You’ll need to wait about a month or so. My colleagues and I should be ready by then.
Based on your responses to whit you’ll need it! LOL LOL!

Anyway, it just goes to show (i) that we’ll have more U mining in the near-future, not less (if it’s cheaper to make MOX from weapons Pu, then why mine it?), and that (ii) fast reactors that use depleted uranium and thorium as fuel are the way of the future, which allows nuclear power to be a million year+ power industry. Do you imagine this is something that is a revelation to us here? Pathetic.

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5631#more

The article is the first of four parts that examines the potential of nuclear energy to contribute to our future energy needs. Here is a quote that explains the layout:

“This analysis is split into four parts:
(I) the nuclear reality of today and its short term perspectives;
(II) the situation concerning secondary uranium resources;
(III) the existing data about “known” exploitable uranium resources;
and
(IV) status and perspectives of fast breeder reactors (fourth generation reactors) and why commercial fusion reactors will always be 50 years away.”

The author is “Dr. Michael Dittmar. Dr. Dittmar is a researcher with the Institute of Particle Physics of ETH Zurich, and he also works at CERN in Geneva.”

The first part indicates that there is a current and worsening shortfall in world uranium production that is only being balanced by use of fissionable material from other sources such as decommissioned nuclear weapons. The author also points out that this supplementary source is set to decline rapidly soon and that the USA is in an extraordinary state of dependence on Russia for this source. No wonder Obama was over in Russia talking about increased nuclear disarmament recently!

It is rather amazing how similar this story of wonky future estimates of uranium production sounds to the predictions of the IEA on oil and gas.

Check out the uranium price history at:

http://www.uxc.com/review/uxc_g_hist-price.html

I don’t know, I haven’t seen a paper on it.

But if it is technically feasible and it is not TOO expensive, then even WIND can become baseload! Given that the USA has enough potential cheap land wind power to supply its electricity needs 40 times over, and given HVDC lines open up the possibility of continent-wide grids, then even a wind powered super-grid becomes possible (even though countries would “mix and match” with complementary renewables supplying a mix of peak output times).

So, it’s now down to the economics of renewable baseload v nuclear. Have you found a reply to that SCIAM paragraph I linked to?

But to work out whether a fast reactor would cost MORE than a LWR, you have to balance this against the cost of long-term management of spent fuel (HLW), the cost of enrichment of U-235 (not required for HWR like the CANDU (or fast reactors), which are more expensive to build than LWR but cheaper to fuel), the cost of U-mining and fuel supply for LWR, the cost of building a pressure vessel rather than a reactor pool at ambient air pressure, etc.

So it’s not at all obvious which would win in the cost stakes. GEH are quite confident that the S-PRISM would be highly competitive with current Gen III designs, at <$2,000/KW overnight cost. See here:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/21/response-to-an-integral-fast-reactor-ifr-critique/#comment-7782

By the way, Gen IV nuclear can only work in time to seriously mitigate carbon emissions if it does it in synergy with Gen III. That much is now abundantly clear to me. I’ll have to blog about it soonish.

It will radically improve the IPAT equation maybe we won’t have to go through dieoff after all! ;-)

http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm

In a world where wind turbine blades could one day be built from a mix of charred chicken feathers and soy-bean glue, anything is possible. Well, almost. ;-)

http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/chicken-feathers-soy-beans-wind-turbine-blades/

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/07/trolleytrucks-trolleybuses-cargotrams.html

As to the same old economic argument against rebuilding… WW2!

“But Mr President, we can’t go to war with the Japanese, that might require us to ration some lifestyle choices, regear the economy to be grossly military… maybe even 38% of our GDP! Car companies wouldn’t be able to build cars, they’d have to do the IMPOSSIBLE and retool to build tanks! Stockings companies would have to build parachutes! Toy companies build compasses. Mr President, it CAN’T be done!”

I’m just not sure he’s right on the money thing! Is it that the way we create money is broken, or was it just being used poorly to create the world financial crisis? I think my mate Neil gives the answer a good go. Note: Neil is concerned about peak oil, population, and global warming and is a bit of a doomer lately, but it’s not because of your dodgie economics. He totally busts the ‘exponential debt = economy MUST grow or bankrupt’ myth.

From my mate Neil:

******

“Okay, I want to quote Wikipedia at you. Whoever wrote the opening
paragraph to the “Steady State” article got it in one. It’s really
important that you read it:

“The steady state is a condition of the economy in which output per
worker (productivity of labour) and capital per worker (capital
intensity) do not change over time. This is due to the rate of new
capital production from invested savings exactly equaling the rate of
existing capital depreciation. Exogenous growth models show how
economies will naturally tend to a steady-state. The steady-state is
generally associated with the Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert
Solow, who created the Solow Model in 1956.”

Look at this sentence again:

“This is due to the rate of new capital production from invested savings
exactly equaling the rate of existing capital depreciation.”

The phrase “new capital production” refers to businesses borrowing money
to invest in growth-producing economic activity.

But note that this equals “existing capital depreciation” – in other
words, investment in a profit-making enterprise is balanced out by
NON-INVESTMENT.

This seems to be a really hard concept for scientific non-economists to
grasp, but indulge me.

Let’s pretend we are in our steady state economy. Within this economy
there are businesses who are investing in order to profit and grow. Yet
at the same time there are businesses that are decaying and closing
down. The profit of the new businesses ends up being matched by the
losses of the old businesses.

(Steady state doesn’t imply that the economy is static. It’s still
dynamic, but the losses end up balancing out the profits)

So what’s happening to money at this point? With the fractional banking
system in place, the commercial banks are lending out money to the
profitable businesses. Money circulates around.

But at the same time, commercial banks are NOT lending money to the
businesses that are decaying.

Now this might confuse everyone. So let’s add numbers to it.

Let’s say that the amount the commercial banks lend out to the growing,
profitable businesses is $1 million. So what we have is $1 million that
needs to be paid back in interest later on. Let’s say the final figure
ends up being $2 million coming back by the time the debts are paid off.

So. We have to find an extra $1 million in the economy. Where does it
come from? This is the problem that seems to confuse people.

So. Profitable business = needs $1 million added to money supply.

But now let’s go to the decaying and shrinking businesses. What’s up
with them? What are they doing? Actually the important thing is what
they’re NOT doing. They’re NOT borrowing and they’re NOT spending.

And with all this NOT borrowing and NOT spending going on, their capital
deteriorates.

But what about money? If these businesses aren’t doing anything with it,
then they’re not adding to the money supply are they? That’s true, sort of.

And now for the whammy:

Profitable business = needs $1 million added to money supply.
Non-profitable business = adds zero money to money supply.

Therefore we have inflation of $1 million.

Right? No. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

The real equation is:

Profitable business = needs $1 million added to money supply.
Non-profitable business = causes $1 million to be subtracted from money
supply.

And that’s how it works.

Money is created by the actions of central banks and commercial banks.
Commercial banks create most of the economy’s money, but whenever a bank
decides to NOT lend it out they are NOT having a neutral effect on the
money supply but a NEGATIVE effect. Holding money and doing nothing with
it CAUSES THE MONEY SUPPLY TO SHRINK.

IN a steady state system, therefore, any lending to businesses at an
interest rate ends up being balanced out by the effects of NOT lending.

Here’s an adage I made up – if money is loaned into existence, then
logically it can be saved out of existence.”

This system is being rolled out in a country town in Qld instead of the usual liquid salt backup. Check it out.

http://beyondzeroemissions.org/lloyd-energy-systems-graphite-block-storage

You’ll need to wait about a month or so. My colleagues and I should be ready by then.

Yes peak oil could be rough, especially considering the fact that the global annual decline is just one figure to watch. Is it 7% per annum, 8%? What will it be? But REAL question could fall down to how the global oil MARKET is doing, which is a totally different thing. Consider the “Export Land Model” (google it) where exporting nations suddenly, post-peak, become importing nations because they have too much consumption at home. The wiki has some fairly alarming examples of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_Land_Model

Hopefully it will be in the main exporting nation’s economic interest to both sell “some” oil while rationing at home and scaling up the electric transport systems we’ll need for the future.

However, arguing that there won’t be ANY money to build nukes / solar / what have you in a post-peak Greater Depression world is counter-intuitive to me.

Right when the world has finally “Got” that we are running out of oil, gas, and coal, the doomer argues that there won’t be any money for it? Amazing. Yes there may be oil rationing, emergency government aid to building programs, and general “nasty times ahead” but the one thing I can’t imagine society doing is failing to dig in and find the money and do whatever it takes to keep the electricity flowing.

This kind of emergency economy could also alleviate the unemployment crisis. When was the Hoover Dam built? ;-)

Sure we might hit a “Greater Depression”. But consider WW2 and how quickly the USA government turned their whole economy into the mighty military industrial complex. Wasn’t their military budget down in single digits of GDP before the war, which then exploded to something like 38% of GDP by the end of WW2? In just 4 years?

I’m expecting something similar if depletion get really funky, but geared to a “war” on our dependence on oil. And once the government marches in saying “THIS” is what we are doing (whether cheap Gen4 — which I still need to be convinced IS cheap considering the recent SCIAM article — or baseload solar thermal with graphite block backup, or what have you), then the market adjusts and employment is created and money starts flowing again and we adjust.

So hard times yes, but you can’t deny that:
1. Electric transport systems are on their way (check this peaknik site’s rave about trolley buses being 5 times cheaper than trams and FAST to put up, and an interesting historical piece on trolley trucks)
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2009/07/trolleytrucks-trolleybuses-cargotrams.html

2. Alternative baseload renewables or nuclear are not only fantastic sources of electricity, but will create jobs and gear the economy in a new direction, and are improving all the time.

I think you could do with downloading iTunes and subscribing to the free, Melbourne based “Beyond Zero Emissions” podcast, and especially the episode on graphite block baseload solar thermal. (Which can also be geared up for making wind baseload as well — but storing wind’s electrons as heat and then converting back to electrons is not as efficient as the way solar thermal stores the heat DIRECTLY into the graphite blocks.)
http://beyondzeroemissions.org/lloyd-energy-systems-graphite-block-storage

You can conclude what you want, Doomer. The next debate I launch into will not be of this kind, and will have considerably more moment. I’ll see you there.
Ooh, can’t wait! :D

Ed: Agreed, I’ve removed the offending sentence from that comment