we will tolerate. These artificially high prices caused people to rethink their driving styles, something oil companies could not allow to take hold, so they relented and reduced their prices. And, of course, like the good little Lemmings that we are, we went back to our old habits, which is always easier than actually trying something new.

This "cat-and-mouse" game of price spikes will happen again and again, serving to inform oil companies as to at what price we won't rebel, and to condition us to accept their thievery. Eventually, though, the price will reflect actual supply and demand, as supply sinks through the floor because of depleted reserves around the world. Of course, by that time, corporations will have wasted their energy by playing games with our wallets instead of actually investing in alternatives, so they, and we, will be ill-equipped to deal with the resulting chaos.

This is just one example of how our "free market" laissez-faire capitalistic system has made us too stupid, too greedy, or too uncreative to anticipate and deal with future problems. And, much sooner than any of us is willing to admit, that future will be hard upon us.

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With nuclear power pros and cons, this is a DEAD ISSUE. Fusion power and room temperature superconductors seem to be far distant or unattainable goals, at least in the short term. What MUST be done right now is to increase the use of solar and wind power when and where they're practical, and begin using fuel cells in autos and other vehicles. These steps, coupled with conservation through mass transit, working from home via the 'net, bicycles, and fuel-efficient cars will, in the short term improve things considerably. Big oil, gas, and coal can go to hell. Interference from them should not be tolerated.

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Pretty sad when the bias shows up only 16 words into the summary.

We set off atomic BOMBS in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and both are thriving cities today. Chernobyl is now a major nature habitat, sporting some of the largest herds of elk and bison in the entire Ukraine.

The article teems with every OMG knee-jerk reaction and possibility, regardless of probability of occurrence or of the existence of solutions.

People need to stop watching reruns of the China Syndrome, and actually learn something about the technology.

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It's not often that someone writes pure fiction. The costs of nuclear power is a small fraction of the cost of unreliable, uncontrolable, virtually valueless wind and solar power. Last year a nuclear plant in Texas produced power at a cost of less than 2 cents per kilowatthour, the fuel component cost being .39 cents. We are subsidizing useless wind power by way more than 2 cents per kilowatthour!!! There is no subsidy required for the construction costs of ANY of the 33 nuclear plants currently in the planning or construction phase in this country. Federal loan guarantees cost NOTHING. NADA, ZILCH. There are more than 350 nuclear plants on the boards worldwide. China just began construction on 6 within the past two months and they WILL NOT require the 20 years to construct claimed in this fictional posting. NONE are scheduled to require more than 6 years to build. Mitsubishi will guarantee you a new reactor within TWO YEARS!
Anyone who thinks nuclear power is going away is living in a dream world. Even Obama and Biden were forced to admit that nuclear power is required and will include it in any of their energy plans. Alternative energy sources cost between 5 and 10 times more than nuclear
and have virtually no ability to meet peak demand power requirements. And using batteries, even in the extreme unlikelihood that they would be cheap enough to make any sense, cannot produce power on those days and weeks when there is little or no wind or sun.
Any down time required for a nuclear plant to refuel (less than 18 days every 18 months)is scheduled to coincide with periods of least power demand and do not affect its ability to meet peak demand in any way.
Anti-nuke folks have been the major cause of greenhouse gases in this country and global warming. They should be apologizing to the country, not posting nonsensical claims as posted on this blog.
If they had not provoked hysterical, ignorant fear, nuclear plants would have kept pace and would today provide more than 50% of our power, enough so that we would have zero need for any of the crappy, obsolete and useless technologies like wind and solar, both of which will be tossed into the dustbins of history as junk technologies. Anti-nukes have been responsible for global warming.

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Every single point made here doesn't apply to America's fast reactor, the PRISM design that could be built this year if the Obama administration decided to do it. It not only won't produce long-lived nuclear waste, but it can easily use existing stockpiles as fuel to produce electricity. The rest of the arguments are just as obsolete. Take a look at my website: http://www.prescriptionfortheplanet.com .

Welcome to the 21st century.

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Wow, never thought about it that way. I think you hit the nail on the head!

JT
Privacy Center

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The latest in nuclear power technology, Generation III plants, offer replicability, inherent safety, and great cost effectiveness. These powerplants can be mass produced and can roll off an assembly line like the Liberty ships in WW II. Nuclear power is coming to the underpowered parts of the world.
We are entering the Golden Age of nuclear power!
What a great age we live in!

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Do we just give up? Every source of energy has its downside. There's no magical way of generating oodles of energy without sacrificing something. Every energy source could be shot down just as violently as you just rejected nuclear energy. We don't need any more negative, depressing articles like this one, we need a solution.

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someone submitted this article to Digg - check out the comments here

the executive summary is that they ripped it to shreds

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Most progressives have it wrong. We are looking for the magic potion that will fuel our consumption yet be kind to the planet. Forget it. We need less energy. I herald the busting economy as I did the $4 gas last summer. Yes make us get real. Make us ride a bike. Make us wear a sweater in side. Make us grow some food and prepare a meal. Can a little dry a little. Have some courage and quit our jobs take a little risk enrich our lives and save the planet.And if it costs a bunch of us our lives think how much nicer it will be for the survivors and the planet.

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with all the present waste that they love so much. They'd be the perfect people to prove to the rest of us that nuclear waste is harmless.

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This is why we have these wonderful people called engineers who, if allowed to do their jobs, discover practical solutions to problems like these.

1. Smaller, cheaper plants that take less time to construct, with designs that require little to no on-site reprocessing of fuel are possible and are being investigated. While the Hyperion Power Module sounds suspiciously like vaporware, marine nuclear propulsion has taught us that reactors can come in many shapes, sizes, and costs while still doing their jobs with reliable safety.

2. Increased safety and proliferation resistance of newer plant designs should reduce risks substantially; an assortment of passively safe reactor designs could address this.

3. Plant designs prototyped as early as 1994 such as the Integral Fast Reactor would have consumed nuclear waste as a form of fuel, and generated smaller volumes of lower level waste. Older reactor designs are deliberately wasteful; why use plutonium for power generation when you can put it in nuclear warheads?

4. Refer to (1).

5. Refer to (3). Current reactors are mostly Cold War relics that have laughably inefficient fuel cycles, and were made to breed fuel for nuclear weapons and marine nuclear engines. The typical modern reactor only extracts five percent of the energy available in a volume of fuel. Designs such as the Integral Fast Reactor and the proposed Molten Salt Reactor could plausibly extract up to between ninety and ninety-five percent of the energy available in a volume of fuel. That increase in efficiency essentially extends the fuel supply by at least eighteen fold, provided that the majority of new reactors are modern designs and that modern designs are used to replace older reactors. Breeding Thorium into fertile isotopes of Uranium could dramatically improve our supply, and is also being vigorously investigated. (Perhaps in a back yard near you, or wherever David Hahn wandered off to.)

6. The silicon industry is a huge carbon emitter, too. Guess what solar cells are made of. Face it, until you can grow windmills and photovoltaic panels from the ground, there's no way around this one. By the way, has anyone told the world's volcanoes about carbon emission regulations, or are they just exempt?

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I mean it's reasonable to take a position on nuclear power, in opposition or support, but you should have some decent arguments if you're going to write a book or even a blog article on it.

1. Nuclear power plants have taken about 4-5 years to build and commission consistently in Asia in the last ten years. 20 years is simply wrong.

1(b) - if climate change is so damned important to act on, which I think it is, we will still be needing action in 20 years time anyway, and surely we can speed it up.

2. US nuclear power plants have liability insurance from private insurers, over $300million per reactor. Falsehoods will get you no respect.

3. Nuclear waste is a real argument, which makes it your first. But the idea that buried waste requires continuous energy to keep it underground is pretty stupid, and on the scale of industrial activity, less than a million tons is still a small quantity

4. Amery Lovins thinks coal and gas ("cogeneration") are cheap because he doesn't factor in any charge for carbon dioxide. And efficiency, while essential in the West, is not enough to counter climate change - it doesn't carry on being cheaper for very long - and does nothing to address energy poverty.

5. Current known reserves of uranium, without much exploration, are good for 85 years, and lower-quality ores are certainly feasible to use even at much higher extraction cost since fuel cost is not presently a major part of nuclear electricity cost.

6. The source I use for greenhouse gas impact is the EU Externe project results. The table on p17 in this document shows that nuclear and hydro are the lowest climate-impact choices. Nuclear is nowhere near the impact of any fossil fuel plant.

So, while I'd love to have a debate on nuclear power, it would be more stimulating if the arguments presented against were real.

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Most who know me see me as a hard core environmentalist, and I don't reject the label. I'm for what ticks the most boxes in pretecting the biosphere on which all life depends, and I think there's no escaping the fact that in many places, nuclear power will tick more boxes than anything else. It's hard to see for example, how the people of the Japanese archipeligo can get their energy needs met without nuclear or coal as a substantial part of it, even if they are a lot more frugal with power usage than now -- and frankly, nuclear is ahead of coal in my book. Show me something they can use that is better than nuclear, and I'll prefer that.

There are many places where nuclear simply won't be feasible for one reason or another, and in many cases this will be an economic question -- the sunk cost of coal plants militates against rapid replacement with nuclear -- somebody has to pay to retire these things and that entails a masive public subsidy. If you're going that way you might as well go with solar heliostats and molten salt(where insolation is adequate), wind, geothermal, wind, wave, waste biomass and NG --whatever you have to make the portfolio work.

When people speak of nuclear they usually think of uranium but they overlook an even more abundant source for nuclear -- thorium, which produces virtually no weaponizable Pu waste and can be used to consume existing Pu as the fissible material. Thorium is often found as a byproduct of monazite recovery sop very little extra energy needs to be used to reover it -- it's actually a waste product. Currently the US has enough thorioum oxide stored in Nevada to notionally power the entire planet for 3 years. The US abandoned thorium precisely because it produced nothing that could be used in weapons systems.

Interestingly, one nuclear armed and non-NNPT compliant state -- India -- has about 12% of the world's thorium oxide, but is buying uranium from the US.

Hmmm

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