Anandakos

Why Is Oil Creeping Back Up?

@Vuke,

Ah that it were so. Unfortunately, it's not, unless you go with Plutonium breeders or Thorium. There just isn't enough U-235 in the outer crust to get much more than 50 to 70 years' production of electricity assuming only replacement of current aging reactors.

A worldwide increase to 80% would use it up before all the reactors were completed.

Successful Thorium reactors would last a lot longer as would of course PU breeders.

But the truth is that the only way for human beings to maintain a technological society is complete conversion to gravitational (tidal) and solar (direct, wind and perhaps space-based direct if one can avoid cooking all life under the transmission receivers) energy. It's the ONLY way; there is no other option.

All other options will run out quickly at a human population of 6 to 10 billion or more slowly with fewer. But run out they will. Hello; they all depend on resources which are mined from the Earth. The Earth is not growing larger, nor are radionuclides, hydrocarbons, or coal being created at any rate other than one over some huge power of 10 percent of that being consumed.

I have a hard time understanding why so many otherwise intelligent human beings simply are unable to see this incontrovertible fact.

The more quickly we decide to make the transition -- e.g. lower our current consumption in trade for a decent future for humans yet to come -- the more opportunity those in the future will have to use a little of the Earth's amazing treasure trove of biological and stellar riches. The more of it we use, the poorer ALL future human civilizations are condemned to be.

And for you hard-core supply-siders, No, I'm not saying that we should not develop new technologies or "go back to the stone ages" (a favorite canard about "leftists"). I'm saying that each human being alive today should use those technologies which consume non-renewable resources less today and each tomorrow she or he lives.

On May 31 10:16 AM Vuke wrote:

> Freya has it right. Car sales in China now surpass those in the
> U.S.. Add the rush to autos in India, Africa, Indonesia and you've
> got a tsunami of new oil consumption.
>
> But, even more, add the scooters, roto-tillers, generators, tractors
> and other fuel systems billions of people want and a second wave
> appears.
>
> Existing oil fields are in decline and producers are reluctant to
> export the last drops cheaply. New oil, because it's offshore or
> embedded in sands is going to be much more expensive.
>
> Quietly, (as a search in SA will tell you) uranium is appearing as
> the energy source to help fill the void. New reactors are being
> proposed everywhere. If France can generate 80% of its electricity
> from nuclear so can the rest of the world.