EV,

Over the next 10 years everyone of the 7 Billion people on the planet will expect the first world lifestyles they see on TV, Video and Internet. Age old conceptions of first world people being intellectually or racially superior or special will be dragged into the dust. It is a myth that green alternative energy sources from Wind, local-solar and tides will satisfy 7 billion energy hungry needs (SUVs, Childcare, boats whitegoods, plamsa screens etc) when those needs rapidly and competitively become identical to ours. New Technology and low density sources are not nearly enough.

The world is going to require very high-energy-density energy sources with an imperative to gradually phase out climate changing coal technologies.

Like I said we can't go back now and we can't stay the same. Even though folks like you cannot see the pressure, the pressure is there in the hearts, minds and aspirations of a sea of mankind that nothing rational can stop and that paltry ill conceived ideas about mega high tech trickle feed energy cannot satisfy. Ie, we don't need Evs (electron violts), we need Terawatts.

One green technology I did not mention is Geothermal (>4Km Hot Rock) to replace coal fired power stations. With new flexible Laser drill rigs this should have been a cinch by now. I did not mention it because I am wondering why the delay in implementation. The only serious installation is in he Cooper Basin in South Australia.

But even PB nuclear Reactors will not hold off the inevitable civil collapse over the next 50 or so years as exponentially growing populations and aspirations collide. THAT is why Australia has got to stop business as usual immigration programs and develop the Nuclear BRIDGE I have spoken of for a real and sustainable future.

With Peak oil looming closer,unrestrained overpopulation, severe weather due to global warming, 9 billion population is a pipe dream. There will not be enough food or water for that amount. Power supply will be the least of human problems.
Already the death rate due to starvation is in the millions and increasing.

As far as I can see, nuclear energy is not being proposed as an alternative to oil but to coal. Why?. The lack of enegy is not an impediment to current or future growth. There is plenty of coal. The proposal that nuclear energy is a solution to oil shortages or the lack of energy is plainly and absolutely incorrect, wrong and completely misconceived. Economic growth may need energy ie a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient. There is always a limiting factor in growth, if it is not energy it will be something else, water, capital, labour, customer demand, space (eg how many cars can fit on Hong Kong roads?) Also there is not a linear relationship between energy use and wealth and certainly not wellbeing

The industrial revolution did not occur because coal was discovered but the happy(?) concurrence of the steam engine and capital amongst other things. Which included cheap slave produced cotton and a large pool of displaced agricultural labour etc etc.

If the problem is not CO2 methane and other greenhouse gases what is? If unless the question is correct then it is unlikely the solution will be.

What had really cracked among the Australian miracles of unique prosperity, growth and wealth was a continuingly steady lying of energy self-independence: oil country import is 50% of consumed and in a few decades it to grow up to 75%.

Nuclear power stations is a step for straightening national security as well at the time as neighbouring Indonesia is to build own nuke capabilities-a domino effect, lol's.

Problems with coal.

The late 1800's saw world-population rise to 2-billion-people and the overpopulation strains resulted in two-world-wars and many mass-executions-of-civilians (putschs) in many countries.

The world-wars sped up the introduction of oil-exploration. Further world-wars have been averted since then under the misguided beliefs that advancement-in-civilised-morals-and-ethics along with the nuclear=deterrent have-been-solely-responsible.

The thermodynamics of human popoluations and the science of population dynamics tell a vastly different story. Only with a liquid high energy density fuel have we been able to invoke the technologies that make coal more efficient and clean with resultant surges in human populations to 6-billion with another billion coming over-the-next-ten-years.

As in all population-dynamics-studies, when the main source of energy or food that supports a population suddenly runs out, populations collapse catastrophically to reflect energy movements within that population. When oil runs dry we will be forced back to late 1800's thermodynamic status with perhaps enough residual non oil structured technology to support a global population of around 2.5 billion people. This population reversion will occur rapidly once gasoline prices reach a nominal $30 per gallon. And its already on the way.

Now converting coal and oil sands to oil will delay this reversion but only DELAY it and at a huge cost to already threatened environmental support structures. Structures upon which our civilisations silently depend. Coal is basically a rock and there are no serious ways to avert the sidestream pullutants from the many ways in which it can be processed. In the meantime the serious dent in our current free flow of oil energy will have a knock on effect in health as services are cut and conditions for pandemic diseases manifest. I expect that this is how the majority of 4-5 billion people will perish. Hospitals and sanitation depend on gasoline and oil and without them in a crisis a majority of the large number of sick people will die if not exterminated for quarantines. Panic greed, racism and all manner of human follies will also take their toll till a stable population that matches free energy flows throughout remaining-societal-elements is attained.

Continuing ..

Yes KAEP,everyone is side stepping the real problem,that of over population.Everyone cries out for more food ,aid and energy to solve the world's woes but ignore the reality of us breeding ourselves into extinction.

China is being responsible but in India,The Middle East,Africa,South America,and other Asian countries,there is almost no birth control.

If we breed like flies,we have to expect at some stage to die like them.