All this could be mute if the Fusion Experiment in France works. Big if yes but it is one POTENTIAL option to alleviate future energy woes.

I believe the current state of play is that the fusion is producing more enery than it consumes. Maybe someone more informed can clarify.

As to renewables to get anywhere near what is needed to maintain a sizable proportion of energy production the land use is huge. In fact green groups do not help as they tend to

A - not like putting up wind turbines in the most efficient areas (on coasts) since it spoils the view.
B - not like having dams to generate more hydro power
C - Probably not like digging up all the Silicon and other metals to install huge arrays of solar panels over huge areas.

It is a quandary.

A Call for Reality (part 1)

I think that the availabilty of a "free" energy source such as petroleum has blinded us to the realities of energy. By describing oil energy as "free", I don't wish to discount the heroic efforts of oil industry workers, who deserve a medal, but it must be understood that this resource is a gift like no other.

To illustrate my point, let's take something we all know a lot about - the trusty family car.

* * *

Cars don't work!

1. On average, the creation of a motorcar consumes about 12% of all the oil energy that it will ever burn in it's lifetime.

2. New car arrives. We fill it say, to the tune of 40 litres.

3. Our car converts 10 litres into motion. The rest is turned into heat, noise and fumes. Most of that energy of motion is consumed in the act of moving the mass of the car itself.

4. So the fraction of that 40 litres which is required to convey my unworthy self is approximately enough to fill a coffee cup.

5. Am I worth it?

* * *

Now we face the dawn of the nuclear age with all of the accumulated ignorance that personified the motor vehicle age, and we seem determined to repeat the same mistakes. Too many people will use monetary economics for their yardstick, to see if the nuclear concept works. On paper (money) it's not too bad.

Forget for a minute the disposal of waste and the proliferation of weapons grade material. Just concentrate on the feelgood bits.

Despite it's relative abundance, uranium is not conveniently disposed in neat seams like coal. The extraction and processing of uranium from mine to reactor requires massive inputs of energy, much of which must come from gas, petrol and diesel. The questions must be asked:

A Call For Reality (part 2)

1. What grade (richness) of uranium ore returns a clear energy profit (if at all)?

2. How much ore of that quality exists in the world?

3. How many reactors will that ore feed and for how long?

4. Is the nuclear infrastructure just another bonfire upon which much of our irreplaceable "free" oil energy will be burnt?

* * *

If you think the captains of industry have it all figured out, think again. The brewing energy crisis has at it's heart the unforseen shortage of high quality oil. We will not run out of the crap stuff anytime soon, but it won't keep us in the lifestyle to which we are accustomed.

Yet industrialists and politicians alike seem set to repeat the same mistakes, because oils ain't oils and ores ain't ores.

The nuclear "industry" will paint the dream-machine powder blue and boast that it will do 0-60 in 3 seconds flat. It will even come with air-conditioning - so they say. Yet it will never break or even slighly bend the immutable laws of nature.

I agree Chris about that car thing. But for we the people to create an alternative like Mag-lev public transport and rail there still is a need for a power source.

My understanding is that a closed nuclear cycle with reprocessing can provide lots of power over a long period of time for public benefit. I believe that the nuclear power lobby is not part of the "big industry thing" WHICH IS SCARED OF IT as it threatens their strategic strangle hold.

I would like to see Urainium and Thorium mined and processed by public corporations and powerplants the same. I dont think its wrong for the people through their instrument of government to have sovreignty over strategically important parts of the economy ie. power, water, road and rail.

To answer Chris Shaw, yes, you are right, motorcars are not very efficient at converting fuel into motion. Electric motors appear to be better.
Concerning energy input/energy output ratios, the following information is publicly available on the UIC web site.

“Life cycle analysis for Vattenfall's Environmental Product Declaration for its 3090 MWe Forsmark power plant for 2002 has yielded some energy data, which is up to date and certified. It shows energy inputs over 40 years to be 1.35% of the output.
If very low-grade ore of 0.01% U is envisaged - as has been said to make mining uneconomic - the input figure rises to 2.9% of output.”

Therefore it appears to me that regardless of the grade of uranium used, the energy balance is quite a good deal for mankind.
As far as uranium resources are concerned, uranium supplies are more than adequate for the reasonable future, or at least fifty years at the current rate of consumption. The price of uranium is so low that it is not considered economic at present to explore for any more resources. For an explanation, I refer you to the following:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2003/pdf/macdonald.pdf

Using breeder reactors would extend the availability of nuclear fuel by a factor of at least 60. And we haven’t even mentioned Thorium, which is about three times as abundant as uranium in the Earth’s crust.
As far as proliferation issues are concerned, plutonium from civilian nuclear reactors is not “weapons grade” fissile material. If people want to construct atomic weapons, they can and will, regardless of the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WW2 were made before nuclear power stations existed.
Waste issues are dealt with on the UIC site that I referred to earlier. http://www.uic.com.au/nip09.htm

Froggie
Supply of uranium might last 50 years at the current rate of consumption but how long would it last if we had hundreds of new nuclear power stations which would be required to replace oil as it runs out? If nuclear power is the way of the future it makes no sense to factor in the current consumption of uranium.