[From the John Mauldin report forwarded by Joel Gagnon:] | As a quick aside, if we would start a project to build a massive | nuclear infrastructure, such as in France, which produces 80% of | its energy from nuclear, while at the same time pushing ahead in a | Manhattan-type project the development of electric cars (or some | hybrid), we could reduce our dependence on foreign oil and lower | travel costs by the middle to the end of the next decade.
Uh, no. The petroleum problem is a liquid fuels problem. You can't run a car or a truck or a train or an airplane on nuclear energy. The idea that we can replace any meaningful portion of our current liquid-fuel-based infrastructure with electric equivalents within the next seven to twelve years is a fantasy. We couldn't physically accomplish such a task if we had all the money in the world to spend on it -- and we don't. And aside from the impossibility of replacing a significant part of our consuming infrastructure in that time, it takes a minimum of five to ten years to put a nuclear power plant into operation. This just ain't gonna happen. But I can guarantee that enough people want to believe this that we will engage in a huge effort to develop nuclear energy in this country. You can bet on it. Just look at how many went for the palpably absurd idea of hydrogen fuel (which hardly any of the former cheerleaders are pushing any more -- not even GM, which just a few years ago was positioning hydrogen as the basis of its entire future product strategy). Too bad, because the money we're going to blow on nuclear power could more effectively be spent on rebuilding our railroads. But people don't want to hear this, and our politicians don't want to tell them. Not even Mr. Change. There's general agreement now that what *will* happen within the next seven to twelve years is that the physical supply of oil will finally fail to meet demand. Even the major oil companies are starting to acknowledge this. When that happens, you'll see price increases that will make the current run-up seem trivial. And our national response to that won't be "Manhattan-type projects" -- it'll be good ol' rationing. Jon _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
