GRLCowan

Crude Usage: Three Cubic Miles and Growing

"Cornucopians think that technology will somehow save us" -- I'm like that, except I say how.

Crude Usage: Three Cubic Miles and Growing

Although nuclear energy use now is only equivalent to a tenth of a cubic mile of oil per year, the rate of discovery of high-grade deposits, minable for less than two percent the cost per joule that oil now sells for, exceeds a CMO-equivalent per year.

Also, while many nuclear power plants could be under construction simultaneously, and a completion rate of 50 per year would therefore not require of society the same burdensome allocation of labour as it now devotes to finding and mining oil, it is strictly false to assert that they would have to be that numerous. Their current smallness is due to electrical grids' limitations. When they are put into motor fuel production service, they can be scaled up to be each equivalent to the Alberta tar patch, or to Venezuela.