Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
The Iranians are destroying their own oil fields without help from
us. Their fields are in such poor shape from mismanagement and bad
technology that the country will soon not be able to produce enough
for its own domestic consumption.
Could this provide a possible explanation for why Iran may actually
be interested in a civilian nuclear power generation capability?
I do not think so. If they are worried about the degradation of their
oil fields (as they should be), the logical thing to do would be to
spend money on new equipment and to hire experts to improve the
extraction techniques.
I've read a number of times that Iranian claims that they want
nuclear power to generate electricity doesn't pass the "laugh test".
I have heard that too. I know little about their politics and cannot
judge, but strictly from a technical point of view, I think it would
be a great idea for them to buy a nuclear power plant. This would
reduce pollution and free up their natural gas for sale overseas.
Also nuclear power is cheaper than any other kind, even when you are
sitting on a sea of natural gas.
Perhaps they run their electric power generators on oil, the way
North Korea does. In that case they are burning money and it would be
far cheaper to go to nuclear power or even coal.
Well, if their oils is really running out that fast, maybe the
ones who said that (mostly American officials, IIRC) were just
trying to laugh off the possibility that Iran really _does_ want
nuclear energy for something besides building bombs.
The oil is not running out exactly; it is becoming permanently
inaccessible because the extraction technology is bad. If they buy
the latest equipment now, their reserves will last much longer. As I
said, the oil is not actually lost. It is still underground, of
course, but it takes as much energy to get it out as you get from
burning it. In the early 20th century in the US and Russia tremendous
amounts of oil were permanently lost because of "wildcatting"-style
bad oil-field management, according to Deffeyes.
I do not know if they are seriously interested in fission power but I
do know that many Iranian scientists at universities and government
research labs have downloaded the files at LENR-CANR.org, so
evidently they are interested in cold fusion. I welcome their interest.
- Jed
