On the first day of September and the start of the most beautiful time in the northern hemisphere — the Time of Months Ending in -Ber — let’s play a game.
A small supplement to your second paragraph might read the following:
“And because these causes are absolutely necessary to prevent global climate Armageddon, it’s irrelevant to even mention said government is currently $32.8 trillion, or approximately $250,000 per taxpayer, in debt.”
Yes indeed. I understand many have “cried wolf” for years regarding this ever growing debt, and yet we have continued to plod along without horrendous consequences. Therefore the numbers can be dismissed as irrelevant. However, I believe they do matter and have concerns a so called “tipping point” is a non-trivial possibility.
FINITE Flammable Fossils (FFF’s), sunlight buried over thousands of years but extracted 10 million times faster than sequestered. Daddy when your generation were supposed to be transitioning to rebuildables, sorry daddy renewables, you say it didn’t work because people wouldn’t give up on increasing their lifestyles, and so continued increasing consumption of FFF’s. You’ve told me not to waste energy, switch the lights off, only cook when we need to, rap up to keep warm, and justify why I need driving somewhere because energy is so expensive and hard to get, yet you and mummy daddy consumed energy like there was no tomorrow ignoring that it was FINITE, and so now my future looks bleak. Why daddy did you have me knowing what I would be facing “The Great Simplification”. I’m really sorry pet it all seemed so good at the time, they told us Conventional and Small Modular Reactors using Fission, and Hi tech Fusion would be too cheap to meter, but it never materialised, I’m so, so, sorry Pet😞🤔
Who told anyone Nuclear power would be "Too cheap to meter". Engineering analysis at the time projected Nuclear fission power would be competitive with coal & gas. And that projection proved to be accurate:
The USA was completing one NPP per month by 1974. If that rate had continued, if the blockade against Nuclear hadn't been instituted, the USA would have been 100% zero emissions nuclear electricity by 2000. And Utilities weren't building them due to subsidies or Climate Change, they were building them because they were the most economical and most reliable electricity source, more than Coal or Gas. Of course Big Oil & King Coal both loved the nuclear boycott. And now Mercenary ENGOs that oppose Nuclear power are being funded by Big Green along with Big Oil and King Coal.
So it would take 40yrs to replace all energy supplies with Nuclear. What's the big hurry?
And China went from 12,470 TWh primary energy supply in 2001 to 43,791 in 2021, 54% Coal, that's a 3.5X increase in 20yrs. What you think nuclear is more difficult than Coal? It ain't. Nuclear is easier. These people who have been deluded into thinking Nuclear is Rocket Science. It ain't. Coal is harder. There just has been a boycott against Nuclear, the usual Zero Sum game, and all the big players just despise the new-kid-on-the-block and don't want him to rise to their level or god forbid even surpass them.
With just the Uranium & thorium mineable on the Earth's land surface would power our civilization for a 100Myrs.
Historical hindsight is a wonderful thing. In case it’s escaped your attention majority of governments who have NPP’s, and maybe citizens with the knowledge and technology to build them are to all intense and purposes broke, as yet they won’t admit to it. Whilst they hold the knowledge and technology, there aren’t enough with nuclear construction knowledge for a renaissance. This is common knowledge spelt out in numerous places, books and papers. “No nation on earth has ever been able to launch or maintain a nuclear program without huge and continuing subsidies [tax breaks]. Nuclear power, in other words, never pays for itself; absent a stream of government handouts, it doesn’t make enough economic sense to attract enough private investment [where are the institutional investors falling over themselves to get a slice of the action] to over its costs, much less meet the huge and so far unmet expenses of nuclear waste storage, and in the great majority of cases, the motive behind the program, and the subsidies, is pretty clearly the desire [USA] of local government to arm itself with nuclear weapons at any cost” — Dark Age America - John Michael Greer.
But don’t just listen to me: ‘Irina Slav’ a few months ago, appeared on Robert Bryce’s “Power Hungry” a promoter of nuclear power, check his site out for those he’s invited on his program, either with expertise or working in the nuclear industry, it’s not all rosey, especially now (Russian/Ukraine conflict) around access to, processing and enrichment of uranium nuclear fuel, and where on earth do you get 100Myrs, check out Dr Simon Michaux on what he says about a nuclear renaissance and in particular Uranium supply🤔
China is doing just fine, building reactors in 4yrs @ $2400/kw, cheaper than any other form of energy, which is why they are on a NPP building boom, 150 reactors in 15yrs. Their CAP1400 produces power at 6 cents/kwh and heat @ $6/GJ in CHP mode, with NG heat @ $15/GJ.
The real way to build nuclear though is in factories, SMRs. The 100% corrupt NRC (Nuclear Rejection Commission) will not allow it:
Energy Future Unveiled! THORIUM Molten Salt Reactors, Copenhagen Atomics:
PWRs were never the right way to build commercial Nuclear Power. That screwup occurred by putting military cement heads in charge of commercial Nuclear Power, right from the beginning. They demanded PWRs because they worked good in their submarines. Yes, small cores using weapons grade uranium, yep, that works. Not so for commercial NPPs.
John Michael Greer is an Astrologer, Freemason, a fan of the occult & historian with zero tech knowledge or qualifications to be a reputable critic of Nuclear Energy.
Simon Michaux is putting Nuclear at an EROI of 15:1 and 5:1 including Uranium mining & enrichment, using the totally debunked schlock Storm van Leeuwen & Smith data. All the modern analysis using centrifuge enrichment put GenII nuclear without fuel reprocessing @ ~75:1. With CANDU's at ~120:1. Analysis of GenIV like MSRs or LSFRs upwards of ~300:1, some analysis putting MSRs @ 2000:1.
Weissbach puts the EROI of a GenII PWR @ 70:1 for a 60yr lifespan. 61% of the input energy is spent on the fuel cycle. Going closed cycle could eliminate almost all of that.
Cal Abel puts pyroprocessing of spent fuel at an EROI of ~9000:1. MSRs with fuel reprocessing at upwards of 1000:1
And then Michaux states:
"...We already discussed the uranium question and found that it was not possible to transition the world to 100% nuclear power without exhausting literally every possible source of uranium by year 2095 with Gen. II reactors, by year 2101 with Gen. III+ reactors, or by year 2194 with unproven and conceptual Gen. IV reactors..."
"...IFR-type reactors extract 99.99% of the energy immanent in mined uranium but today's reactors extract only 0.6%. The price of uranium would contribute the same amount to the delivered electricity price from IFR-type reactors if it were to increase 167 fold. Uranium could be economically extracted from lower quality ores, or from seawater, where there is estimated to be at least a thousand times more than could be extracted from land. Another low-quality ore is coal-fired power plant waste, which contains nineteen times more energy in the form of uranium and thorium than was extracted by burning the coal. Thorium, four times more common than uranium, can be converted to fissile fuel by neutron transmutation in a fast-spectrum reactor...Nuclear fission is an effectively inexhaustible source of energy..."
And then he claims: "...unproven and conceptual Gen. IV reactors...", they are already running. He doesn't know what he is talking about. Blatant & overt dishonesty. He obviously, unquestionably has a personal agenda to promote.
Russia has been running their BN-800 sodium fast reactor since 2016 and their BN-600 since 1981 and is planning on building 3 BN-1200's and China is currently building 2 CFR-600 Sodium Fast reactors. Russia is planning on closing the fuel cycle with BN-1200's on their PWR's and expect the BN-1200's to be lower cost than their LWR's. India is just about finished their first Sodium Fast reactor and is also planning on closing their fuel cycle with their 500MWe fast reactors and PHWR-700 reactors eventually running on natural thorium.
You know “Less is More” and “If you can’t explain it simply you don’t understand it well enough” Albert Einstein.
Only ~20% of global energy is delivered in the form of Electricity, and only 2% of that is provided by non flammable fossils (renewables (alternative energy if you like)) of which nuclear energy is one. It’s going to take one hell of a nuclear power renaissance for nuclear power to make any impact to either reducing CO2 or meeting humanity’s energy needs.🤔
I’m quite aware on what’s on Robert Bryce’s Substack, I did say he promoted Nuclear Power, so he would say that wouldn’t he😊
Perhaps you should have followed up the pointers I gave in my last reply, so here it is again:-
But don’t just listen to me: ‘Irina Slav’ a few months ago, appeared on Robert Bryce’s “Power Hungry” a promoter of nuclear power, check his site out for those he’s invited on his program, either with expertise or working in the nuclear industry, it’s not all rosey, especially now (Russian/Ukraine conflict) around access to, processing and enrichment of uranium nuclear fuel, and where on earth do you get 100Myrs, check out Dr Simon Michaux on what he says about a nuclear renaissance and in particular Uranium supply.
And then there’re those concerned over nuclear security and proliferation should it gets into the wrong hands, check out this headline:-
Nuclear Gulf: Experts sound the alarm over UAE nuclear reactors
“From environmental disaster to a nuclear arms race, experts warn of layers of risks surrounding Barakah nuclear plant.”🤔
Brilliant. You didn't read anything I said. Like repeating your same Simon Michaux claim that I totally debunked. And amazing how you guys say: "It's the end of the World, there is no hope, we are running out of fossil fuel, billions will die". Next breath: "Those horrible UAE nuclear reactors, it might somehow (but we don't know how) contribute to nuclear arms, it has risks, it could Fukushima some day possibly, maybe, but not really, and kill nobody as Fukushima didn't kill anybody, whereas combustion fuels kill 13M/yr"
As for rate of growth of nuclear, I already explained that to you in my first post, and as usual you just ignored it, and repeated the same nonsense I just debunked.
If you want more, France replaced 88% of their domestic electricity supply with nuclear in 20yrs, and 40% of their primary energy consumption. And these are old school one-at-at-time construction. And this was in the midst of an Arab Oil Embargo and NG shortage. Factory produced molten salt reactors could easily be ramped up to the 10 of thousands per year. As I posted above but you ignored, as usual.
And as for Nuclear Fission supply. Thorium is 9.6ppm and Uranium is 2.7ppm avg in the Earth's crust. You can mine easily up to 3000m. Earth Land Area is 148M sq. km. So (9.6+2.7) = 12.3ppm. Thus 12.3e-6 x 148e12 x 3000 x 3300 kg/M^3 = 1.8e16 kg. At 80e6 MJ/kg that's 1.44e24 MJ of energy or 4e14TWh. World primary energy consumption is 168e3 TWh/yr. So 4e14/168e3 = 2.4Byrs. So taking into account efficiencies and losses certainly enough for a 100Myrs of current World Primary Energy Supply. With fusion, just burning the Deuterium in ordinary Earth water, would last until the Sun engulfs the Earth.
Conclusion: If you don't have anything rational to say, then don't say anything.
I’ve read all your comments. Firstly I’m not a doomster, annihilationist, nor Anti-Nuclear, I’m agnostic when it comes to AGW, but do lean in that direction purely on a risk assessment basis, and I’m a pragmatic realist when it come to Nuclear Power. I advocate use of Rebuildables (Renewables/Alternative Energy) but not carte blanche for every country and everywhere within, and only where it can be shown to give best performance and return on capital inclusive of recyclability, and not for prestige or greenwashing purposes. See Rebuildables as a supplementary source of energy within an integrated system that may compliment FINITE Fossil Fuels and Nuclear along with other forms of alternative energy.
Admittedly “John Michael Greer is an Astrologer, Freemason, a fan of the occult & historian”, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying he has zero tech knowledge or qualifications to be a reputable critic of Nuclear Energy. All you need is a basic understanding of economics, inflation, and the many broken and unfulfilled promises the Nuclear Power Industry has made👇. But maybe you’re saying it’s his belief system that discounts him from being taken seriously, in which case what religion do you have to believe in to be taken seriously, not everyone’s an atheist.
Daily Telegraph 17 Feb 2023: Headline “Britain’s flagship nuclear plant scrambles to avoid cash crunch”:- “EDF added that Hinkley Point C is now expected to cost £32bn owing to inflation, up from a previous estimate of £26bn. The project was initially expected to cost £18bn when approved in 2016.” And… “The project was originally due to open in 2025 and cost £18bn, but has been delayed and is now expected to open in June 2027 and cost £25bn-£26bn, equivalent to £32bn at today’s prices given inflation.”😱
Only used J.M Greer as had his book to hand and felt his view was eloquently put, there’re many others I could have quoted from but they took a couple of pages to say same thing. One that springs to mind is Vaclav Smil (presumably you have heard of him) he says similar about the nuclear industry pointing to “scale and complexity” something you seem to think that just because you can maybe do the calculations, produce a design and construction brief they can just as easy be constructed on the same time scale😊
You have not debunked Simon. Michaux, you only think you have.
Please don’t tell my what China is doing and can do (and they do do some amazing things) if you want to live in a country (and this is not a criticism of their political ideology) where its citizens do as they’re told (and it might be for their own good) and don’t have property rights, then maybe I could agree with you, but I, and believe you too live in a democratic country with laws, rules, planning laws and permitting regulations, where it’s citizens views and votes are taken into account.
Engineers rarely make good politicians or accountants, I know I was one, sometimes when given a project it was evident at the start that there was insufficient funding or time given for the project to be successful, the choices were, ask for more and get told “if your saying it can’t be done at that cost within the deadline, then we’ll allocate it to someone else”. Other times there was more than enough in the budget and time allocated, but no one was interested in saving money or finishing before delivery target (everyone’s a socialist at heart). And of course accountants expect (hope) client will change design brief (something when scientists involved they forever do) and they won’t be caught out by inflation👆.
Globally only ~20% of energy is supplied in the form of electricity, and only ~2% of that is provided by Renewables/Alternative Energy of which Nuclear Power is one, leaving ~80% still reliant on flammable fossils. So it’s going to have to be some Nuclear Renaissance to break into that 80%🤔
Nate Hagens’ great simplification theory is interesting and it is clearly a thoughtfully derived idea, but I am quite convinced his conclusion is incorrect. But the important part is that he talks and writes his point of view politely. You have failed to do that here.
Nate Hagens belief, both shared and endorsed by many of his site’s eminent guests is that since humanity discovered how to utilise FINITE Flammable Fossils (FFF’s) in drawing on its billions of Energy slaves (see below) humanity in lock step with, population and (in pursuit of) GDP have increased exponentially, which has led to humanity overshooting the Earths carrying capacity, resulting in the destruction of many of the other life forms that humanity shares Earth with, all in pursuit of GDP (efficiency, productivity and progress), and that we’re now fast approaching a time when FFF’s will no longer be available in the quantities we’ve come to expect and at a price the majority of users/consumers can afford thus leading to “The Great Simplification” providing awareness, education and knowledge to enable humanity to adjust to lower levels of energy and living within its sustainable resources before its too late. SO “RATIONALISTA” WHERE IS NATE INCORRECT ?
FINITE Flammable Fossils Energy Slaves:
1 Barrel of Oil = 5.7 million BTU or 1,760 kWh.
1 human does 0.6 kWh per workday, x 250 days per year.
1 Barrel = 11 years of work *0.45 efficiency = 4.8 years.
The World uses *100 billion boe per year.
100 billion *4.8 = 480,000,000,000.
This is not contentious: Nate Hagens - “Energy Blindness - The Great Simplification”
=========
And in the above context: Where is my story’s view based on a future of diminishing FFF Energy IMPOLITE ?🤔
As explained, I am familiar with the great simplification arguments, and even an occasional fan of his show. Nobody needs you to rewrite them in a long screed, and you aren’t going to convince anyone you are correct in this way.
I’m all for constructive criticism, but there’s little in your comments that I can learn from, perhaps you’re of the ‘X’, fka ‘Twitter’, school of captiousness.
You say:
“and even an occasional fan of his show. Hmm only occasionally, so a ratings flip flopper then ?
“Nobody needs you to rewrite them in a long screed” Maybe, but was only making sure we were reading from the same song sheet.
“you aren’t going to convince anyone you are correct in this way” Sorry In what way and what 🤷♂️, At least quote me so I know what you’re referring to, even ‘X’ers’ have ability to do that🤔
This Climate Change "problem" reminds me of door-to-door encyclopaedia salesmen:
Salesman: "You gotta problem!"
Customer: "Really? What is it?"
Salesman: "Yup. You need more knowledge!"
Customer: "Oh, my! I didn't know that!"
Salesman: "See? You can solve your problem by buying these books here - give me some of your money - and you'll get more knowledge!
Customer: "Wonderful! How much are they?"
Salesman: "Well, getting more knowledge is worth every penny, no? Just sign here and pay me a small down payment now and you'll get the bill later. You'll be MUCH smarter. I promise. I PROMISE."
In my view, the Climate Change™ ideology is the biggest pyramid scheme the world has ever seen, with money going from the less wealthy to the more wealthy, via the power of government.
And that's the worst part. It's all supported & backed by government, the very entity that is supposed to protect us against schemes like that.
The governments are bought and paid for. The only difference between modern democracy abd authoritarianism, to me, is that in a democracy, big business controls the government while in an authoritarian regime, the government controls big business. In both cases they're on the same side.
Ultimately, it's kissee-kissee, "you kiss my ring, I'll kiss yours" between Big Business and Government. Why? Well, money loves money, no matter who it is.
For most of human history, it's been Big Religion and Government making kissee-kissee or even one and the same. Lately, however, Big Religion has faded and been replaced with Big Business.
No matter, though, the pyramid scheme empowered by government still bulls its way through society.
"The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."
- Sha'ul Paulos of Tarsus
"For the Day will not come until after the Apostasy has come and the man who separates himself from Torah has been revealed, the one destined for doom. He will oppose himself to everything that people call a god or make an object of worship; he will put himself above them all, so that he will sit in the Temple of God and proclaim that he himself is God."
I suspect your imagination game will turn out to be pretty serious when we get our future electric bills.
I'm trying to get as much wood into the woodshed as possible, before winter. But don't worry - I was able to replace my old woodstove with a newer, more efficient one last year, so I won't be polluting the atmosphere too much.
More and more scientists, business execs and even former greenies are now telling the world if the world would listen the current sun and wind electrical generation cannot and supply us. Heck we cannot even support the current manufacture and sale of EV's as you cannot plug them in. Jim is a good friend of mine and got an EV early. He had to replace his batteries and the cost is only 28 grand. I did not believe him, so he posted it on my wife's Facebook site. LOL he bought a new hybrid this time. There is nothing you or I can do except stop polluting. Climate change has always been and always will change. Even the scientists not working for the greenies stated in several papers this year the Volcano activity has cause more harm than all of us combined. Blasphemy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brilliant, Irina. One of your best since we joined Substack. Truly.
Well done!
Thank you!
No warning and no discernible reason -🤣🤣. If you were wearing your ass for a hat I suppose you might not have seen the warnings.
Good one Irina. Fun to stretch the imagination a little
Well, asses for hats are all the rage these days.
Wow, just...., WOW!!! Out of the park, Irina! You are truly an amazing writer, in every sense of the word.
Keep 'em coming!!!!
An angry writer is what I am. It's therapeutic to let it out occasionally. I'm flattered and happy to know these outbursts are so well received. 🤗
A small supplement to your second paragraph might read the following:
“And because these causes are absolutely necessary to prevent global climate Armageddon, it’s irrelevant to even mention said government is currently $32.8 trillion, or approximately $250,000 per taxpayer, in debt.”
A wonderful post. Thank you
Thank you, Douglas! The topic of U. S. debt is so massive and so scary it's worth a 10-part book series. I feel for all of you, truly.
Yes indeed. I understand many have “cried wolf” for years regarding this ever growing debt, and yet we have continued to plod along without horrendous consequences. Therefore the numbers can be dismissed as irrelevant. However, I believe they do matter and have concerns a so called “tipping point” is a non-trivial possibility.
I look forward to your future posts.
Love the sarcasm and irony, Irina. Thank you for a beautiful, maddening read!
Thanks,Todd! Mad's always better than sad and resigned.
FINITE Flammable Fossils (FFF’s), sunlight buried over thousands of years but extracted 10 million times faster than sequestered. Daddy when your generation were supposed to be transitioning to rebuildables, sorry daddy renewables, you say it didn’t work because people wouldn’t give up on increasing their lifestyles, and so continued increasing consumption of FFF’s. You’ve told me not to waste energy, switch the lights off, only cook when we need to, rap up to keep warm, and justify why I need driving somewhere because energy is so expensive and hard to get, yet you and mummy daddy consumed energy like there was no tomorrow ignoring that it was FINITE, and so now my future looks bleak. Why daddy did you have me knowing what I would be facing “The Great Simplification”. I’m really sorry pet it all seemed so good at the time, they told us Conventional and Small Modular Reactors using Fission, and Hi tech Fusion would be too cheap to meter, but it never materialised, I’m so, so, sorry Pet😞🤔
Who told anyone Nuclear power would be "Too cheap to meter". Engineering analysis at the time projected Nuclear fission power would be competitive with coal & gas. And that projection proved to be accurate:
The USA was completing one NPP per month by 1974. If that rate had continued, if the blockade against Nuclear hadn't been instituted, the USA would have been 100% zero emissions nuclear electricity by 2000. And Utilities weren't building them due to subsidies or Climate Change, they were building them because they were the most economical and most reliable electricity source, more than Coal or Gas. Of course Big Oil & King Coal both loved the nuclear boycott. And now Mercenary ENGOs that oppose Nuclear power are being funded by Big Green along with Big Oil and King Coal.
So it would take 40yrs to replace all energy supplies with Nuclear. What's the big hurry?
And China went from 12,470 TWh primary energy supply in 2001 to 43,791 in 2021, 54% Coal, that's a 3.5X increase in 20yrs. What you think nuclear is more difficult than Coal? It ain't. Nuclear is easier. These people who have been deluded into thinking Nuclear is Rocket Science. It ain't. Coal is harder. There just has been a boycott against Nuclear, the usual Zero Sum game, and all the big players just despise the new-kid-on-the-block and don't want him to rise to their level or god forbid even surpass them.
With just the Uranium & thorium mineable on the Earth's land surface would power our civilization for a 100Myrs.
Historical hindsight is a wonderful thing. In case it’s escaped your attention majority of governments who have NPP’s, and maybe citizens with the knowledge and technology to build them are to all intense and purposes broke, as yet they won’t admit to it. Whilst they hold the knowledge and technology, there aren’t enough with nuclear construction knowledge for a renaissance. This is common knowledge spelt out in numerous places, books and papers. “No nation on earth has ever been able to launch or maintain a nuclear program without huge and continuing subsidies [tax breaks]. Nuclear power, in other words, never pays for itself; absent a stream of government handouts, it doesn’t make enough economic sense to attract enough private investment [where are the institutional investors falling over themselves to get a slice of the action] to over its costs, much less meet the huge and so far unmet expenses of nuclear waste storage, and in the great majority of cases, the motive behind the program, and the subsidies, is pretty clearly the desire [USA] of local government to arm itself with nuclear weapons at any cost” — Dark Age America - John Michael Greer.
But don’t just listen to me: ‘Irina Slav’ a few months ago, appeared on Robert Bryce’s “Power Hungry” a promoter of nuclear power, check his site out for those he’s invited on his program, either with expertise or working in the nuclear industry, it’s not all rosey, especially now (Russian/Ukraine conflict) around access to, processing and enrichment of uranium nuclear fuel, and where on earth do you get 100Myrs, check out Dr Simon Michaux on what he says about a nuclear renaissance and in particular Uranium supply🤔
Again, you are using people who totally ignore the Nuclear Blockade, which is unquestionable, if you know anything about the subject. Read & Learn:
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/the-anti-industry-industry
China is doing just fine, building reactors in 4yrs @ $2400/kw, cheaper than any other form of energy, which is why they are on a NPP building boom, 150 reactors in 15yrs. Their CAP1400 produces power at 6 cents/kwh and heat @ $6/GJ in CHP mode, with NG heat @ $15/GJ.
The real way to build nuclear though is in factories, SMRs. The 100% corrupt NRC (Nuclear Rejection Commission) will not allow it:
Energy Future Unveiled! THORIUM Molten Salt Reactors, Copenhagen Atomics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27IntvWo4mo
PWRs were never the right way to build commercial Nuclear Power. That screwup occurred by putting military cement heads in charge of commercial Nuclear Power, right from the beginning. They demanded PWRs because they worked good in their submarines. Yes, small cores using weapons grade uranium, yep, that works. Not so for commercial NPPs.
John Michael Greer is an Astrologer, Freemason, a fan of the occult & historian with zero tech knowledge or qualifications to be a reputable critic of Nuclear Energy.
Simon Michaux is putting Nuclear at an EROI of 15:1 and 5:1 including Uranium mining & enrichment, using the totally debunked schlock Storm van Leeuwen & Smith data. All the modern analysis using centrifuge enrichment put GenII nuclear without fuel reprocessing @ ~75:1. With CANDU's at ~120:1. Analysis of GenIV like MSRs or LSFRs upwards of ~300:1, some analysis putting MSRs @ 2000:1.
Weissbach puts the EROI of a GenII PWR @ 70:1 for a 60yr lifespan. 61% of the input energy is spent on the fuel cycle. Going closed cycle could eliminate almost all of that.
Cal Abel puts pyroprocessing of spent fuel at an EROI of ~9000:1. MSRs with fuel reprocessing at upwards of 1000:1
And then Michaux states:
"...We already discussed the uranium question and found that it was not possible to transition the world to 100% nuclear power without exhausting literally every possible source of uranium by year 2095 with Gen. II reactors, by year 2101 with Gen. III+ reactors, or by year 2194 with unproven and conceptual Gen. IV reactors..."
That is fabricated utter nonsense, see:
https://vsnyder.substack.com/p/five-myths-about-nuclear-power
"...IFR-type reactors extract 99.99% of the energy immanent in mined uranium but today's reactors extract only 0.6%. The price of uranium would contribute the same amount to the delivered electricity price from IFR-type reactors if it were to increase 167 fold. Uranium could be economically extracted from lower quality ores, or from seawater, where there is estimated to be at least a thousand times more than could be extracted from land. Another low-quality ore is coal-fired power plant waste, which contains nineteen times more energy in the form of uranium and thorium than was extracted by burning the coal. Thorium, four times more common than uranium, can be converted to fissile fuel by neutron transmutation in a fast-spectrum reactor...Nuclear fission is an effectively inexhaustible source of energy..."
And then he claims: "...unproven and conceptual Gen. IV reactors...", they are already running. He doesn't know what he is talking about. Blatant & overt dishonesty. He obviously, unquestionably has a personal agenda to promote.
Russia has been running their BN-800 sodium fast reactor since 2016 and their BN-600 since 1981 and is planning on building 3 BN-1200's and China is currently building 2 CFR-600 Sodium Fast reactors. Russia is planning on closing the fuel cycle with BN-1200's on their PWR's and expect the BN-1200's to be lower cost than their LWR's. India is just about finished their first Sodium Fast reactor and is also planning on closing their fuel cycle with their 500MWe fast reactors and PHWR-700 reactors eventually running on natural thorium.
You know “Less is More” and “If you can’t explain it simply you don’t understand it well enough” Albert Einstein.
Only ~20% of global energy is delivered in the form of Electricity, and only 2% of that is provided by non flammable fossils (renewables (alternative energy if you like)) of which nuclear energy is one. It’s going to take one hell of a nuclear power renaissance for nuclear power to make any impact to either reducing CO2 or meeting humanity’s energy needs.🤔
I’m quite aware on what’s on Robert Bryce’s Substack, I did say he promoted Nuclear Power, so he would say that wouldn’t he😊
Perhaps you should have followed up the pointers I gave in my last reply, so here it is again:-
But don’t just listen to me: ‘Irina Slav’ a few months ago, appeared on Robert Bryce’s “Power Hungry” a promoter of nuclear power, check his site out for those he’s invited on his program, either with expertise or working in the nuclear industry, it’s not all rosey, especially now (Russian/Ukraine conflict) around access to, processing and enrichment of uranium nuclear fuel, and where on earth do you get 100Myrs, check out Dr Simon Michaux on what he says about a nuclear renaissance and in particular Uranium supply.
And then there’re those concerned over nuclear security and proliferation should it gets into the wrong hands, check out this headline:-
Nuclear Gulf: Experts sound the alarm over UAE nuclear reactors
“From environmental disaster to a nuclear arms race, experts warn of layers of risks surrounding Barakah nuclear plant.”🤔
Brilliant. You didn't read anything I said. Like repeating your same Simon Michaux claim that I totally debunked. And amazing how you guys say: "It's the end of the World, there is no hope, we are running out of fossil fuel, billions will die". Next breath: "Those horrible UAE nuclear reactors, it might somehow (but we don't know how) contribute to nuclear arms, it has risks, it could Fukushima some day possibly, maybe, but not really, and kill nobody as Fukushima didn't kill anybody, whereas combustion fuels kill 13M/yr"
As for rate of growth of nuclear, I already explained that to you in my first post, and as usual you just ignored it, and repeated the same nonsense I just debunked.
If you want more, France replaced 88% of their domestic electricity supply with nuclear in 20yrs, and 40% of their primary energy consumption. And these are old school one-at-at-time construction. And this was in the midst of an Arab Oil Embargo and NG shortage. Factory produced molten salt reactors could easily be ramped up to the 10 of thousands per year. As I posted above but you ignored, as usual.
And as for Nuclear Fission supply. Thorium is 9.6ppm and Uranium is 2.7ppm avg in the Earth's crust. You can mine easily up to 3000m. Earth Land Area is 148M sq. km. So (9.6+2.7) = 12.3ppm. Thus 12.3e-6 x 148e12 x 3000 x 3300 kg/M^3 = 1.8e16 kg. At 80e6 MJ/kg that's 1.44e24 MJ of energy or 4e14TWh. World primary energy consumption is 168e3 TWh/yr. So 4e14/168e3 = 2.4Byrs. So taking into account efficiencies and losses certainly enough for a 100Myrs of current World Primary Energy Supply. With fusion, just burning the Deuterium in ordinary Earth water, would last until the Sun engulfs the Earth.
Conclusion: If you don't have anything rational to say, then don't say anything.
I’ve read all your comments. Firstly I’m not a doomster, annihilationist, nor Anti-Nuclear, I’m agnostic when it comes to AGW, but do lean in that direction purely on a risk assessment basis, and I’m a pragmatic realist when it come to Nuclear Power. I advocate use of Rebuildables (Renewables/Alternative Energy) but not carte blanche for every country and everywhere within, and only where it can be shown to give best performance and return on capital inclusive of recyclability, and not for prestige or greenwashing purposes. See Rebuildables as a supplementary source of energy within an integrated system that may compliment FINITE Fossil Fuels and Nuclear along with other forms of alternative energy.
Admittedly “John Michael Greer is an Astrologer, Freemason, a fan of the occult & historian”, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying he has zero tech knowledge or qualifications to be a reputable critic of Nuclear Energy. All you need is a basic understanding of economics, inflation, and the many broken and unfulfilled promises the Nuclear Power Industry has made👇. But maybe you’re saying it’s his belief system that discounts him from being taken seriously, in which case what religion do you have to believe in to be taken seriously, not everyone’s an atheist.
Daily Telegraph 17 Feb 2023: Headline “Britain’s flagship nuclear plant scrambles to avoid cash crunch”:- “EDF added that Hinkley Point C is now expected to cost £32bn owing to inflation, up from a previous estimate of £26bn. The project was initially expected to cost £18bn when approved in 2016.” And… “The project was originally due to open in 2025 and cost £18bn, but has been delayed and is now expected to open in June 2027 and cost £25bn-£26bn, equivalent to £32bn at today’s prices given inflation.”😱
Only used J.M Greer as had his book to hand and felt his view was eloquently put, there’re many others I could have quoted from but they took a couple of pages to say same thing. One that springs to mind is Vaclav Smil (presumably you have heard of him) he says similar about the nuclear industry pointing to “scale and complexity” something you seem to think that just because you can maybe do the calculations, produce a design and construction brief they can just as easy be constructed on the same time scale😊
You have not debunked Simon. Michaux, you only think you have.
Please don’t tell my what China is doing and can do (and they do do some amazing things) if you want to live in a country (and this is not a criticism of their political ideology) where its citizens do as they’re told (and it might be for their own good) and don’t have property rights, then maybe I could agree with you, but I, and believe you too live in a democratic country with laws, rules, planning laws and permitting regulations, where it’s citizens views and votes are taken into account.
Engineers rarely make good politicians or accountants, I know I was one, sometimes when given a project it was evident at the start that there was insufficient funding or time given for the project to be successful, the choices were, ask for more and get told “if your saying it can’t be done at that cost within the deadline, then we’ll allocate it to someone else”. Other times there was more than enough in the budget and time allocated, but no one was interested in saving money or finishing before delivery target (everyone’s a socialist at heart). And of course accountants expect (hope) client will change design brief (something when scientists involved they forever do) and they won’t be caught out by inflation👆.
Globally only ~20% of energy is supplied in the form of electricity, and only ~2% of that is provided by Renewables/Alternative Energy of which Nuclear Power is one, leaving ~80% still reliant on flammable fossils. So it’s going to have to be some Nuclear Renaissance to break into that 80%🤔
This is most certainly not how I was raised and I'm grateful to my parents for not raising me this way.
Nate Hagens’ great simplification theory is interesting and it is clearly a thoughtfully derived idea, but I am quite convinced his conclusion is incorrect. But the important part is that he talks and writes his point of view politely. You have failed to do that here.
Nate Hagens belief, both shared and endorsed by many of his site’s eminent guests is that since humanity discovered how to utilise FINITE Flammable Fossils (FFF’s) in drawing on its billions of Energy slaves (see below) humanity in lock step with, population and (in pursuit of) GDP have increased exponentially, which has led to humanity overshooting the Earths carrying capacity, resulting in the destruction of many of the other life forms that humanity shares Earth with, all in pursuit of GDP (efficiency, productivity and progress), and that we’re now fast approaching a time when FFF’s will no longer be available in the quantities we’ve come to expect and at a price the majority of users/consumers can afford thus leading to “The Great Simplification” providing awareness, education and knowledge to enable humanity to adjust to lower levels of energy and living within its sustainable resources before its too late. SO “RATIONALISTA” WHERE IS NATE INCORRECT ?
FINITE Flammable Fossils Energy Slaves:
1 Barrel of Oil = 5.7 million BTU or 1,760 kWh.
1 human does 0.6 kWh per workday, x 250 days per year.
1 Barrel = 11 years of work *0.45 efficiency = 4.8 years.
The World uses *100 billion boe per year.
100 billion *4.8 = 480,000,000,000.
This is not contentious: Nate Hagens - “Energy Blindness - The Great Simplification”
=========
And in the above context: Where is my story’s view based on a future of diminishing FFF Energy IMPOLITE ?🤔
“IMPOLITE ?🤔”. Yes.
As explained, I am familiar with the great simplification arguments, and even an occasional fan of his show. Nobody needs you to rewrite them in a long screed, and you aren’t going to convince anyone you are correct in this way.
I’m all for constructive criticism, but there’s little in your comments that I can learn from, perhaps you’re of the ‘X’, fka ‘Twitter’, school of captiousness.
You say:
“and even an occasional fan of his show. Hmm only occasionally, so a ratings flip flopper then ?
“Nobody needs you to rewrite them in a long screed” Maybe, but was only making sure we were reading from the same song sheet.
“you aren’t going to convince anyone you are correct in this way” Sorry In what way and what 🤷♂️, At least quote me so I know what you’re referring to, even ‘X’ers’ have ability to do that🤔
Excellent, excellent…
physics is a tough taskmaster. I wonder if politicians will ever learn (probably not.). thanks for some smiles into the weekend
My pleasure, Andy! And no, they won't learn. Until they are forced to learn.
Absolutely brilliant and spot-on.
This Climate Change "problem" reminds me of door-to-door encyclopaedia salesmen:
Salesman: "You gotta problem!"
Customer: "Really? What is it?"
Salesman: "Yup. You need more knowledge!"
Customer: "Oh, my! I didn't know that!"
Salesman: "See? You can solve your problem by buying these books here - give me some of your money - and you'll get more knowledge!
Customer: "Wonderful! How much are they?"
Salesman: "Well, getting more knowledge is worth every penny, no? Just sign here and pay me a small down payment now and you'll get the bill later. You'll be MUCH smarter. I promise. I PROMISE."
In my view, the Climate Change™ ideology is the biggest pyramid scheme the world has ever seen, with money going from the less wealthy to the more wealthy, via the power of government.
And that's the worst part. It's all supported & backed by government, the very entity that is supposed to protect us against schemes like that.
Who will arrest the sheriff?
The governments are bought and paid for. The only difference between modern democracy abd authoritarianism, to me, is that in a democracy, big business controls the government while in an authoritarian regime, the government controls big business. In both cases they're on the same side.
Agree.
Ultimately, it's kissee-kissee, "you kiss my ring, I'll kiss yours" between Big Business and Government. Why? Well, money loves money, no matter who it is.
For most of human history, it's been Big Religion and Government making kissee-kissee or even one and the same. Lately, however, Big Religion has faded and been replaced with Big Business.
No matter, though, the pyramid scheme empowered by government still bulls its way through society.
"The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."
- Sha'ul Paulos of Tarsus
"For the Day will not come until after the Apostasy has come and the man who separates himself from Torah has been revealed, the one destined for doom. He will oppose himself to everything that people call a god or make an object of worship; he will put himself above them all, so that he will sit in the Temple of God and proclaim that he himself is God."
- 2 Thessalonians 2 (CJB)
Another great story. The Germans have a word for the delicious emotions I feel right now.
So do the Bulgarians. 😁
One other comment. This is such wonderful satire that it reminds me of the brilliantly disturbing “Dr. Strangelove”.
I suspect your imagination game will turn out to be pretty serious when we get our future electric bills.
I'm trying to get as much wood into the woodshed as possible, before winter. But don't worry - I was able to replace my old woodstove with a newer, more efficient one last year, so I won't be polluting the atmosphere too much.
I didn’t say it, but I love to quote it: “Reality is what you run into when you’re wrong.” Dallas Willard
Superb read, Irina. I’m imagining running this by all these doe-eyed business executives.
Great Read Irina!
More and more scientists, business execs and even former greenies are now telling the world if the world would listen the current sun and wind electrical generation cannot and supply us. Heck we cannot even support the current manufacture and sale of EV's as you cannot plug them in. Jim is a good friend of mine and got an EV early. He had to replace his batteries and the cost is only 28 grand. I did not believe him, so he posted it on my wife's Facebook site. LOL he bought a new hybrid this time. There is nothing you or I can do except stop polluting. Climate change has always been and always will change. Even the scientists not working for the greenies stated in several papers this year the Volcano activity has cause more harm than all of us combined. Blasphemy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Of course, he’s right — the Germany of today has repeatedly demonstrated it does not need a backbone.”
This is gold!
Thank you! I must admit I was quite pleasantly surprised when I came up with it. :D