Nuclear Tide
By Richard Karn
01 Aug 2006 at 03:25 PM
OAKLAND (The Emerging Trends Report) -- American culture is utterly dependent on cheap, abundant energy.
The price of oil, however, has risen relentlessly for the last seven years to the point we now send one-half billion dollars abroad each day to pay for our needs. [1] We spend at least another $10 billion each month to ensure access to it.
Natural gas burns more cleanly and is more thermally efficient than oil or coal. But like oil, our reserves are finite and natural gas is found in countries whose interests are not necessarily aligned with our own.
Coal is plentiful and has been our primary workhorse for base load electrical generation for more than a century and will continue to play a significant role for decades to come. But coal is also filthy; it can be cleaned, indeed will be cleaned, but it is a difficult and expensive process.
Emissions from these fossil fuels are threatening climate changes we try not to imagine. Renewable energy sources’ promise will remain as secondary, additive sources of power. Nuclear energy is perceived to be expensive, inefficient, hazardous and fraught with danger ... and within two generations will become America’s primary source of energy.
The march of thermal efficiency, defined here as the ratio of usable energy output to energy input, has improved consistently from coal to oil to natural gas, with each producing fewer emissions of carbon dioxide and the like than its predecessor.[2] The next evolutionary step that will be taken in the decades ahead will be the development of dual-use nuclear power: base load electrical generation coupled with the electrolysis of water to produce either hydrogen, a carbon-neutral fuel posited as the clean replacement for fossil fuels, or potable water. There will be a dire need for both in the years ahead.
A changing, threatening world seems to be conspiring against us. Even the weather seems increasingly antagonistic.
cont'd resourceinvestor.com |
