If true, this is a positive development BUT
the refinery shortage (thank the NIMBYs and ecofreaks) IS a big part of the problem as well as the wildly diverse local CLEAN AIR regs which require the refiners to produce multiple blends.
The current OIL PRODUCTION level is around 84 million barrels per day. Current world DEMAND is 87 million barrels per day -- and rising (thanks to the Chinese and others swapping their bikes and motorbikes for CARS).
We have at least a 3 million barrel per day shortfall.
The oil being taken from the ground today is from strikes discovered over 30 years ago: Very few NEW oil deposits are being found. ONE oil geologist (I THINK his name is Fox) has raised the prospect that geological forces are producing NEW oil and gas all the time and it is either forming NEW deposits or migrating thru fractures in the rock to the existing fields. That makes some sense but has yet to be confirmed by his peers. Even if true, it's hard to imagine that those replacement stocks can keep up with the growing demand.
What all this means is that we're headed toward ever-higher prices. That's the bad news.
The GOOD NEWS is that those higher prices are pushing us back toward some modicum of ENERGY SANITY where we will have no choice but to get on with NUCLEAR for stationary energy production. The Japanese SAFELY produce most of their power with nukes. Their plants are cookie cutter designs, making it easy to THOROUGHLY train their people in their safe operation. Even our good friends the French produce 80% of their juice with nukes!! And if THEY can do it, we sure as hell can.
One of the reasons electric rates in Georgia have remained some of the lowest in the nation is our half dozen or so NUCLEAR PLANTS. Many OTHER states NOT using nukes have switched from dirtier coal-fired plants to NATURAL GAS (NG)! It is absolutely NUTS to be burning a perfect – and finite -- mobile power fuel for a stationary application!
Even so, many power producers are using PEAKING PLANTS to cope with the summer air-conditioner demand. Those are generally jet engines strapped to a slab and coupled to an AC generator. They come up to speed and on line quickly when demand peaks. Those jet turbines burn FOSSIL FUEL (often NG).
What the move to nukes will do is free up the FOSSIL FUELS we DO have for MOBILE power applications (our vehicles). ANY internal combustion engine can be converted to run on NG or propane once a new tank is installed and (this is WHY the US hasn’t moved on this earlier) a CONSUMER SUPPLY INFRASTRUCTURE (GAS STATIONS!) is in place. NG also burns a hell of a lot cleaner and is easier on an IC engine than gasoline.
A few years ago, it was projected that there was around a 1,000 year supply of NG available under the GULF OF MEXICO at then current consumption. That was in the days when most major generating plants were coal fired. Even so, once we can get the nukes on line, that NG will become available for MOBILE applications. We need to get the nukes on line safely, of course, but 12 to 15 years to permit a new plant is just crazy! The technology proposed in the application is probably OBSOLETE by the time the thing is off the ground, adding countless millions to the project to bring it up with all the retrofits.
The concern about nuclear waste disposal is very real – but it is one we can and will solve. We MUST. If we are to maintain our living standard here, we have no choice. Even my bride – who is VERY vocal with her concerns on this topic – becomes silent when I ask her to imagine the lights going out and the A/C shutting down and remind her that the A/C here is almost certainly coming from a NUCLEAR PLANT up the road! The ladies LOVE their home A/C in August. So do I.
And, not incidentally, these current higher energy prices will put new legs under the quest for ALTERNATIVE fuel sources. We’re learning more and more about the physics of these new systems every day. I’m confident that our grandkids will be sitting behind the wheels of vehicles powered by systems we cannot even envision today. That has been the history of mankind – especially in the West -- throughout history.
And we can tell the Saudis and Venezuelans to DRINK the oil they have left – because we no longer need it!
Right before TMI popped there was a lot of research going on concerning so-called "fast-breeder" reactors. There was a government pilot project, I believe, at Clinch River, TN. I think that there was a concern that there wasn't enough fissile material (enriched uranium) to last more than a couple of hundred years based on early-70's projections.
I wonder if, when we start building reactors, we use old-designs or we start with some variation on the fast-breeder scheme? Anybody know?