Material & energy inflation is far less significant for Nuclear than wind & solar since nuclear uses ~ 1/20th of the material inputs of wind/solar. And the EROI of nuclear is 75:1 to 120:1 CANDU upwards to 2000:1 MSR & FSB reactors with a closed fuel cycle vs Solar 0.8 to 6:1, Wind 10-16:1. Not including long distance transmission or sto…
Material & energy inflation is far less significant for Nuclear than wind & solar since nuclear uses ~ 1/20th of the material inputs of wind/solar. And the EROI of nuclear is 75:1 to 120:1 CANDU upwards to 2000:1 MSR & FSB reactors with a closed fuel cycle vs Solar 0.8 to 6:1, Wind 10-16:1. Not including long distance transmission or storage.
Little old Ontario produces CANDU reactors far cheaper than wind or solar with a 96% domestic supply chain. So it can be done.
Chris Adlam, a senior analyst and cofounder of Canadians for Nuclear Energy joins me for an in depth discussion on the Case for the CANDU reactor:
Very good podcast. It’s regrettable that nuclear power was so ineptly defended for forty years. The dangerous stigma it carries to this day was never warranted and so it is gratifying to see so many strong advocates speaking up.
Having had opportunity to view your link of Decouple Media’s - conversation between Chris Keefer and Chris Adlam - The Case for Candu - YouTube. I’m afraid if this is your evidence for the defence of Nuclear Power, it has only confirmed my reservations that there will not be a renascence in the proliferation of Nuclear Power. I’m wondering if you actually viewed the whole conversation as the discussion between Chris Keefer and Chris Adam’s the first 50 mins was reasonably professional but the last 30 mins was likened to a game of Top Trumps played by enthusiastic hobbyists with this and that type of conventional NPP, SMR, Mini and Micro NPP’s, treating costs in the billions of $’s as though this money would just appear like magic, and deliverability with all that that entails as though it was a certainty, when in fact there’s a long long way to go, meaning probably decades, hence my original comment regarding primary material, energy costs and related inflation, and all of this of course excludes dealing with storage of toxic waste and end of life decommissioning issues🤔
They've already blown $5T on wind & solar with zero results. In the name of climate change emergency. Why on the Earth do you think that couldn't be spent on nuclear instead? Which unlike wind & solar actually works. Proven to work. And uses 1/20th the material inputs of wind & solar. So no, material, energy costs are not the issue, that applies to all energy sources, even more so to fossil, wind, solar & hydro. And with energy prices rising much faster than inflation that means ROI for REAL energy sources that don't emit carbon are easily the most rational choice for new energy builds.
Surprised you brought out the old Greenpeace dodges about spent nuclear fuel and decommissioning. Both are utter nonsense and have been debunked about a million times. If you have to resort to that, then it is obvious you don't even believe your own argument.
I notice you didn’t challenge my views on conversation between Chris Keefer and Chris Adlam - The Case for Candu - YouTube.
Anyways I dislike BURNING of Coal, Oil; lesser so Gas. Coal, Oil and Gas are double edged swords as they provide material feedstocks for chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics etc, Solar Panels (PVP’s), Wind Turbines (WT’s), Biomass, Nuclear don’t. And so I advocate the use of integrated energy systems using all sources of energy, not supplied solely as Electricity: Globally only ~20% of Power is supplied as Electricity, and only ~2% of that is from alternative energy and that includes Nuclear, leaving ~80% provided by flammable fossils.
Wherever large sums of public (Tax Payers) money or favourable terms like licensing is available I’m afraid, corruption and crony ponzi capitalism reigns, it’s not just isolated with RE’s: PVP’s and WT’s etc.
If NPP’s were such a good deal with no issues one would expect the private sector to be falling over themselves to build them, but they aren’t, and no private company underwrites NPP’s from a major release of radioactive or toxic waste, or where necessary take custodianship of radioactive waste for millennia.
You cannot build NPP’s at present time without FF’s help
When Oil depletes to point it’s no longer economically extractable, which in a human lifetime may not be that far away, we’ll be on the road to “The Great Simplification” irrespective of NPP’s🤔
So that's what your buddy Klaus Schwab is calling it now "The Great Simplification". Why don't you guys just come up with a term for it and stick to it. I mean we have "UN Agenda 2020" --> "The Green Agenda" --> "The Green New Deal" --> "UN Agenda 2030" --> "The Great Reset" --> "Build Back Better" --> "The Great Simplification".
Your views on The Case for CANDU video are more nonsense. The last 30min discussion was on the various SMRs being developed in Canada vs building large CANDUs instead as well as the very serious & relevant debate on economies of scale in size vs scale in number of units built.
They rightly stated that Ontario is dumb to build a BWRX-300 SMR at Darlington. That's the location to build large CANDUs, likely EC9's. There is lot's of good locations for the BWRX-300 in areas with lower demand like New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan.
The basic scaling problem for SMRs is the old chicken & egg situation. To make them competitive with large NPPs you need to make them in large factories pumping out dozens even hundreds per year. For that you need large demand. For that you need competitive cost. Chicken & egg. The way that is overcome is exactly what was done with wind & solar. Government subsidized their scale up with large orders, that financed the giant factories all over the World that now produce the Wind & Solar. Now they are mature tech, no need for the subsidies, but instead the subsidies are not just remaining but increasing.
It is true that World electricity demand is only 17% of World Primary Energy consumption, but that is the highest value component of energy. Advanced Western nations, like Norway, electricity is 70% of primary energy. Moving to electrify a lot of transportation and building heat/hot water could move that everywhere to ~70% of primary energy. Nuclear is quite capable of supplying the rest of the energy with heat directly, especially with high temperature reactors (PBGCRs, LSFRs, MSRs), Cogeneration, Nuclear hydrogen and Nuclear synthetic methanol.
The wise thing to do is conserve Oil & Gas for the chemical industry, i.e. fertilizer, plastics etc. Use nuclear for energy.
You are using the usual Greenie ridiculous cognitive dissonance excuses. Yup, "its the end of the World", "The Great Simplification", "the economy will collapse", "the end is near" but when someone says just build NPPs instead. Then the shouting begins: "the nuclear waste", "Fukushima" "radiation", none of which has killed anybody in Commercial nuclear power ever. But its the end of the world.
The only reason Nuclear didn't continue replacing fossil energy as it was in the 60s to early 80s is because of the same old corruption. The PTB stopped the nuclear build.
And again saying you need FF to build Nuclear is nonsense. It would certainly help to have fossil, especially petrochemicals, but that would be a tiny fraction of current fossil production. Insignificant.
Klaus Schwab 🤣😂🤣 I’m afraid you’re suffering from conspiracy theory syndrome, have you checked under your bed lately. I’m aware Schwab coined a phrase The Great Reset which I was rather surprised about as for some years before that the phrase was in vogue was and still is used by John Mauldin a noted financial expert, check him out on Wikipedia or whatever, John Mauldin now makes quips about Schwab stealing it from him. But the phrase “The Great Simplification” is associated with Nate Hagens (check it/him out, Google it see what pops up) explores money, energy, economy, and the environment with world experts and leaders to understand how everything fits together, and where we go from here. I would provide a link but very often when I’ve provided links I either loose the posting or the link’s deleted. But “The Great Simplification” if Schwab’s decided to use it would be plagiarism.
I’m even more convinced that you haven’t viewed Chris Keefer and Chris Adlam - The Case for Candu video you’d linked, from end to end, oh yes you can quote from it now, now that you’ve viewed it, probably last 30 mins, but come on with all the laughing and joking it was a game of Top Trumps not a serious discussion on a serious subject.
Norway a country with a large landmass compared to its very small population, and country well known for its high mountain plateaus, abundant natural lakes and steep valleys and fjords, Norway's topography lends itself perfectly to hydropower development plenty of opportunity for hydro electricity, but whose wealth is instead well embedded into the Oil industry, it won’t give that up lightly.
Sorry, you need FF’s to build your Nuclear Plants, tell me when you’ve built your all Nuclear Power civilisation, creating Concrete, Steel, Glass, Fertilisers, Plastic, Pharmaceuticals, and replaced all the diesel mining and construction equipment, and vehicles, and trains and boats and planes. And while you’re thinking about it you might like to read one of the many books Vaclav Smil’s written, I can recommend Energy And Civilisation A History, and one of his latest “How The World Really Works” Smil apart from being a polymath is also a prodigious writer, and basically says when it come to transitioning for our current FF civilisation to another the problem is that of scale and complexity🤔
What's with this obsession of yours with the Case for Candu video? I did watch the whole video I don't know what your gripe is. If you have something specific, say what it is and what time on the video and then I could respond, I can't read your mind.
I have watched Nate Hagens and especially when he has Art Berman on. I agree with most of what he says but as usual with those guys they mostly ignore Nuclear Energy or make all kinds of false statements about it. He also ignores Methanol. This after the Nobel Prize winning chemist, George Olah, determined that the optimal substitute for fossil fuel is Methanol. And wrote a book about it "Beyond Oil & Gas: The Methanol Economy". He described how it is quite doable to replace fossil with Methanol as a fuel and chemical feedstock.
Nate knows very well that their disaster narrative falls apart when nuclear & methanol enters the equation so he doesn't like to talk about them or if he does, he will repeat the usual Greenpeace anti-nuclear claptrap. What he doesn't do is ask where Greenpeace gets their $400M/yr from. That's the real question. Why is that top secret?
You miss the point about Norway, that shows a nation can use electricity for most of its energy supply even at this rudimentary technological development stage. It doesn't matter what the source of the electricity is. Even the US is 38% electrical primary energy right now.
Sorry, you don't need Nuclear to make Nuclear Power plants. There isn't one thing you mentioned that can't be done with Nuclear energy. That is just a fun fact. In reality, you will always use fossil to some degree, rationally you would use it for the highest value applications which are chemical industries and jet fuel. Some diesel for isolated regions. Coal for steel making etc. No reason you would need to abandon that. It is a small portion of current production. You can also do a lot of that with biomass conversion.
So again, you always want to talk in extremes, like suddenly the PTB say: "we are shutting down all fossil fuel in 5yrs", then how would you ramp up nuclear. Of course that is implausible. If the PTB declared that the right move would bring back the guillotine for the PTB. Interesting how right now they could care less, but they insist on spending 10's of $trillions on the Wind/Solar/Hydrogen/Battery scam anyway. A total waste of capital. So why is that? Why aren't they even spending anything significant on R&D for advanced reactor tech? Why are they subsidizing wind & solar at >100X what nuclear gets per twh generated?
‘Twas you suggested I view the Case for Candu video, I did and I’ve said the first 50 mins was interesting, but the next 30 mins to me, maybe not to you, was a humerus game of Top Trumps of Nuclear Reactor (NR) types. Having read quite a number of peer review articles, and books, and watched similar videos, and debated with others on SM, on Conventional NR’s, Mini, and Micro NR’s some for Electricity Generation and others tailored for heating. It becomes apparent there’s not a consensus of which is the best. At the moment it seems the goal is be first to get US certification from which to build multiple units, in the lower KW and MW range on the assembly line principle, in the belief that scaling can produce cheaper and quicker NR’s. There are plenty far more qualified than myself who doubt this would be the case. One question raised has been if you produce NR’s on an assembly line in the form of PAU’s (Pre Assembled Units), turning out 1000’s of these NR’s and its found in operation there’s a design or component fault, will as happens in the auto industry, all operating NR PAU’s of that model type have to be shutdown and recalled in order to rectify the problem.
You mention Nate Hagens as though you’ve known of his work and ideology for sometime time, yet when I first made mention of “The Great Simplification” you associated it with “Klaus Schwab”, "UN Agenda 2020" --> "The Green Agenda" --> "The Green New Deal" --> "UN Agenda 2030" --> "The Great Reset" --> "Build Back Better" --> "The Great Simplification", but not Nate Hagens, how strange.
“The Great Simplification” with Nate Hagens explores money, energy, economy, and the environment with world experts and leaders to understand how everything fits together, and where we go from here. You’re probably aware Nate has a podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament. Conversation topics will span human behavior, monetary/economic systems, energy, ecology, geopolitics and the environment. The goal of the show is to inform more humans about the path ahead and inspire people to play a role in our collective future. Guests are from a wide range of scientists, leaders, activists, thinkers, and doers.
If you haven’t checked Nate out for some time maybe now might be a good time. following is just a small selection of those guests:-
Paul Martin: "Hydrogen - The Decarbonization Problem" | The Great Simplification #63
James Fleay: "What's the Deal with Nuclear Energy?" | The Great Simplification #74
Arthur Berman: "Peak Oil - The Hedonic Adjustment" | The Great Simplification #54
Simon Michaux (Mining and Minerals): “The Arcadians" | The Great Simplification #49
I won’t discuss Methanol that’s a whole different argument, I’ll just say it favours fuel for food, domestic animals over the wildlife we share this planet with, it ignores size of population, consumption and our ecological footprint and the quality of energy we’ve been used to living with.
Nate Hagens - The Great Simplification - Energy Blindness | Frankly #03
This isn’t maybe the answer you’re looking for but may give you a clue of where I stand on Renewable Energy (RE) and it’s not one built solely on RE: But, Yes RE can power a great civilisation, just not this one.
Energy = Life, and likewise, Energy = GDP. And so we should reflect on: “Labour without Energy is a corpse, Technology without Energy is a sculpture, and a City without Energy is a museum” - S.Keen/N.Hagens
I’ll just say ask or pose too many questions and you won’t get all the answers🤔
The main thing you are missing is there is Nuclear if our Rulers actually gave a damn about climate change (hint: they don't) or if they really cared about future energy shortages (double hint: they don't). All they do care about is:
1) profiting with minimal effort from energy scams that have no connection whatsoever with legitimate energy markets, i.e. wind & solar, hydrogen, agrofuels, carbon offset trading
2) creating high energy prices = high profits for them
3) creating an energy crisis (via climate change narrative), and use that for imposing their dream of a World Totalitarian Techno-Feudal Tyranny
4) destroying the Middle Class, which they hate and see as their biggest threat
Under this leadership, nuclear will go nowhere, at least in Western countries, because the Overlords will always ensure it is stifled by artificial means, as they have done very successfully the past 50yrs.
And if you can imagine a World (or maybe just China) where rationality prevails, there REALLY is a Free Market, then Nuclear Fission juggernaut would be unleashed. In this World Governments would fund & fast-track prototype builds of a dozen different types of reactors. This would be a small portion of what they have thrown down the sewer on Wind & Solar scams. Private companies would be building factories that crank out hundreds of SMRs every year each.
Understand this, a super-sophisticated, state-of-the-art Tesla costs ~ $40k per tonne of highly processed metal. So that's $600M for a 1GWe NPP, @15ktonne/GWe. By all comparisons, metal processing complexity per tonne, sensors per tonne of metal, control points per tonne of metal, copper, rare earths, plastics, wiring, information processing per tonne of metal, the Tesla is far higher than any NPP. And the Model S plaid has total 1MW motor/generators. So for a 1 GWe of NPPs that would be the equivalent of 7.5 GWe in generators proportionately by mass. Not even close. So if you made SMRs like they make Teslas on a big assembly line, there is no way they should cost more than $1k/kwe, any cost above that has to be regulatory flim-flam. Teslas carry far more public risk/danger than any SMR would dream of.
At $1k/kwe SMRs would blow all energy sources into oblivion. The Oil price would drop to $5/bbl and gas to $0.50/mmbtu. No wonder the PTB fear nuclear power so much and use every dirty trick in the book to kneecap it.
People need to just get out of their heads that NPP's are rocket science. They aren't. They are very simple tech compared to what is routinely used today.
With that in mind, all that Scarcity talk of Nate & gang is mute. If you have plentiful energy, you really don't need anything else. You can recycle everything, including water. And just our uranium & thorium resource accessible on the Earth's land mass would power our civilization for a 100Myrs.
But I believe you live in a capitalist democracy a country that’s the leader of the free world, surely you’re not trying to say it’s not working.
Humans cannot creat energy, we’re not even sure where energy comes from, perhaps if we did we could creat it but we don’t. Yes we can transform energy sources into useful forms we can use, but not creat it.
Humanity has and is achieving exponential growth (GDP) purely through the energy minerals it’s found, FINITE Flammable Fossils and radioactive sources are some of those, the most energy dense is Oil, it should be treated as a precious resource, but no, as we can’t burn and use it fast enough even though we know it’s FINITE. We won’t run out of FINITE Flammable Fossils they’ll just become less dense and in areas so difficult to access the energy expended in obtaining them will not be cost effective. When countries of the realise we’re nearing that depletion point we will enter it a death spiral, it’ll be survival of the fittest in the human jungle, and for some chance of survival through “The Great Simplification”- Nate Hagens.
Energy = Labour (Work), Energy = GDP.
“Labour without Energy is a corpse, and Technology without Energy is a sculpture, and a City without Energy is a museum” - S.Keen/N.Hagens🤔
1) It ain't a democracy, it's an oligarchy. And ain't the Free World, not anymore. And capitalist as in crony capitalism, monopoly capitalism, corporate socialism & casino capitalism. One thing it ain't is a Free Market. And no it's not working, except for the corrupt class.
2) Sure we know where energy comes from, it all came from the Big Bang, after that entropy has continuously increased. And what humans use is trivial.
3) Humans have increased exponentially in population & wealth for various periods throughout history, but that stopped ~20yrs ago. We've already passed peak children. And the decline in birthrate has accelerated.
Humanity could increase in population exponentially for a 1000yrs and still be below 20B people at the end of that period.
I don't know what all this "FINITE" crap is all about. Of course it is finite, that's like saying water is wet, everything is finite, space is finite, time is finite, matter is finite. How is that relevant? We could increase our energy consumption by a trillionX and we would still be a long ways from infinite, in fact we would be infinitely less than infinite.
The important point is resource and energy is ample for the foreseeable future, if there is a problem, it is 100% due to mismanagement. Rule by the idiot class. Kakistrocracy.
You need to read economists, Gale Pooley and Marian Tupy:
"...Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley are co-authors of the new book, “Super Abundance”. They sit down with Dr Jordan B Peterson to discuss their studies into overpopulation, the myths surrounding the subject, and how academia has created a new philosophy that demonizes modern man simply for existing.
Marian Tupy is the co-author of “Super Abundance”, as well as “10 Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know” and “The Simon Abundance Index”. He is the current editor of humanprogress.org, and is a senior fellow at the center for global liberty and prosperity.
Gale Pooley is the co-author of “Super Abundance,” and is also an Associate Professor of business management at Brigham Young University in Hawaii. He has taught economics all over the world, and earned his PHD from the University of Idaho. He is also well known for his role in the development of the Simon Abundance Index...'
Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet Hardcover – Aug. 31 2022
by Marian L. Tupy (Author), Gale L. Pooley (Author), & 1 more
"...After analyzing the prices of hundreds of commodities, goods, and services spanning two centuries, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley found that resources became more abundant as the population grew. That was especially true when they looked at “time prices,” which represent the length of time that people must work to buy something.
To their surprise, the authors also found that resource abundance increased faster than the population―a relationship that they call “superabundance.” On average, every additional human being created more value than he or she consumed. This relationship between population growth and abundance is deeply counterintuitive, yet it is true.
Why? More people produce more ideas, which lead to more inventions. People then test those inventions in the marketplace to separate the useful from the useless. At the end of that process of discovery, people are left with innovations that overcome shortages, spur economic growth, and raise standards of living.
But large populations are not enough to sustain superabundance―just think of the poverty in China and India before their respective economic reforms. To innovate, people must be allowed to think, speak, publish, associate, and disagree. They must be allowed to save, invest, trade, and profit. In a word, they must be free...."
Ask your buddy Nate to have them on his show. Now that would be something.
Material & energy inflation is far less significant for Nuclear than wind & solar since nuclear uses ~ 1/20th of the material inputs of wind/solar. And the EROI of nuclear is 75:1 to 120:1 CANDU upwards to 2000:1 MSR & FSB reactors with a closed fuel cycle vs Solar 0.8 to 6:1, Wind 10-16:1. Not including long distance transmission or storage.
Little old Ontario produces CANDU reactors far cheaper than wind or solar with a 96% domestic supply chain. So it can be done.
Chris Adlam, a senior analyst and cofounder of Canadians for Nuclear Energy joins me for an in depth discussion on the Case for the CANDU reactor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC-9N6ud3r0
Very good podcast. It’s regrettable that nuclear power was so ineptly defended for forty years. The dangerous stigma it carries to this day was never warranted and so it is gratifying to see so many strong advocates speaking up.
Having had opportunity to view your link of Decouple Media’s - conversation between Chris Keefer and Chris Adlam - The Case for Candu - YouTube. I’m afraid if this is your evidence for the defence of Nuclear Power, it has only confirmed my reservations that there will not be a renascence in the proliferation of Nuclear Power. I’m wondering if you actually viewed the whole conversation as the discussion between Chris Keefer and Chris Adam’s the first 50 mins was reasonably professional but the last 30 mins was likened to a game of Top Trumps played by enthusiastic hobbyists with this and that type of conventional NPP, SMR, Mini and Micro NPP’s, treating costs in the billions of $’s as though this money would just appear like magic, and deliverability with all that that entails as though it was a certainty, when in fact there’s a long long way to go, meaning probably decades, hence my original comment regarding primary material, energy costs and related inflation, and all of this of course excludes dealing with storage of toxic waste and end of life decommissioning issues🤔
They've already blown $5T on wind & solar with zero results. In the name of climate change emergency. Why on the Earth do you think that couldn't be spent on nuclear instead? Which unlike wind & solar actually works. Proven to work. And uses 1/20th the material inputs of wind & solar. So no, material, energy costs are not the issue, that applies to all energy sources, even more so to fossil, wind, solar & hydro. And with energy prices rising much faster than inflation that means ROI for REAL energy sources that don't emit carbon are easily the most rational choice for new energy builds.
Surprised you brought out the old Greenpeace dodges about spent nuclear fuel and decommissioning. Both are utter nonsense and have been debunked about a million times. If you have to resort to that, then it is obvious you don't even believe your own argument.
I notice you didn’t challenge my views on conversation between Chris Keefer and Chris Adlam - The Case for Candu - YouTube.
Anyways I dislike BURNING of Coal, Oil; lesser so Gas. Coal, Oil and Gas are double edged swords as they provide material feedstocks for chemicals, pharmaceuticals, plastics etc, Solar Panels (PVP’s), Wind Turbines (WT’s), Biomass, Nuclear don’t. And so I advocate the use of integrated energy systems using all sources of energy, not supplied solely as Electricity: Globally only ~20% of Power is supplied as Electricity, and only ~2% of that is from alternative energy and that includes Nuclear, leaving ~80% provided by flammable fossils.
Wherever large sums of public (Tax Payers) money or favourable terms like licensing is available I’m afraid, corruption and crony ponzi capitalism reigns, it’s not just isolated with RE’s: PVP’s and WT’s etc.
If NPP’s were such a good deal with no issues one would expect the private sector to be falling over themselves to build them, but they aren’t, and no private company underwrites NPP’s from a major release of radioactive or toxic waste, or where necessary take custodianship of radioactive waste for millennia.
You cannot build NPP’s at present time without FF’s help
When Oil depletes to point it’s no longer economically extractable, which in a human lifetime may not be that far away, we’ll be on the road to “The Great Simplification” irrespective of NPP’s🤔
So that's what your buddy Klaus Schwab is calling it now "The Great Simplification". Why don't you guys just come up with a term for it and stick to it. I mean we have "UN Agenda 2020" --> "The Green Agenda" --> "The Green New Deal" --> "UN Agenda 2030" --> "The Great Reset" --> "Build Back Better" --> "The Great Simplification".
Your views on The Case for CANDU video are more nonsense. The last 30min discussion was on the various SMRs being developed in Canada vs building large CANDUs instead as well as the very serious & relevant debate on economies of scale in size vs scale in number of units built.
They rightly stated that Ontario is dumb to build a BWRX-300 SMR at Darlington. That's the location to build large CANDUs, likely EC9's. There is lot's of good locations for the BWRX-300 in areas with lower demand like New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan.
The basic scaling problem for SMRs is the old chicken & egg situation. To make them competitive with large NPPs you need to make them in large factories pumping out dozens even hundreds per year. For that you need large demand. For that you need competitive cost. Chicken & egg. The way that is overcome is exactly what was done with wind & solar. Government subsidized their scale up with large orders, that financed the giant factories all over the World that now produce the Wind & Solar. Now they are mature tech, no need for the subsidies, but instead the subsidies are not just remaining but increasing.
It is true that World electricity demand is only 17% of World Primary Energy consumption, but that is the highest value component of energy. Advanced Western nations, like Norway, electricity is 70% of primary energy. Moving to electrify a lot of transportation and building heat/hot water could move that everywhere to ~70% of primary energy. Nuclear is quite capable of supplying the rest of the energy with heat directly, especially with high temperature reactors (PBGCRs, LSFRs, MSRs), Cogeneration, Nuclear hydrogen and Nuclear synthetic methanol.
The wise thing to do is conserve Oil & Gas for the chemical industry, i.e. fertilizer, plastics etc. Use nuclear for energy.
You are using the usual Greenie ridiculous cognitive dissonance excuses. Yup, "its the end of the World", "The Great Simplification", "the economy will collapse", "the end is near" but when someone says just build NPPs instead. Then the shouting begins: "the nuclear waste", "Fukushima" "radiation", none of which has killed anybody in Commercial nuclear power ever. But its the end of the world.
The only reason Nuclear didn't continue replacing fossil energy as it was in the 60s to early 80s is because of the same old corruption. The PTB stopped the nuclear build.
And again saying you need FF to build Nuclear is nonsense. It would certainly help to have fossil, especially petrochemicals, but that would be a tiny fraction of current fossil production. Insignificant.
Klaus Schwab 🤣😂🤣 I’m afraid you’re suffering from conspiracy theory syndrome, have you checked under your bed lately. I’m aware Schwab coined a phrase The Great Reset which I was rather surprised about as for some years before that the phrase was in vogue was and still is used by John Mauldin a noted financial expert, check him out on Wikipedia or whatever, John Mauldin now makes quips about Schwab stealing it from him. But the phrase “The Great Simplification” is associated with Nate Hagens (check it/him out, Google it see what pops up) explores money, energy, economy, and the environment with world experts and leaders to understand how everything fits together, and where we go from here. I would provide a link but very often when I’ve provided links I either loose the posting or the link’s deleted. But “The Great Simplification” if Schwab’s decided to use it would be plagiarism.
I’m even more convinced that you haven’t viewed Chris Keefer and Chris Adlam - The Case for Candu video you’d linked, from end to end, oh yes you can quote from it now, now that you’ve viewed it, probably last 30 mins, but come on with all the laughing and joking it was a game of Top Trumps not a serious discussion on a serious subject.
Norway a country with a large landmass compared to its very small population, and country well known for its high mountain plateaus, abundant natural lakes and steep valleys and fjords, Norway's topography lends itself perfectly to hydropower development plenty of opportunity for hydro electricity, but whose wealth is instead well embedded into the Oil industry, it won’t give that up lightly.
Sorry, you need FF’s to build your Nuclear Plants, tell me when you’ve built your all Nuclear Power civilisation, creating Concrete, Steel, Glass, Fertilisers, Plastic, Pharmaceuticals, and replaced all the diesel mining and construction equipment, and vehicles, and trains and boats and planes. And while you’re thinking about it you might like to read one of the many books Vaclav Smil’s written, I can recommend Energy And Civilisation A History, and one of his latest “How The World Really Works” Smil apart from being a polymath is also a prodigious writer, and basically says when it come to transitioning for our current FF civilisation to another the problem is that of scale and complexity🤔
What's with this obsession of yours with the Case for Candu video? I did watch the whole video I don't know what your gripe is. If you have something specific, say what it is and what time on the video and then I could respond, I can't read your mind.
I have watched Nate Hagens and especially when he has Art Berman on. I agree with most of what he says but as usual with those guys they mostly ignore Nuclear Energy or make all kinds of false statements about it. He also ignores Methanol. This after the Nobel Prize winning chemist, George Olah, determined that the optimal substitute for fossil fuel is Methanol. And wrote a book about it "Beyond Oil & Gas: The Methanol Economy". He described how it is quite doable to replace fossil with Methanol as a fuel and chemical feedstock.
Nate knows very well that their disaster narrative falls apart when nuclear & methanol enters the equation so he doesn't like to talk about them or if he does, he will repeat the usual Greenpeace anti-nuclear claptrap. What he doesn't do is ask where Greenpeace gets their $400M/yr from. That's the real question. Why is that top secret?
You miss the point about Norway, that shows a nation can use electricity for most of its energy supply even at this rudimentary technological development stage. It doesn't matter what the source of the electricity is. Even the US is 38% electrical primary energy right now.
Sorry, you don't need Nuclear to make Nuclear Power plants. There isn't one thing you mentioned that can't be done with Nuclear energy. That is just a fun fact. In reality, you will always use fossil to some degree, rationally you would use it for the highest value applications which are chemical industries and jet fuel. Some diesel for isolated regions. Coal for steel making etc. No reason you would need to abandon that. It is a small portion of current production. You can also do a lot of that with biomass conversion.
So again, you always want to talk in extremes, like suddenly the PTB say: "we are shutting down all fossil fuel in 5yrs", then how would you ramp up nuclear. Of course that is implausible. If the PTB declared that the right move would bring back the guillotine for the PTB. Interesting how right now they could care less, but they insist on spending 10's of $trillions on the Wind/Solar/Hydrogen/Battery scam anyway. A total waste of capital. So why is that? Why aren't they even spending anything significant on R&D for advanced reactor tech? Why are they subsidizing wind & solar at >100X what nuclear gets per twh generated?
‘Twas you suggested I view the Case for Candu video, I did and I’ve said the first 50 mins was interesting, but the next 30 mins to me, maybe not to you, was a humerus game of Top Trumps of Nuclear Reactor (NR) types. Having read quite a number of peer review articles, and books, and watched similar videos, and debated with others on SM, on Conventional NR’s, Mini, and Micro NR’s some for Electricity Generation and others tailored for heating. It becomes apparent there’s not a consensus of which is the best. At the moment it seems the goal is be first to get US certification from which to build multiple units, in the lower KW and MW range on the assembly line principle, in the belief that scaling can produce cheaper and quicker NR’s. There are plenty far more qualified than myself who doubt this would be the case. One question raised has been if you produce NR’s on an assembly line in the form of PAU’s (Pre Assembled Units), turning out 1000’s of these NR’s and its found in operation there’s a design or component fault, will as happens in the auto industry, all operating NR PAU’s of that model type have to be shutdown and recalled in order to rectify the problem.
You mention Nate Hagens as though you’ve known of his work and ideology for sometime time, yet when I first made mention of “The Great Simplification” you associated it with “Klaus Schwab”, "UN Agenda 2020" --> "The Green Agenda" --> "The Green New Deal" --> "UN Agenda 2030" --> "The Great Reset" --> "Build Back Better" --> "The Great Simplification", but not Nate Hagens, how strange.
“The Great Simplification” with Nate Hagens explores money, energy, economy, and the environment with world experts and leaders to understand how everything fits together, and where we go from here. You’re probably aware Nate has a podcast that explores the systems science underpinning the human predicament. Conversation topics will span human behavior, monetary/economic systems, energy, ecology, geopolitics and the environment. The goal of the show is to inform more humans about the path ahead and inspire people to play a role in our collective future. Guests are from a wide range of scientists, leaders, activists, thinkers, and doers.
If you haven’t checked Nate out for some time maybe now might be a good time. following is just a small selection of those guests:-
Paul Martin: "Hydrogen - The Decarbonization Problem" | The Great Simplification #63
James Fleay: "What's the Deal with Nuclear Energy?" | The Great Simplification #74
Arthur Berman: "Peak Oil - The Hedonic Adjustment" | The Great Simplification #54
Simon Michaux (Mining and Minerals): “The Arcadians" | The Great Simplification #49
I won’t discuss Methanol that’s a whole different argument, I’ll just say it favours fuel for food, domestic animals over the wildlife we share this planet with, it ignores size of population, consumption and our ecological footprint and the quality of energy we’ve been used to living with.
Nate Hagens - The Great Simplification - Energy Blindness | Frankly #03
This isn’t maybe the answer you’re looking for but may give you a clue of where I stand on Renewable Energy (RE) and it’s not one built solely on RE: But, Yes RE can power a great civilisation, just not this one.
Energy = Life, and likewise, Energy = GDP. And so we should reflect on: “Labour without Energy is a corpse, Technology without Energy is a sculpture, and a City without Energy is a museum” - S.Keen/N.Hagens
I’ll just say ask or pose too many questions and you won’t get all the answers🤔
E&OE
The main thing you are missing is there is Nuclear if our Rulers actually gave a damn about climate change (hint: they don't) or if they really cared about future energy shortages (double hint: they don't). All they do care about is:
1) profiting with minimal effort from energy scams that have no connection whatsoever with legitimate energy markets, i.e. wind & solar, hydrogen, agrofuels, carbon offset trading
2) creating high energy prices = high profits for them
3) creating an energy crisis (via climate change narrative), and use that for imposing their dream of a World Totalitarian Techno-Feudal Tyranny
4) destroying the Middle Class, which they hate and see as their biggest threat
Under this leadership, nuclear will go nowhere, at least in Western countries, because the Overlords will always ensure it is stifled by artificial means, as they have done very successfully the past 50yrs.
And if you can imagine a World (or maybe just China) where rationality prevails, there REALLY is a Free Market, then Nuclear Fission juggernaut would be unleashed. In this World Governments would fund & fast-track prototype builds of a dozen different types of reactors. This would be a small portion of what they have thrown down the sewer on Wind & Solar scams. Private companies would be building factories that crank out hundreds of SMRs every year each.
Understand this, a super-sophisticated, state-of-the-art Tesla costs ~ $40k per tonne of highly processed metal. So that's $600M for a 1GWe NPP, @15ktonne/GWe. By all comparisons, metal processing complexity per tonne, sensors per tonne of metal, control points per tonne of metal, copper, rare earths, plastics, wiring, information processing per tonne of metal, the Tesla is far higher than any NPP. And the Model S plaid has total 1MW motor/generators. So for a 1 GWe of NPPs that would be the equivalent of 7.5 GWe in generators proportionately by mass. Not even close. So if you made SMRs like they make Teslas on a big assembly line, there is no way they should cost more than $1k/kwe, any cost above that has to be regulatory flim-flam. Teslas carry far more public risk/danger than any SMR would dream of.
At $1k/kwe SMRs would blow all energy sources into oblivion. The Oil price would drop to $5/bbl and gas to $0.50/mmbtu. No wonder the PTB fear nuclear power so much and use every dirty trick in the book to kneecap it.
People need to just get out of their heads that NPP's are rocket science. They aren't. They are very simple tech compared to what is routinely used today.
With that in mind, all that Scarcity talk of Nate & gang is mute. If you have plentiful energy, you really don't need anything else. You can recycle everything, including water. And just our uranium & thorium resource accessible on the Earth's land mass would power our civilization for a 100Myrs.
But I believe you live in a capitalist democracy a country that’s the leader of the free world, surely you’re not trying to say it’s not working.
Humans cannot creat energy, we’re not even sure where energy comes from, perhaps if we did we could creat it but we don’t. Yes we can transform energy sources into useful forms we can use, but not creat it.
Humanity has and is achieving exponential growth (GDP) purely through the energy minerals it’s found, FINITE Flammable Fossils and radioactive sources are some of those, the most energy dense is Oil, it should be treated as a precious resource, but no, as we can’t burn and use it fast enough even though we know it’s FINITE. We won’t run out of FINITE Flammable Fossils they’ll just become less dense and in areas so difficult to access the energy expended in obtaining them will not be cost effective. When countries of the realise we’re nearing that depletion point we will enter it a death spiral, it’ll be survival of the fittest in the human jungle, and for some chance of survival through “The Great Simplification”- Nate Hagens.
Energy = Labour (Work), Energy = GDP.
“Labour without Energy is a corpse, and Technology without Energy is a sculpture, and a City without Energy is a museum” - S.Keen/N.Hagens🤔
1) It ain't a democracy, it's an oligarchy. And ain't the Free World, not anymore. And capitalist as in crony capitalism, monopoly capitalism, corporate socialism & casino capitalism. One thing it ain't is a Free Market. And no it's not working, except for the corrupt class.
2) Sure we know where energy comes from, it all came from the Big Bang, after that entropy has continuously increased. And what humans use is trivial.
3) Humans have increased exponentially in population & wealth for various periods throughout history, but that stopped ~20yrs ago. We've already passed peak children. And the decline in birthrate has accelerated.
Humanity could increase in population exponentially for a 1000yrs and still be below 20B people at the end of that period.
I don't know what all this "FINITE" crap is all about. Of course it is finite, that's like saying water is wet, everything is finite, space is finite, time is finite, matter is finite. How is that relevant? We could increase our energy consumption by a trillionX and we would still be a long ways from infinite, in fact we would be infinitely less than infinite.
The important point is resource and energy is ample for the foreseeable future, if there is a problem, it is 100% due to mismanagement. Rule by the idiot class. Kakistrocracy.
You need to read economists, Gale Pooley and Marian Tupy:
https://galepooley.substack.com/
Superabundance: The Age of Plenty | Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley | #284
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iC_hY4qhyk
"...Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley are co-authors of the new book, “Super Abundance”. They sit down with Dr Jordan B Peterson to discuss their studies into overpopulation, the myths surrounding the subject, and how academia has created a new philosophy that demonizes modern man simply for existing.
Marian Tupy is the co-author of “Super Abundance”, as well as “10 Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know” and “The Simon Abundance Index”. He is the current editor of humanprogress.org, and is a senior fellow at the center for global liberty and prosperity.
Gale Pooley is the co-author of “Super Abundance,” and is also an Associate Professor of business management at Brigham Young University in Hawaii. He has taught economics all over the world, and earned his PHD from the University of Idaho. He is also well known for his role in the development of the Simon Abundance Index...'
Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet Hardcover – Aug. 31 2022
by Marian L. Tupy (Author), Gale L. Pooley (Author), & 1 more
https://www.amazon.com/Superabundance-Population-Innovation-Flourishing-Infinitely/dp/1952223393/
"...After analyzing the prices of hundreds of commodities, goods, and services spanning two centuries, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley found that resources became more abundant as the population grew. That was especially true when they looked at “time prices,” which represent the length of time that people must work to buy something.
To their surprise, the authors also found that resource abundance increased faster than the population―a relationship that they call “superabundance.” On average, every additional human being created more value than he or she consumed. This relationship between population growth and abundance is deeply counterintuitive, yet it is true.
Why? More people produce more ideas, which lead to more inventions. People then test those inventions in the marketplace to separate the useful from the useless. At the end of that process of discovery, people are left with innovations that overcome shortages, spur economic growth, and raise standards of living.
But large populations are not enough to sustain superabundance―just think of the poverty in China and India before their respective economic reforms. To innovate, people must be allowed to think, speak, publish, associate, and disagree. They must be allowed to save, invest, trade, and profit. In a word, they must be free...."
Ask your buddy Nate to have them on his show. Now that would be something.