A number of potential Canadian projects are not economic because the build up of infrastructure to support extraction is prohibitive - just as some Saudi oil fields go unexploited, because of remoteness, or poor quality of the oil in the field.
Using nukes to generate energy to refine the oil shales or oil sands would make economic sense if the nukes could be built and operated for substantially less than the value of the lode being mined. Apparently it is a toss up at this point, even with $60 barrel oil.
Not to mention the anti-capitalism that is rampant in this country that poses a dire threat and huge risk to any investment of capital, least it result in "windfall" profits tax, particularly in the evil "oil" industry. It will take a serious crisis for a majority of the population to start hanging the socialists in effigy, perhaps straighting these yuppies out. By then of course, it will be too late.
It does make sense to mine coal and burn it to cook corn to make ethanol. This is using a low rank fuel to make a high rank fuel. It does not make sense to burn natural gas to make ethanol. This is using a high rank fuel to make a high rank fuel.
I think you missed putting (usable) as in "100 btu's of (usable) energy" in the above sentence. Otherwise, it does not make sense, for all the reasons explained so well in the article.
Thank you for the last paragraph, which makes useful points about the need for education. With the MSM losing market share, I have hope for a better informed populace in the future.
I think this is where the author of the article would suggest you are wrong. If it takes 100 BTUs of energy in one form to produce 50 BTUs of energy in another form, it might make a lot of sense to capitalize on such a project if the first form of energy is very cheap and the second form is worth a lot of money.
Heck -- just look at all of the energy it takes to dig a ton of coal out of the ground in Wyoming, move it more than a thousand miles to the Midwest on a diesel-powered train, and burn it in a plant that generates electricity. That can't possibly make sense from an "energy consumed vs. energy produced" standpoint, but it must make sense from an economic standpoint because it's done all the time.
That depends, and your statement is too ambiguous to resolve the matter: Is your "50 BTUs extracted" gross energy, or net energy?
I highly recommend the author's book "The Bottomless Well" It has completely changed my understanding of the energy economy - and I work in the energy industry.
One of the key points in the book is mankind's eternal quest for higher concentrations and purer forms of energy. We do this becasue we can do more productive thngs with that energy.
For example, the energy path might lead from coal to electricity to more refined electricity to laser energy. Each step of the way there are losses in the form of heat, but since the laser energy is so valuable it makes economic sense to do so.
So to go back to your example, if that 100 BTUs of coal energy is used to make 50 BTUs of laser energy it does indeed make sense.
That is, the hydrogen in the hydrogen economy wouldn't be a resource even if it were useful.