The much heralded Ivanpah Solar Thermal Power station in California is being commissioned as I type. Mighty impressive too…. Sprawling across almost thirteen square kilometres of land near the California-Nevada border, it looks pretty damn beautiful…….
Take 300,000 computer-controlled mirrors, each 2 metres high and 3 metres wide, control them with computers to focus the Sun’s light to the top of 150 metre high towers where water is heated to steam, to power turbines, and….. Ta dah…: you have the world’s biggest solar power plant, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System.
Long-mired by regulatory issues and legal tangles, the enormous solar plant–jointly-owned by NRG Energy, BrightSource Energy and Google opened for business today…….
From the official news release:
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is now operational and delivering solar electricity to California customers. At full capacity, the facility’s trio of 450-foot high towers produces a gross total of 392 megawatts (MW) of solar power, enough electricity to provide 140,000 California homes with clean energy and avoid 400,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, equal to removing 72,000 vehicles off the road.
BUT…… check out how much steel and concrete has gone into this beast… how much embodied energy are we looking at..? anyone trying to tell you this can’t be done without fossil fuels had better watch this…:
Now I’m not saying this shouldn’t be done, and I agree it is an engineering marvel, but I still ask, how will this sort of construction continue, let alone maintenance and eventual replacement post Peak Oil, Peak Coal, Peak Uranium, and Peak Debt….. Just asking.
More photos here…
Damn the Matrix 
Peak uranium? Dude. You keep asking, but you’re obviously not listening! Seriously, peak uranium? 😉 Come on mate, you know better than that!
Three years mate…… three years.
post eclipse … the embodied energy cost of a nuclear plant v this solar energy plant … done a comparative to prove is better … can you provide factual uranium reserves data (and the costs of extracting through to disposal costs would be good) … thanks
Hi Daniel,
1: MATERIAL INPUTS
The concrete and steel required is FAR less than solar & wind for the same amount of power, only this power is baseload and the lifetime of the plant is far longer!
2. URANIUM RESERVES
“From time to time concerns are raised that the known resources might be insufficient when judged as a multiple of present rate of use. But this is the Limits to Growth fallacy, a major intellectual blunder recycled from the 1970s, which takes no account of the very limited nature of the knowledge we have at any time of what is actually in the Earth’s crust. Our knowledge of geology is such that we can be confident that identified resources of metal minerals are a small fraction of what is there. Factors affecting the supply of resources are discussed further and illustrated in the Appendix…..
There was relatively little uranium exploration between 1985 and 2003, so the significant increase in exploration effort since then could conceivably double the known economic resources despite adjustments due to increasing costs. In the two years 2005-06 the world’s known uranium resources tabulated above and graphed below increased by 15% (17% in the cost category to $80/kgU). World uranium exploration expenditure is increasing, as the the accompanying graph makes clear. In the third uranium exploration cycle from 2003 to the end of 2011 about US$ 10 billion was spent on uranium exploration and deposit delineation on over 600 projects. In this period over 400 new junior companies were formed or changed their orientation to raise over US$ 2 billion for uranium exploration. About 60% of this was spent on previously-known deposits. All this was in response to increased uranium price in the market and the prospect of firm future prices.”
* Uranium from seawater becomes economic at 10 times today’s uranium price
* 10 times today’s price does NOT make nuclear uncompetitive because fuel is such a *tiny* proportion of the cost of nuclear power. Most of the cost is in the capital infrastructure.
* remembering that Hubbert calculated American peak oil by plotting discovery trends V production trends, we should note that uranium discovery is still on the upwards swing: “It is clear from this Figure that known uranium resources have increased almost threefold since 1975, in line with expenditure on uranium exploration.”
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Uranium-Resources/Supply-of-Uranium/
* Note: as we start to build out IFR’s, the nuclear waste we have in TODAY’S cooling ponds will run the world for 500 years. With IFR’s, basically take any known figures you have for ‘years of uranium supply left’ and multiply them by 100!
http://atomicinsights.com/hydrocarbon-fueled-establishment-hates-idea-plutonium-economy/
* Also: remember that uranium from seawater is effectively renewable. Continents move and erosion supplies an abundant source of uranium particles into the ocean. Google uranium from seawater and you’ll see that there’s enough uranium on earth to run the world for hundreds of millions of years! It’s clean, baseload, reliable, hurricane proof energy! (After a storm, just put the wires back up as the reactor is in a 9-11 attack-proof concrete bunker anyway).
“Our knowledge of geology is such that we can be confident that identified resources of metal minerals are a small fraction of what is there.”
Well….. THIS geologist disagrees with you:
So you reckon we can run 10,000 new IFR’s with the waste from 420 decommissioned Gen I devices……… wonders will never cease.
Can you show us WHERE Uranium has been extracted from seawater AT THE CURRENT TIME?
Hi Mike,
With fission energy being *MILLIONS* of times more concentrated and energy dense than your precious chemical bonds in fossil fuel energy, giant mining machines could plough through the raw bedrock of continents mining 5ppm uranium dust and *STILL* come out with a vast ERoEI.
Simon Michaux showed himself to be a little ignorant when he started recycling tired old myths against nuclear power. (EG: “We don’t know what to do with the waste.”) I’m not taking the word of some doomer crack pot over and against the peer-reviewed evidence about uranium reserves unless there is a *very* good reason to do so! Running with ‘experts’ like that shows you to be cherry-picking not just your data, but your experts.
As for uranium from seawater: I’ve already linked to that many times on this blog. If you can’t be bothered reading the links I provide, I can’t be bothered reposting them. Google it yourself. I mean, seriously dude, I’ve linked to it a few times on this thread alone!
“extracting uranium from seawater is still five times more expensive than mining uranium from the Earth” source New Scientist. Still not being done commercially. WHY…??
From Wikipedia, one of your favourite sources…….. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium#Seawater
Seawater
Unconventional uranium resources include up to 4,000 megatonnes (8,800×109 lb) of uranium contained in sea water. The technology to extract uranium from sea water has only been demonstrated at the laboratory scale, and extraction costs were estimated in the mid-1990s at 260 USD/kgU (Nobukawa, et al., 1994) but scaling up laboratory-level production to thousands of tonnes is unproven and may encounter unforeseen difficulties.[87]
One method of extracting uranium from seawater is using a uranium-specific nonwoven fabric as an absorbent. The total amount of uranium recovered in an experiment in 2003 from three collection boxes containing 350 kg of fabric was >1 kg of yellow cake after 240 days of submersion in the ocean.[88] According to the OECD, uranium may be extracted from seawater using this method for about USD/kgU [41]
In 2006 the same research group stated: “If 2g-U/kg-adsorbent is submerged for 60 days at a time and used 6 times, the uranium cost is calculated to be 88,000 yen/kg-U, including the cost of adsorbent production, uranium collection, and uranium purification. When 6g-U/kg-adsorbent and 20 repetitions or more becomes possible, the uranium cost reduces to 15,000 yen. This price level is equivalent to that of the highest cost of the minable uranium. The lowest cost attainable now is 25,000 yen with 4g-U/kg-adsorbent used in the sea area of Okinawa, with 18 repetition uses. In this case, the initial investment to collect the uranium from seawater is 107.7 billion yen, which is 1/3 of the construction cost of a one million-kilowatt class nuclear power plant.”[89]
In 2012, ORNL researchers announced the successful development of a new absorbent material dubbed HiCap, which vastly outperforms previous best adsorbents, which perform surface retention of solid or gas molecules, atoms or ions. “We have shown that our adsorbents can extract five to seven times more uranium at uptake rates seven times faster than the world’s best adsorbents,” said Chris Janke, one of the inventors and a member of ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division. HiCap also effectively removes toxic metals from water, according to results verified by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.[90][91][92][93][94]
Among the other methods to recover uranium from sea water, two seem promising: algae bloom to concentrate Uranium[95] and nanomembrane filtering.[96]
So far, no more than a very small amount of uranium has been recovered from sea water in a laboratory.[82]
We don’t extract uranium from seawater because it costs 10 times as much as just mining the cheap, concentrated ores we still have at places like Olympic dam. But that’s the thing about nuclear power: fuel is not the issue. The price of the fuel is *such* a small part of the overall capital expenditure that it *can* go up 10 times and still not radically effect the overall cost of nuclear power. You’re still only paying an estimated $300 to $1000 for uranium from seawater for all the energy to run an entire human lifespan of 70 years! That’s how cheap the *uranium fuel* portion of the nuclear cycle is.
The Simplicity Institute’s co-director, Samuel Alexander, has been doing some work recently with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, and has just published the first of a number of working papers, entitled “A Critique of Technology Optimism: Efficiency without Sufficiency is Lost”. An abstract is posted below and the full paper is available at the following link:
http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=54DeY&m=3foT55D2qEid6Dr&b=P5calpIcq65f1Ri30HmeUg
ABSTRACT: “Technological optimists believe that humanity will be able to solve environmental problems primarily through technological application and advancement, while continuing to focus attention on economic growth. From this widely held perspective, sustained growth of the global economy will eliminate global poverty and raise living
standards for all, without destroying the necessary ecosystems that sustain life as we know it. There can be no doubt that this promise of technology is seductive – material abundance for all, while solving environmental problems. But is this promise credible? If not, what are the implications? This paper presents an evidence-based critique of techno-optimism, arguing that the vision of progress it promotes is unrealisable due to the limits of technology and the
inherent structure of growth economics. The considered application of technology is, without doubt, an essential part of any transition to a just and sustainable world, but it is argued that there must also be a value-shift away from growth economics toward a ‘post-growth’ or ‘steady state’ economy based on material sufficiency.”Best wishes,
Simon Ussher and Samuel Alexander
Co-directors of the Simplicity Institute
“The considered application of technology is, without doubt, an essential part of any transition to a just and sustainable world, but it is argued that there must also be a value-shift away from growth economics toward a ‘post-growth’ or ‘steady state’ economy based on material sufficiency.”
Agreed, however economics is such a bizarre and counter-intuitive discipline that the tools governments can use to tinker with economies and marketplaces are often misunderstood. My economics mate says that the tools within our normal, regular economic systems *can* be tinkered with for steady state: that once the population stabilises and we’re using the right technologies, we could settle in for the long haul in a stable state society with the world pretty much working as it does today. But, using the wrong T in IPAT is a exponentially powerful destructive multiplier. Using the right T in IPAT is can become a exponentially powerful restorative divider of impact.
Abundant, reliable, clean energy is the backbone of getting this right.
Stop it, you’re cracking me up! 🙂
How much does it cost to get 1kg uranium from seawater? (golf ball sized)
At what cost?
(((Just quietly: this is enough uranium to power an *entire* human lifetime, cradle to grave, including whatever synfuels you want to run airlines and agriculture and building)))
Uranium from seawater:
$300 / kg (lifetime)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Recovery_from_seawater
$1000 / kg (lifetime)
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514751/novel-material-shows-promise-for-extracting-uranium-from-seawater/
Between $300 to $1000 /human LIFETIME of energy. Of course, that’s just the fuel: the expensive part of nuclear power is the capital infrastructure. But that’s coming down. And here’s the thing. It’s RENEWABLE! Yup. Continental drift + erosion = uranium particles about 3 times faster than today’s population could use them.
There won’t be ANY money to do any of this with…… it will all be spent before the old nukes are even decommissioned….
Yeah. All the money will be spent. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? Money is not like physics: it’s a complete construct with social power implications that we call ‘economics’. Yes there are certain ‘rules’ within a *normal* economic system.
Oil price too high? Americans dropped 25% oil consumption just like that! It had flow on effects through the economy, but it was not even a Great Depression, let alone Mad Max.
But when *real* economic emergencies hit, governments can perform drastic surgery. I’ve been discussing some of these things with a mate in economics. It won’t be pretty, but as I keep saying, there’s a vast difference between a Greater Depression and Mad Max. Vast! There are debt cancellation schemes and money revaluing schemes and various low-paid pensions and social relocation schemes.
In other words, lots and lots and lots of people can be out of work and in the soup kitchen queue and we’ll *still* have enough of an economic system left to run the government, keep enough farmers employed, AND build out new energy systems. It’s about prioritising to get the job done. EG: They built the Hoover Dam in the Great Depression after all. Not only that, but much of this thing is self-regulating.
Basically, you have failed to come up with a single physics or engineering reason why IFR’s cannot power the world for tens of millions of years, and so you’re resorting to faith in Gail’s prognostications that we simply won’t have enough money. If I’m still around in 2020, I’m going to have a good laugh at Gail’s 2015 navel gazing exercise.
You are using Wikipedia as your source? ROFLMAO
EDITED to remove offensive content. PLEASE, stay on message and don’t insult visitors…….
Maponos,
wikipedia claims indeed needs verifying from the source documents linked to in the article. Which forces me to ask: do you just type “ROFLMAO” because you don’t know how to use footnotes? 😉
Eclipse Now (16:16:14) :
Stop it, you’re cracking me up! 🙂
How much does it cost to get 1kg uranium from seawater? (golf ball sized)
At what cost?
Are you really that ignorant?
Look at what a great market there is for power in the US…..
Bill Gates’ Texas Energy Company has filed for bankruptcy protection as the depressed power market results in untenable financial losses.
“The company, Optim Energy (energyco llc), owned by a Gates investment fund, filed chapter 11 bankruptcy papers on Wednesday for its three power plants in eastern Texas, citing their inability to counter growing losses in the current market.
“The current depressed economic environment of the electric power industry – particularly with respect to coal-fired plants – and the debtors’ liquidity constraints have resulted in continuing losses that, simply put, have left the debtors without alternatives,” media quoted Optim ceo Nick Rahn as saying in court documents.
Reductions in natural gas prices have hit power companies hard over the past several years, and Optim is the third to file for bankruptcy recently, following Dynegy inc and Edison mission energy.
Optim notes in its court filings that the price of electricity in the company’s market area has fallen roughly 40% in the past five years, from around $63.24 per megawatt hour in 2008 to around $38 per megawatt hour by December 2013.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-14/bill-gates-energy-co-files-bankruptcy
Eclipse Now,
You are fully right that nuclear power is by far the most promising way to fuel our energy needs after the fossil fuels have run out. No matter whether classical reactors are used with U235 from seawater, or rather 4th generation reactors with fertile fuel such as U238 or Th232.
A determined program to shift most of power production to nuclear, along with extension of electricity use to all production processes whenever possible would be the best choice as far as “energy transition” goes.
The main problem is that this is not done right now, due to a mix of complacency from the powers that be, and tragic error by “green” political forces to struggle against nuclear.
And while money, which is merely a social sign, is not a constraint, the limit is what money represents… that is, the physically limited fossil fuel resources which can be extracted with EROEI larger than 1 (preferably MUCH larger if our economic system is to continue functioning, which is a necessity if a large networks of nuclear power stations and uranium seamining facilities are to be built).
While year after year, more and more fossil fuels are used up, while the average EROEI of remaining fossil fuels is decreasing, the clock is ticking. At some indetermined point, there will no longer be enough time to build the several thousands nuclear power stations, even with “Apollo / Manhattan” maximum priority organization.
The precise point in time where this will become impossible is not knowable, because not only physical factors have to be considered, also social ones (ability to keep at least part of the economic system functioning, even with hard rationing for the rest). But this point certainly exists.
My “gut feeling” for what it’s worth is that this point is still in the future, however not far at all… I could be wrong, in both directions: we might have more time, or that time point might already be past.
All the more so, since for the economic system to continue functioning, other resources than energy are necessary, and energy cost to get those is also continuously increasing (easier mining resources have been used up first). Not counting resources for food production (fertile lands are being depleted), impacts of global warming, and obviously fuels for transportation which cannot be replaced rapidly by nuclear-powered production of synfuels, yet are indispensable for all economic activities.
Many clocks are ticking in parallel, that’s a fact.
Reconstructing past collapses the like of the Mayas and Easter Islanders, there was a time when the people could have changed their fate, by changing their ways. But they didn’t use that time, no matter because of ignorance, complacency, elite selfishness or other factors.
Ways out of our predicament exist. Nuclear on a LARGE scale is the first obvious step as far as energy resources are concerned.
Whether we will use those paths, or not, is not written in advance.
All the best,
Alexis
“Hard rationing” coming to an EU near you!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-12/europe-considers-wholesale-savings-confiscation-enforced-redistribution
Yes, this is coming.
This actually is not what I would call “hard” rationing. Much worse hardships are in store for the future, I’m afraid. But it’s definitely the beginning of it.
The tragedy is that these hardships are not designed to free up resources for a crack program of energy transition, efficiency, switch to biological agriculture nor any such thing. They are designed to protect powerful short-termist private interests.
They are part of the problem, not of the solution.
No matter whether classical reactors are used with U235 from seawater, or rather 4th generation reactors with fertile fuel such as U238 or Th232.
Thought as much, a member of the thorium cult!
those who are still considering nuclear to be the “answer” have not yet given any answers to the enormous problems of safe disposal of the nuclear wastes, the human overpopulation of our planet, and the growing degradation and pollution of our air, earth and water – just to mention a few of the problems we continue to create.
and where will all these nuclear power stations be built? on the coast, facing more frequent events such as storm surges and tidal waves? on the top of mountains where the water can’t get them?
come on boys, get real!
Kika,
please, you’re reminding me of all the myths I used to believe about nuclear power.
Nuclear waste is the SOLUTION, not the problem! Today’s waste is the perfect fuel for an old nuclear technology called ‘breeder reactors’. See the history of the EBR2 at Argonne.
We already have enough waste to run the world for 500 years! Given that, it’s an energy RESOURCE worth $30 TRILLION dollars!
Uranium & plutonium => caesium & strontium
= nuclear ‘waste’ into centuries of clean energy
= 100,000 storage ‘problem’ into 300 year storage solution (for the caesium & strontium only)
= 300 years — and then your kids could play with it
http://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/refuel/
Nuclear will clean our air, desalinate our water, feed our population, and provide everything we need to create a worldwide demographic transition.
With seawater greenhouses already economic (see Sundrop farms), seawater + desert = food. The world economy is at around $70 trillion. Even if it were to reduce significantly in some oil rationing crisis, it will only *accelerate* the drive towards the emergency deployment of nuclear power + clean transport. (Trains, trams, quickly erected trolley buses + EV’s + boron + synfuels). Nukes are the backbone of our energy and transport and agriculture and mining future. Come on Kika, get real! You need to brush up on IFR’s. Watch this: only a few minutes.
What is the EROEI for Uranium from seawater?
Who could know? Has it ever even been done?
I think Dr Michael Dittmar covers Uranium from seawater and he wasn’t impressed at all but of course you have clowns like Eclipse who parrot any thing they read on the internet..
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/416325/the-coming-nuclear-crisis/
“But without access to the military stocks, the civilian western uranium stocks will be exhausted by 2013, concludes Dittmar. ” What? We ran out of Uranium last year? I guess Dittmar is pretty credible.
” Dr Michael Dittmar covers Uranium from seawater”
Where does the article you linked to say anything about uranium from seawater?
ERoEI of seawater is a good question. Sadly your cite says nothing about Uranium from Seawater. Eclipse is right — you don’t quite grasp the concept of footnoots.
Click to access 22_Tamada_Japan.pdf
The price estimate there works out to $0.60 per MMBTU. However, Japan is currently relying on imported LNG at, last I heard, $16/MMBTU, a price that includes at least sixty cents for the central government.
Everybody please note that this monster puts out a measly 392 MW. A large-ish coal plant puts out 1200 MW.
300MW is quite respectable if you’re talking about a little IFR sitting in a nuclear energy park. When GE starts building their PRISM’s, you’ll be able to order a cluster of 4 or 6 or 8, and maybe even get free fries with that.
In the meantime, Russia’s breeders are coming along.
There are plans for the construction of two larger plants, BN-800 (800 MWe) at Beloyarsk, due sometime in 2014, and the BN-1200 (1200 MWe). They’ve got a bit more kick, and are baseload, and burn nuclear waste & warheads (if necessary).
Good old Eclipse Now, we will grow (economy, population, wealth, energy, consumption, you name it!) forever! Have you ever done the maths?
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/
Dear Eclipse Now,
Everything you know is wrong.
Kind regards,
Physics.
Hi Lemmiwinks,
a few comments:
1. Show me where I said infinite growth on a finite planet is possible? Have you read my blog? It’s about reducing population growth and then stabilising it.
2. That paper does not count the amount of economic activity that could occur off-world and then parachute in from space.
3. I’m incredibly bored of being accused of being pro-growth to ridiculous extremes. I’m just saying I don’t see any validity in a ‘peak energy’ dieoff being *inevitable*. Today’s energy technologies like boron & Synfuels / EV’s / trains trams & trolley buses are able to do the job.
4. We *could* nuke ourselves back to the stone age in a fight over the remaining oil, but a worldwide dieoff is *not* inevitable because of peak oil. If we get more information about the positive technologies out there, we could instead co-operate into a more optimistic, post-fossil fuel world.
5. I, unlike others here, do not pretend to predict the future.
6. I’m against the dieoff meme because I’ve seen it cause suicide in the young and vulnerable.
7. The UN demographers see a worldwide demographic transition as possible around mid century at about 9 or 10 billion people. With enough energy, which we can have in nukes & renewables, we can feed and clothe and house them all in sustainable industrial-ecosystems that do not commit the current eco-cide.
8. Given we are turning around exponentially dangerous threats into exponentially positive trend,s the urgency is on us to state the positive options loudly and clearly, and do everything we can to avoid the iceberg. You guys say we’ve already hit the iceberg and are filling with water. Today’s safe nukes can be deployed fast enough to prevent climate disaster, and they create the perfect fuel for breeders like Russia’s, or tomorrows more integrated IFRs.
Hi Eclipse Now,
Reduce population growth? You’re a pariah just like us, welcome 😉
Space? Sorry dude, keep dreaming:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/why-not-space/
I’m not sure what economic activity you envisage (mining asteroids?) that could possibly have a positive EROEI.
We won’t be changing the vehicle fleet to electric, the energy density of the best batteries (forget fuel cells) is orders of magnitude less than petroleum.
I’m not a doomer, frankly I find the near term extinction to be quite unlikely (and if you believe them there’s nothing to be done anyway so why worry?) IMO even our host here, Mike, is far too pessimistic. OTOH I would say that you are far, far too optimistic.
I think the laws of thermodynamics will prevent your utopian #7.
Ultimately I think that business as usual will continue until it can’t. That’s pretty much the long and the short of it IMO.
“Space? Sorry dude, keep dreaming:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/why-not-space/”
Ummm… No.
Murphy’s Mangled Math…
Hopdavid,
where does the article you link to — other than saying things like ‘ooh, space is scary vacuum’ (d’uh!) and ‘space is big, really mind blowingly big’ (d’uh!) actually disprove that once we get a decent sized robot rocket out there, it could find all the ingredients it needs to hurl gifts back at us, *including* the fuel to do so? Sorry pal, but with one decent asteroid containing more than 30 times the metals we’ve ever mined on earth *and* a whole bunch of water and ingredients to mix up for rocket fuel, you’re going to have to try harder than that. As AI and engineering and even nano-tech arrive on the scene, space becomes more and more our playground. By 2015 space X should be testing re-landable rockets. That will cut the cost to space by 100. Various corporations are already mapping out how they’re going to mine asteroids. Your source needs to get up to speed.
“Hopdavid,
where does the article you link to — other than saying things like ‘ooh, space is scary vacuum’ (d’uh!) and ‘space is big, really mind blowingly big’ (d’uh!) ”
Huh? My article didn’t say that. You seem to think my link went to Murphy’s article. It goes to my critique of Murphy’s math.
I believe going to space is doable. I show a lot of Murphy’s arguments against space resources are wrong. The way Tom Murphy patches conics would get a freshman aerospace student an F. He’s evidently never heard of aerobraking. Or the delta V savings that can be had with 3 body mechanics. There a numerous problems with Murphy’s Why Not Space and Stranded Resources.
I’m on your side. Murphy’s arguments against space are a load of rubbage.
Left off a quote mark. This attempt to link might work better Murphy’s Mangled Math…
PS: There’s nothing pariah like about recommending that we educate and empower women, feed the poor, provide shelter and clean water and provide universal health care and family planning, all at a cost of about 5% of today’s military budget. Providing everything everyone needs is the only humane way to create a worldwide demographic transition which will stabilise population growth which will, ultimately, prevent that ridiculous ‘collision’ with a finite world you keep quoting. What a strawman!
I mean, d’uh, of COURSE the world is finite, and of COURSE we’re not talking about squishing twenty quadrillion people here. But giving 10, 12, 15 billion people a comfortable modern life? Seems doable.
Hopdavid, sorry about that! I had you totally wrong.
No prob, Eclipse
“Have you ever done the maths?”
At Lemmiwinks: Have *you* ever done the maths?
I don’t think you have. I don’t think you even can.
But I could be wrong. Here’s a pop quiz:
Mankind’s annual energy consumption is about 500e18 joules. The sun’s power output is about 3.8e26 watts. Assume 2.5% growth in energy consumption each year. How long will it takes before we hit the ceiling?
The accessible surface area of the Main Belt asteroids is many 1000s times that of earth’s surface area. But let’s say it’s 3000 times that of earth’s surface area. Assume 2.5% growth in occupied real estate each year. How many years til we hit our limit?
I know the answers, I’m curious to see if you can do the math.
Granted exponential growth isn’t sustainable. But our logistic ceiling isn’t necessarily just around the corner.
hopdavid, before we go any further with this…… WHAT are YOUR qualifications? How qualified are you to dismiss out of hand Tom Murphy’s, a phD in Physics, calculations?
Just asking……..
Ooo! Ooo! I know.
1248 years.
By your numbers, the sun puts out 31,536,000 times more energy than humans consume.
“WHAT are YOUR qualifications? How qualified are you to dismiss out of hand Tom Murphy’s, a phD in Physics, calculations?”
See my reply to gbell12.
Are you going to look at math or credentials? if the latter you’re not doing the math. It’s a sad irony that many fans of Murphy’s “Do The Math” don’t do the math.
Most of first year orbital mechanics are accessible to a bright high school senior. You don’t need a doctorate to see Murphy’s full of BS.
Murphy full of BS? REALLY? The guy’s logic is an integral part of his maths. I can’t believe you don’t see limits……
“Murphy full of BS? REALLY? The guy’s logic is an integral part of his maths. I can’t believe you don’t see limits……”
Oh, there are certainly limits. Exponential growth isn’t sustainable – that’s a no-brainer.
Where Murphy and I disagree is where the ceiling lies. He thinks we are constrained by the resources available on earth. I believe we are limited by the resources available in our solar system.
In which case, with all due respect (now you know an insult is coming!) it is YOU who is full of BS!
Just because something is possible ‘mathematically’ doesn’t mean it’s actually practical, or even economical. Heaps of things are simply done for profit that are neither practical nor economical. And economical doesn’t even mean not able to make a profit! Lots of energy and resources are already wasted, FOR PROFIT. I can guarantee with near 100% certainty that resources will NEVER be mined in space. The Matrix will be falling to bits well before anything of the kind ever happens.
The US can’t even maintain its bridges for crying out loud…….
“Ooo! Ooo! I know. 1248 years.”
@gbell Correct! You get a gold star! 😀
“By your numbers, the sun puts out 31,536,000 times more energy than humans consume.”
That’s not right. By my numbers they differ by a factor of 2.4e13.
I think you must have that number somewhere because 1.025^1248 is indeed ~2.4e13.
3153600 is 365*24*60*60 or the number of seconds in a year. I suspect you copied the wrong cell in your spreadsheet when making reply.
By the way, you should check my numbers. I got them by quick Googling. And I have been known to make copying errors as well as arithmetic errors. Every thing I say should be taken with a grain of salt.
But I also say take everyone’s claims with a grain of salt. We’re all humans capable of error. That’s true whether you’re a Ph.D. or someone like me who graduated in the top 60% of my high school class.
Apologies if this appears twice. I posted earlier but WordPress seems be losing some of the comments.
” it is YOU who is full of BS!”
I’ve shown my math. Here it is again. I invite anyone to check it. As I’ve said, it’s possible I’ve made errors.
But so far the Murphy Fans here haven’t pointed to any flaws in my math. C’mon! Do what Murphy tells you. Do The Math!
Hey Lemmiwinks: What were you saying about EV’s?
“Tesla Motors has just recently demonstrated the feasibility of long distance travel with their Model S car. They completed the journey from Los Angeles to New York – a distance of more than 5500km – in just over 76 hours, including charging. This was made possible by the long range of their electric vehicles and a network of high-powered charging stations, which already exist in the US and are currently being installed in Europe.”
http://theconversation.com/costly-toxic-and-slow-to-charge-busting-electric-car-myths-21321
Hi Lemmiwinks,
If we fire a decent sized space-mining colony out there, and they’re mining everything we need on-site to maintain both themselves and do their mining, why can’t they fire minerals back in? Propellant and uranium dust and water and high concentration metals are all on site. Once we get our colony there, it will pay for itself many times over. Launch systems 100 times cheaper are on the way. (See Elon Musk’s space X for people, and hydrogen guns for launching materials… not people of course… as the G’s would be lethal!)
Vehicles to electric? They’re lighter and don’t NEED the energy density of oil for 94% of daily driving trips. Boron has a similar energy density for the rest. There will be alternative fuel hire clubs, and hopefully a lot more trains, trams, and trolley buses. (Even if we had Mr Fusion cars, I still hate the many side-effects of a car based society).
Hands-up who wants to serve Eclipses Imperial rulers as they “colonise” space by joining one of their space mining labour camps, so the spread of Consumer Culture and Taker Mythologies can continue down here? Endless energy, iDevices, and ducted air conditioning for everybody!!! Not to mention boron powered trams that can take you anywhere you want to go day or night!
Please Note: It is likely that post Abbots Fair Work Commission Review there will be no space penalty rates, and union representation will also be banned in space. ;-P
Pffft! No need to make it sound so desirable Idiocracy! Like being an astronaut isn’t already prestigious enough. 😉 Silly mockery is one thing: actually proving breeder reactors to be impossible (when we’ve got 300 reactor years with them) is quite another.
So you’re not in favour of solving resource depletion?
Hi Gbell,
some people just seem so committed to their version of the future that they’re not willing to admit certain things are possible. Strangely, us human beings are so allergic to uncertainty that some will find *comfort* in ‘knowing’ that society is going to collapse. They’ll also feel superior to those who don’t ‘know’ this, just like many last-days cults.
And some people just seem so committed to their version of the future that they’re not willing to admit certain things are impossible.
Hi Mike,
collapse is entirely possible if we really ignore the warning signs and especially if we fight over the remaining oil. You and I agree that there is a cliff ahead. It’s just you’re saying we’re already over the edge, and are just waiting for us to hit the bottom. You’re saying a soft landing is impossible. I don’t think we’re even over the edge, but am also looking at the emergency parachute and a dozen other tricky devices we have on board in case we do go over. But I don’t think it has to get that far. A ‘relatively’ painless transition is possible with quick deployment of nuclear power, trolley buses, and EV’s and even some boron for larger vehicles.
…Continued:
As for EV’s, speaking, in all likelihood as the only poster here who has actually owned (still do – no batteries) and regularly commuted using a battery electric vehicle, please listen when I say FORGET IT. They’re nice, but basically a novelty. Also the consumer mindset that I need to have X hundred km per tank will not change.
The elephant in the EV room which you also fail to appreciate is that there is not enough capacity in power generation (please don’t trot out that stupid crap about having grid-tie EV’s that feed back into the grid, it’s pure unadulterated nonsense). The maths is simple, and the numbers don’t and won’t add up.
And before you remind us all how awesome nuclear power is, please go to youtube and watch a BBC documentary called “Inside Chernobly’s Sarcophagus” And before you tell us all how safe “modern” reactors are read a little bit about how bad the situation actually is a Fukushima Daiichi #4 reactor.
Did you know that the spent fuel rods have been exposed to the air? Do you know what happens to the zirconium cladding of nuclear fuel rods that are exposed to the air? Did you know that the fuel rods that haven’t spilled their uranium pellets (it’s likely that open air fission is occurring in the spent fuel rod “pools”) are so damaged that TEPCO is considering removing them manually? Do you know how badly that can go wrong?
Fukushima makes Chernobyl look like a vicarage tea party, history will prove me right on this.
I don’t claim to know what the future holds, but I predict it will be very different from now, yet nothing like anyone imagines.
Lemmiwinks,
1. NREL says 84% of American driving could be charged overnight, so on normal fleet turnover rates you’ve got 10 years before you have to build extra capacity into the grid. Also, Elon Musk (of Tesla motors) is in talks with Apple. If the world’s wealthiest company is in talks with a 100% EV manufacturer, I think that indicates which way the future may be playing out in terms of those of us who do still need to drive. (If we’re lucky, cities will gradually phase in more rail & ecocity design). Tesla also have quick battery swaps twice the speed of filling up your car with gasoline. Check it out.
2. “And before you tell us all how safe “modern” reactors are read a little bit about how bad the situation actually is a Fukushima Daiichi #4 reactor.”
Fukushima’s reactors were old Gen2 reactors. We’re up to Gen3.5 like AP1000’s. Banning nukes based on Fukushima is like banning modern aviation because of the Hindenberg.
3. “Fukushima makes Chernobyl look like a vicarage tea party, history will prove me right on this.”
Fuklushima has released 1/20th the radioactive waste that Chernobyl did. History has already proved you wrong on this.
#3 Lol! The radioactive water that was, and still is leaking into the Pacific Ocean is going to make Chernobyl look good in years to come. History, unlike you my friend, takes the long view.
I also admire your ability to dismiss the molten uranium that ate through the bottom of the containment vessel and “core catcher” underneath the reactor building. It’s probably solidified by now so no worries right?!
Lol! Ok. 🙂
Why can’t I post the first part of this comment?!!
Hi lemmiwinks…….
I can see your comment beginning with “…Continued:”, but I can assure you there is NO part 1 for me to moderate or otherwise…… beats me.
Hi Mike,
I don’t doubt you, was a genuine reference to “the” matrix, not your little one here 😉
Lemmiwinks,
why don’t you tell us all what is *in* this ‘radioactive water’ you’re so worried about? 😉 Once again: history has already shown you wrong. And before you cry “Ek! Gasp! Wikipedia!” why not look at the peer-reviewed SOURCES for all this in the links to the wikipedia article!
Fukushima: 900 PBq Chernobyl: 5,200 PBq
Go figure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Fukushima_and_Chernobyl_nuclear_accidents
Well, I tried for 2 days and more attempts than I care to recall but the matrix doesn’t want you to read the first part of my reply.
This is BS! Something is bung with WordPress commenting… I cannot reply?!
Idiocracy is being blocked by a Matrix Agent, I know it! 8-P
hopdavid (03:05:51) :
“But without access to the military stocks, the civilian western uranium stocks will be exhausted by 2013, concludes Dittmar. ” What? We ran out of Uranium last year? I guess Dittmar is pretty credible.
” Dr Michael Dittmar covers Uranium from seawater”
Where does the article you linked to say anything about uranium from seawater?
Eclipse is right — you don’t quite grasp the concept of footnoots.
Both you and Eclipse are clowns!
I
It’s easy to clown around given the abundance of clueless straight men around here.
There’s you citing a guy who tells us we ran out of uranium last year (and the cite had nothing to do with uranium from seawater).
There’s Lemmiwinks who cites “Do The Math” and then doesn’t do any math.
There’s mikestasse who appeals to authority and attacks a straw man.
Reviewing your arguments: “Clowns” “internet troll” “ROFLMAO” “Poopy Head” and other insults. But no math!
A group of small communities in central Washington may be facing a very big problem. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/18/birth-defect-stuns-experts-washington_n_4808750.html
Doctors there are baffled by a cluster of local cases involving a birth defect known as anencephaly, in which babies are born with parts of their brain or skull missing. A study released last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed nearly two dozen such cases were reported from January 2010 through January 2013. This means that instances of anencephaly in rural Yakima County area are four times as high as the national estimate, ABC News points out.
Know what the counties of Benton, Yakima and Franklin all have in common? They’re the three closest counties to Hanford, the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States………
1. Proof? Correlation does not equal causation.
2. Why do you care? You have 2 mutually contradictory things going on in your world-view.
(a) Us industrialistist consumers all suck and are stupid sheeple doomed to despair and starvation as peak oil hits. 7 billion of us are going to starve to death. We’ve worked hard for it, and indeed, DESERVE IT! It’s an inevitable outcome of our own selfish, stupid consumption.
(b) We can’t use sustainable nuclear power because you care SO MUCH about a few birth defects here and there!
Hang on: are you now telling us you *care* about those industrialist consumers and their kids who previously deserved the coming greenie Armageddon? Are you trying to pretend that a few birth defects here and there are worse than the human race going extinct, or energy depletion culling 99% of us?
However, the reality is that nuclear power is the *safest* form of large scale, clean, baseload power generation we’ve ever invented. Even hydro dams have more deaths / terrawatt. Dams burst open and drowned hundreds of thousands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
3. So what’s really going on here Mike? On the one hand you’re *rejoicing* in the doom and gloom of dieoff.com, with BILLIONS dying, and the other you’re pretending to be worried about 24 birth defects? Seriously? Come on! Pull the other one, it plays the Empire theme from Star Wars!
Hollister David (08:56:16)[loopydavid] :
There’s you citing a guy who tells us we ran out of uranium last year (and the cite had nothing to do with uranium from seawater).”
He said no such thing. He said we’d run out of secondary[Russian decommissioned Nuclear Weapons program, which ends in 2013] sources!
So stop lying!
LoopyDavid
“and the cite had nothing to do with uranium from seawater”.
Straw man!
LoopyDavid ,
“There’s mikestasse who appeals to authority and attacks a straw man.”
Please demonstrate that straw man?
LoopyDavid
“Reviewing your arguments: “Clowns” “internet troll” “ROFLMAO” “Poopy Head” and other insults. But no math!”
This isn’t the place to discuss it; if you’re so confident of your math then submit a paper for peer-review and tell us which paper it was published in, so we can have a look.
Also show your business plan for mining asteroids [ Laughing here] etc!
To conclude, you’re a clown and you never answered mike when he asked about your qualifications.
He said no such thing. He said we’d run out of secondary[Russian decommissioned Nuclear Weapons program, which ends in 2013] sources!
Wrong.
“But without access to the military stocks, the civilian western uranium stocks will be exhausted by 2013, concludes Dittmar. ”
Straw man!
Wrong again.
Your wrote ” Dr Michael Dittmar covers Uranium from seawater” then you linked to an article where Dittmar says nothing about uranium from seawater. It is safe to say you don’t grasp the notion of cites.
This isn’t the place to discuss it;
Ah, you broke your perfect streak. For once you’re right. Most of Murphy’s Do The Math fan club seems incompetent to discuss math. Gbell12 may be an exception. But a gram of wheat isn’t worth sifting through a tonne of chaff.
I am wasting my time here. Bye.
Removed……. offensive comment not adding to conversation.
From eclipse’s blog!
Qualifications
My main qualification is an Advanced Diploma in Social Sciences.
Social science? lol!
Mike, how about stricter moderation please? Civil discourse, backed by logic and facts, helps us to understand things better.
Yes, been thinking about the way my blog’s starting to turn into just another mudslinging match so common all over the internet….. can’t understand why internet media seems to bring out the worst in people.
Maponos, I’m just being honest, and you’re just offering character attacks rather than actually debunking the known physics of Integral Fast Reactors and Breeder Reactors from over 300 reactor years of testing. But whatever turns you on. The whole paragraph from my About page actually reads:
“My main qualification is an Advanced Diploma in Social Sciences which is why I tend to approach sustainability in broad, sociological terms rather than zooming in on scientific minutiae. My concern is for the overall shape of the trends threatening society. Rather than being an ‘expert’ myself, I merely quote the peer-reviewed papers I find most compelling and convincing: even when inconvenient to my own personal preferences. (As is the case with my support for nuclear power. Needless to say, it does not go down well in many of my greenie networks!) Please check the math and claims out for yourself. I’m convinced that the sources I quote have done so, and that their arguments are enough.”
Yes, we are so clever….. and we NEVER screw up. The government having to step into the toxic water is definitely a good idea –
it would certainly focus the mind wonderfully.
TEPCO, having already failed the toxic water test, should now be drowned in it.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/19/world/asia/japan-fukushima-daiichi-water-leak/
New radioactive water leak at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant
By Yoko Wakatsuki, CNN
February 20, 2014
Tokyo (CNN) — A large amount of radioactive water has leaked from a holding tank at Japan’s troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, its operator said Thursday.
The leak of an estimated 100 metric tons of highly contaminated water was discovered late Wednesday, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said in a statement.
The tainted water flowed over a barrier around the tank and is being absorbed into the ground, TEPCO said. The plant has shut off the inflow of water into the tank and the leaking has stopped, it added.
Hi Mike,
1. They’re treating the dirty water to remove the heavier elements out.
2. Then they’re trying to STORE hundreds of tons of tritium ‘tainted’ water. This is a mistake, and is costing far too much money. In reality they should just LET IT OUT and stop wasting money! Note: Your CNN article never names the ‘contaminant’ and mentions the sheer quantities of water being stored, so it’s definitely the Tritium. They’re playing the whole ‘highly contaminated’ card, but dare not speak its name in case someone like Rod Adams actually calls them on their uncalled for hysteria!
http://atomicinsights.com/another-update-highly-radioactive-water-leaks-fukushima/
Eclipse Now (09:34:53) :
“Maponos, I’m just being honest, and you’re just offering character attacks rather than actually debunking the known physics of Integral Fast Reactors and Breeder Reactors from over 300 reactor years of testing. But whatever turns you on. The whole paragraph from my About page actually reads:”
Please show how many of the present world reactors are actually IFR’s?
None are *IFR’s* technically, since they closed down the EBR2 (which ran successfully for 30 years). But did you see the bit after the word AND in the quote above? IFR’s are a sub-category of Breeder Reactor, as these nukes all ‘breed’ fuel.
Not only are there still many breeder reactors in the world, the Russians are building 2 more. You are welcome to google that yourself. I’d suggest starting at wikipedia (ROFL!!! wikipedia!!!! ROFL!!!) oh, wait, yeah, it’s not that funny if one follows the footnotes to reputable sources. Here: I’ve linked directly to the ‘Future Plants’ paragraph. Go for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Future_plants
Sorry I want official sources, wiki is not an official source. Anyone can edit wikipedia
From the Encyclopaedia Britannica!
“The first experimental breeder reactor, designated EBR-1, was developed in 1951 by U.S. scientists at the National Reactor Testing Station (now called Idaho National Engineering Laboratory), near Idaho Falls, Ida. France, Great Britain, Japan, and the Soviet Union subsequently built experimental breeders. As yet, however, no nation has developed a breeder suitable for high-capacity commercial use.”
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/78696/breeder-reactor
Maponos,
if you’re intellectually incapable of searching footnotes in wikipedia for valid sources, then I don’t know why I have to justify any claim about breeder reactors with you? You’ll just cherry-pick whatever source you want. You’re already doing so by jumping across the net frantically looking for any excuse to cast doubt on the viability of this great technology. Just go ahead, be my guest. I don’t have to justify proven, demonstrable historical FACTS: and you’ll just end up with more egg on your face!
People on here may find this interesting concerning SMR’s!
http://allthingsnuclear.org/safety-and-security-concerns-about-small-modular-reactors-nuscales-design/
This article concerns the economics of nuclear power in America.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2014/02/20/why-the-economics-dont-favor-nuclear-power-in-america/
Thank you for those links Maponos……. most interesting.
Here is another link concerning uranium supply (secondary).
a little quote from te article, “UxCo expects that secondary sources of supply will fall from current levels of 47.3 million pounds per year to 20.4 million pounds per year by 2020.”.
http://www.denisonmines.com/s/Secondary_Uranium_Supply.asp
I meant to say Here is a link concerning secondary supply and not, “Here is another link concerning uranium supply (secondary).”
Here is another link, which people on here may find interesting; it concerns uranium price and supply!
http://www.mining.com/web/uranium-supply-disruptions-spell-pportunity-for-investors-david-talbot/
Eclipse Now (08:21:45) :
Maponos,
“if you’re intellectually incapable of searching footnotes in wikipedia for valid sources, then I don’t know why I have to justify any claim about breeder reactors with you? You’ll just cherry-pick whatever source you want.!
Suggest you take a good hard look at yourself for cheery-picking mate.
“You’re already doing so by jumping across the net frantically looking for any excuse to cast doubt on the viability of this great technology.”
I’ll admit I am anti nuclear
“Just go ahead, be my guest. I don’t have to justify proven, demonstrable historical FACTS: and you’ll just end up with more egg on your face!”
You obviously don’t know what a historical fact actually is, e.g. The Normans invaded England in 1066, that is a historical FACT and not the pollyannaish version of the future you’re peddling out, which isn’t history anyway.
Hi Maponos,
I probably deserved that reply. Mike, feel free to delete the last 2 interactions. (Under the weather at the moment = grumpy). I’ll try and stay more subject and fact focussed next post, because that Britannica article is suffering from editor bias.
More than four decades after construction began, the Watts Bar-2 reactor was finally connected to the grid on 3 June 2016. However, two days later, while operating at 12.5 percent power, the reactor automatically shut down.
According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the reactor tripped when a high pressure turbine valve failed to open. As of 8 June 2016, the reactor has not restarted and no restart schedule has been fixed yet, according to a spokesperson for plant owner the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/nuclear-fail-new-reactor-took-43-years-to-build-shut-down-after-2-days-92176
http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/1936960/hong-kong-experts-flag-fresh-concern-over