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Hi guys,
I hope there is still interest in this old post.
Energy, and it's scarcity, is a problem that really cannot be averted. The problem will continue to get worse and I'm extremely pessimistic about the future. I'm sorry to be so bleak but there are a few issues at work here, some of which I see as being:
The US has about 3% (or there abouts)of the world's population, but consumes around 25% of the world's energy. Clearly the US and it's inhabitants could become more energy efficient! The problem is that even if US consumers and industry did reduce their consumption, lets say by half (and this would be a MASSIVE reduction), this "slack" will be taken up over the coming decades in the emerging economies, particularly India and China. India and China's populations are becoming increasingly affluent, and given that these markets are rapidly growing, given the numbers of people involved, this creates a huge capacity for further growth. Therefore, theoretically, the more affluent they become, the more companies will invest in those countries, the more buying power those countries have. We are seeing the effects of this on the US economy to some extent. US consumers buy cheap goods from China, China grow by supplying the US, and more and more US money goes to China. The point of all this is that generally as people become more affluent, they generally consume more energy as they purchase, a toaster, a fridge, an air conditioner, a car a washing machine, a television etc, etc, etc. So it's hard to see that, even if the US and other high per capita energy users made good reductions in their energy use, we could actually reduce our worldwide energy consumption.
In this post I'll address nuclear power.
Nuclear is a technology I used to be all for, but I'm starting to swing against its use as it creates a number of issues.
1) It is a myth that Nuclear power is carbon free - A lot of energy is used in the extraction of the uranium required to produce power. Furthermore, given that uranium is far less plentiful than coal, and deposits are less widespread, unless you site your power station near a deposit, chances are you will have to transport the uranium a long way to the power station, consuming a lot of energy, and burning a lot of hydrocarbons in the process. Admittedly you will produce less carbon dioxide than you might by burning fossil fuels, but it is most definitely not carbon neutral.
2) It actually isn't very cost effective - Once you factor in building costs, fuel costs, disposal of spent fuel, running costs and safety and security costs the financial advantage over fossil generation is negligible. But the big cost is in shut down. For example Calder Hall in Cumbria, England was opened in 1956, it ran for 50 years. It is estimated that it will take between 100 and 110 years to shut down an remediate the site! Some analysts predict that it will cost more to shut down the site than it ever made in energy sales (although the energy was sold at bargain basement prices). Ouch! You also have to ask why more than a few countries didn't invest in a big way in nuclear in the first place. With a few notable exceptions, the countries that invested in nuclear in the 50's, 60's, and 70's did so to provide fissile material to their nuclear weapons programs. They just happened to be able to offset the costs by selling the resultant energy. Energy production was rarely the motivating factor in building the reactors in the first place. There is evidence that Japan in particular invested in nuclear to become a "proxy" nuclear weapons state. Many analysts believe that Japan could screw together a nuclear device in a matter of months if the need arose. Don't you think that if nuclear power really WAS cheap more countries wouldn't have invested in it as a means of power generaion? The rising cost of fossil fuels will make nuclear power more attractive again but even with oil at or near $100 a barrel, nuclear power is still considered pretty expensive.
3) Proliferation - The more nuclear reactors there are generating power around the world, the more opportunity there is for terrorist, criminal or religious groups, not to mention "rogue states", to get their hands on nuclear material.
4) Storage of spent fuel - Nuclear fuel can remain radioactively dangerous for 100,000 years. A long time! Where do you put it and how do you put there in such a way that you can guarantee that it won't leak into the environment for 100,000 years?
5) Safety & security - Anyone want a repeat of Chernobyl in their neighbourhood? Didn't think so! Safety & security are of concern not only at the generation site, but also along the transportation route and at the storage facilities.
6) Uranium reserves - Given that less than 7% of the world's energy production in 1998 (source: US Geological Survey - http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/stats_ctry/Stat1.html#WProduction) was from nuclear, if we increased this by a large proportion we would soon be facing the problem of "peak uranium". Also, given that these figures are from 1998, and that there hasn't been a great investment in new nuclear power plants, it is safe to say that the proportion of energy produced in 2008 is actually lower than in 1998 given China and India's huge investment in power generation. This investment has almost invariably been in fossil powered stations (coal, gas, oil).
While a huge worldwide investment in nuclear power generation might seem like an answer to our energy woes, at best it will delay the inevitable energy crisis for a few decades. At worse we will have an ecological and security nightmare on our hands. Furthermore, nuclear power assumes that economies ill have the money to maintain and run them in a safe way. If the world economy falters, we may well be sitting on a truck full of ticking time bombs. Not a world I'd lie to live in! |
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