..."It's time for America to start building Nuclear power plants again," Bush said. - The price of green policies are destroying America, they want ‘green’ but they want their SUV’s and maintain one of the their highest per capita consumption of energy in the world, they want their cake and eat it too- America has not ordered a new nuclear power plant since the 1970s. France has built 58 plants in the same period and today France gets more than 78 percent of its electricity from nuclear power...
..."we need to move along our trajectory of technological breakthrough and invent control and management of risk, that is how we have beaten so far the ‘Malthusian predictions.’"
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Sounds like the inevitable march of technology is still on course. This latest gizmo is not good for producing energy, but the knowledge gained will help in future efforts. A small step in right direction:
Fusion seen in table-top experiment
Thursday 28 April 2005
Physicists in the US have generated nuclear fusion in a simple, table-top device operating at room temperature. The device, built by Brian Naranjo, Jim Gimzewski and Seth Putterman at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), causes two deuterium nuclei to collide with each other and generate alpha particles, neutrons and energy (Nature 434 1115). The device could have applications as a portable neutron generator or in the propulsion systems for miniature spacecraft, but will not be useful as an energy source because it consumes more energy than it produces...
...Putterman and co-workers at UCLA are also involved in efforts to generate fusion reactions in "sonoluminescence" experiments in which bubbles in a liquid are forced to expand and contract by sound waves. In 2002 Rusi Taleyarkhan of Oak Ridge and colleagues reported that they had observed "bubble fusion" in experiments with deuterated acetone. The report was greeted with skepticism by other researchers in the field, including the UCLA group, who were unable to reproduce the results. However, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the US has recently funded Taleyarkhan, who is now at Purdue University, and Putterman to collaborate and exchange information on bubble fusion."
iop.org
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I was amused reading all the speculation about "OIL production could peak next year, reports John Vidal. Just kiss your lifestyle goodbye...".
Nowhere was mentioned that there are substitutes for petrol/nat gas products like solar, nuke, and conservation. 'Pebble bed reactor' nuclear holds great promise, and conservation is becoming more efficient every year (hybrid cars, battery technology).
And many of the very same technological developments that have been propelling 'Moore's law' for these many years in semiconductors have also been at work in the area of solar power. With the Japanese leading the way (Sharp electronics) solar power is just now crossing the threshold of 'profitablity' (BEP for 15 year life + maintenance) for most of the 'sun belt' here in the US. I think that in 3 to 5 years the vast majority of new homes built in the sun belt will come complete with solar panels. During the day, power will flow from the housing areas toward the area of daytime peak demand - the industrial developments. At night, the industrial develpments require very little electricity. This system will enable far less reliance on traditional electrical generating stations by reducing peak daytime demand.
I am of the opinion that we will see the all time high oil price this year (+/- 12 months or so). If there are no major 'fireworks' in the ME oil fields in the coming months, we may have already seen the high:
"Necessity, who is the mother of invention."
Plato, The Republic
Greek author & philosopher in Athens (427 BC - 347 BC)
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PS...the above is not investment advice. I am a raving lunatic with a chronic case of optimismatosis so bad I am prone to think a glass 3/4's empty is really over half full... |
