Oil plateaus | 159 comments (159 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Well i just posted this in the Salon (none / 1)

That's cute.

But "when the lights start going out," it's about ten years too late to start doing something about it.

Our civilisation is not so stable that it will be able to manage ten back-to-back years with non-existent to intermittent electricity without major disruption. And our construction technology is not so advanced that we can build a nuke plant overnight. Oh, and you won't have fuel for all those nuke plants, even if you can get them built.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Nov 10th, 2010 at 03:10:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Well i just posted this in the Salon (none / 1)

eh.. the thing is, the original, very primitive nuke plants got built in months, not years, and very cheaply per mwh. Emergency solutions do not look anything like the EPR or the ap1000.

if the alternative is "freezing to death", lead cooled fast breeder designs ripped of soviet sub reactor designs could be mass produced in factories, and "containment domes" could be redefined to "put it in the cellar". This would not be very sensible, of course, but the laws of physics do actually prevent it. And societies that are in trouble have a very long history of doing things that are not sensible and fixing the problems later.

by Thomas on Wed Nov 10th, 2010 at 04:14:06 PM EST
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Re: Well i just posted this in the Salon (4.00 / 3)

to clarify: I am not advocating this - it is what I think will happen if we fuck up our long term energy supply planning. What I would actually like is an orderly transition to safe and reliable energy sources (EPRs, ap1000s, what hydro we can. desert solar if the price is right) with a long term plan that is more conservative of natural resources than light water reactors (ELSY, Astrid, IFR or whichever design turns out to be most economical)

by Thomas on Wed Nov 10th, 2010 at 04:24:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Well i just posted this in the Salon (none / 0)

You have now joined the mainstream of American physicists, who never really thought there was another alternative...

by asdf on Thu Nov 11th, 2010 at 08:47:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Well i just posted this in the Salon (none / 1)

See, for example: