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You're dead wrong... oil produces only about 3% of the us electrical requirment... while nuclear power provides nearly 30% you're right about coal, which produces about 60% of the us electrical power, but oil barely plays a role.. except in heating... which isn't electrical production, now is it...
I'm citing numbers found at the DOE http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table es1b.html

The comment by the Canadian is something that we Americans might as well get used to. While Canadians produce about the same amount of carbon dioxide per capita as Americans do, the Canadians weren't stupid enough to strongly identify their country with environmental destruction worldwide.

Thanks to the the Bush administration's self-indulgent high-profile nose-thumbing (and all those chromed up Escalades in the music videos we keep sending out), the United States is now firmly established in everyone else's consciousness as that country where "they just don't give a damn". If global climate change does turn out to have serious consequences in the next couple of decades, who do you think is going to be chosen as the fall guy?

Yep. That's going to be US.

Wow, my first 5! I had to register to reply.
Anyway, from the DOE:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/kyoto/execsum.html

The first and second Conference of the Parties in 1995 and 1996 agreed to address the issue of greenhouse gas emissions for the period beyond 2000, and to negotiate quantified emission limitations and reductions for the third Conference of the Parties. On December 1 through 11, 1997, representatives from more than 160 countries met in Kyoto, Japan, to negotiate binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions for developed nations. The resulting Kyoto Protocol established emissions targets for each of the participating developed countries--the Annex I countries2--relative to their 1990 emissions levels. The targets range from an 8-percent reduction for the European Union (or its individual member states) to a 10-percent increase allowed for Iceland. The target for the United States is 7 percent below 1990 levels.
Although atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are thought to have the potential to affect the global climate, the Protocol establishes targets in terms of annual emissions. Non-Annex I countries have no targets under the Protocol, but the Protocol reaffirms the commitments of the Framework Convention by all parties to formulate and implement climate change mitigation and adaptation programs.

And here you can see the Annex I countries and their targets (note: neither China nor India have limitations) http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1997/global.warming/st ories/treaty/index4.html

US has about 4% of the world population, yet consumes more than 25% of world energy production according to this statistics http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/stats_ctry/Stat1. html
(1998).

Just to compare, EU represents about 6% of the world population, and consumes 16% of the worlds energy, hence the average european consumes only 40% of the energy resources of the average american. China, about 25% of the world population consumes 10% of the energy. (see http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/euro.html)

Comparing the EU and US economies, they are about equal size. This means european energy to money conversion is about 40% more effective than US. Taking into account the larger population of Europe the production per capita is about 65% of US, but the average efficiency per capita (that is the conversion of energy to money per capita) is some 60% better (consuming 40 units of the energy to produce 65 units of value).

In other words, US can do a lot to improve efficiency! If US were as efficient as EU, US would maintain BNP and comply with Kyoto.

So what's the problem? Who has the interest of keeping US production inefficient?

Interesting. Here's a couple of thoughts coming together:

1 - China has a big advantage in cheap labour, and not just in the direction of service, like is suggested in the article, but also because the cost of goods is also mostly labour. I'm thinking about things like houses, cars, shirts, computers, etc. There's labour in the manufacture, and labour in the design.

So it makes sense for China to want to do as much as they can themselves - it's going to be cheaper to buy a shirt made in China, than one made in the US. Avoid imports. But there are still things they have to import, and energy is one of them. I guess they're not happy about that.

2 - I'm distinctly unamerican in that I believe the answer to the energy crisis is to use less, rather than produce more. I don't think we need to find an infinite source of clean energy - even if we had this technology, it would not solve all our energy problems (BTW, the same goes for other resources: Food, water, etc.). To me, "produce more", and "consume more" seems like a western disease that China is perhaps immune to? Could they have an edge here too?

So yeah, I can see that China could have both the incentive and the ability to come up with some innovations in the direction of energy.

Would we have to buy it from the Chinese? Probably not, given how happy the chinese are to steal technology (i.e. intellectual property) from us. We'd probably refuse to recognise any chinese rights to the technology.

Oops, I forgot. This is slashdot, and IP can't be stolen. Sorry about that. :)

The Annual Energy Review offers a fascinating graph of our energy sources and destinations. We use about 1e+15 BTU, or 300 terawatt hours. We get roughly 8% of our energy from splitting atoms. We get about 75% from dinosaurs, of which roughly 30% is imported oil.

We would need to add a capacity of 276 terawatt hours, but because we've only seen 90% capacity from the existing plants, we need about 300 terawatt hours. Building "advanced nuclear" plants cost about $2117 per kwhr [1], so we would expect to pay about $600 trillion for the plants. (If we started building in 2002 and finished in 2007.) Economies of scale would likely cut that number by a significant factor - let's guess 10 - and we're still looking at $60 trillion, or about 30 years' worth of the federal budget at present spending rates.

Further calculations - the costs of converting virtually all our energy to electricity, losses related to storage, and so forth are left as an exercise to the reader.

Lawrence-Berkeley Labs also runs NEMS and has produced some reports that may be of interest.

The Annual Energy Review offers a fascinating graph of our energy sources and destinations. We use about 1e+15 BTU, or 300 terawatt hours. We get roughly 8% of our energy from splitting atoms. We get about 75% from dinosaurs, of which roughly 30% is imported oil.

We would need to add a capacity of 276 terawatt hours, but because we've only seen 90% capacity from the existing plants, we need about 300 terawatt hours. Building "advanced nuclear" plants cost about $2117 per kwhr [1], so we would expect to pay about $600 trillion for the plants. (If we started building in 2002 and finished in 2007.) Economies of scale would likely cut that number by a significant factor - let's guess 10 - and we're still looking at $60 trillion, or about 30 years' worth of the federal budget at present spending rates.

Further calculations - the costs of converting virtually all our energy to electricity, losses related to storage, and so forth are left as an exercise to the reader.

Lawrence-Berkeley Labs also runs NEMS and has produced some reports that may be of interest.

The Annual Energy Review offers a fascinating graph of our energy sources and destinations. We use about 1e+15 BTU, or 300 terawatt hours. We get roughly 8% of our energy from splitting atoms. We get about 75% from dinosaurs, of which roughly 30% is imported oil.

We would need to add a capacity of 276 terawatt hours, but because we've only seen 90% capacity from the existing plants, we need about 300 terawatt hours. Building "advanced nuclear" plants cost about $2117 per kwhr [1], so we would expect to pay about $600 trillion for the plants. (If we started building in 2002 and finished in 2007.) Economies of scale would likely cut that number by a significant factor - let's guess 10 - and we're still looking at $60 trillion, or about 30 years' worth of the federal budget at present spending rates.

Further calculations - the costs of converting virtually all our energy to electricity, losses related to storage, and so forth are left as an exercise to the reader.

Lawrence-Berkeley Labs also runs NEMS and has produced some reports that may be of interest.

The Annual Energy Review offers a fascinating graph of our energy sources and destinations. We use about 1e+15 BTU, or 300 terawatt hours. We get roughly 8% of our energy from splitting atoms. We get about 75% from dinosaurs, of which roughly 30% is imported oil.

We would need to add a capacity of 276 terawatt hours, but because we've only seen 90% capacity from the existing plants, we need about 300 terawatt hours. Building "advanced nuclear" plants cost about $2117 per kwhr [1], so we would expect to pay about $600 trillion for the plants. (If we started building in 2002 and finished in 2007.) Economies of scale would likely cut that number by a significant factor - let's guess 10 - and we're still looking at $60 trillion, or about 30 years' worth of the federal budget at present spending rates.

Further calculations - the costs of converting virtually all our energy to electricity, losses related to storage, and so forth are left as an exercise to the reader.

Lawrence-Berkeley Labs also runs NEMS and has produced some reports that may be of interest.

The Annual Energy Review offers a fascinating graph of our energy sources and destinations. We use about 1e+15 BTU, or 300 terawatt hours. We get roughly 8% of our energy from splitting atoms. We get about 75% from dinosaurs, of which roughly 30% is imported oil.

We would need to add a capacity of 276 terawatt hours, but because we've only seen 90% capacity from the existing plants, we need about 300 terawatt hours. Building "advanced nuclear" plants cost about $2117 per kwhr [1], so we would expect to pay about $600 trillion for the plants. (If we started building in 2002 and finished in 2007.) Economies of scale would likely cut that number by a significant factor - let's guess 10 - and we're still looking at $60 trillion, or about 30 years' worth of the federal budget at present spending rates.

Further calculations - the costs of converting virtually all our energy to electricity, losses related to storage, and so forth are left as an exercise to the reader.

Lawrence-Berkeley Labs also runs NEMS and has produced some reports that may be of interest.

International Production tables.

Net Generation by Fuel Type by Country, 2001 in GWHrs

Global Production by Fuel Source, Historical in 10^15 BTUs

International Production tables.

Net Generation by Fuel Type by Country, 2001 in GWHrs

Global Production by Fuel Source, Historical in 10^15 BTUs

International Production tables.

Net Generation by Fuel Type by Country, 2001 in GWHrs

Global Production by Fuel Source, Historical in 10^15 BTUs

International Production tables.

Net Generation by Fuel Type by Country, 2001 in GWHrs

Global Production by Fuel Source, Historical in 10^15 BTUs

• electrical grid power plants by type, 2003
• coal: 53%
• nuclear: 21%
• natural gas: 15%
• hydroelectric: 7%
• oil: 3%
• geothermal and "other": 1%

1. "How much energy is required to replace our fossil fuel consumption?
   • Depends on the definition of "fossil fuel consumption". It would take around 200 GW plus losses to replace the US consumption of petroleum-based motor fuel, according to my analysis. (Yes, I know, the EIA has broken the important links. Worse, they've split the data which used to be on one page over several.)
2. What are the initial costs of the program, and just how cheap could the electricity be?
   • The problem comes in two parts, generating the power from nuclear and then transforming it to something which can be put aboard a vehicle. As a quick BOTE calculation, if you need 250 GW of generation at $1110/KW, that's $275 billion dollars. The most efficient way of getting it aboard vehicles is to use batteries. Add 20 KWH of batteries for 100 million vehicles at $100/KWH and I get an additional $200 billion. Over ten years that would be about $50 billion per year.
3. How expensive would it be for our industries to convert?
   • Industries which need oil as a chemical feedstock would be largely impractical to convert to non-fossil, though non-petroleum is much easier. Industries which simply consume electricity would require no conversion. Industries which use process heat would pay a lot more if they used electricity instead, or perhaps less if they were close to a nuclear plant and could get spent steam.
4. How expensive for home and auto conversions?
   • It's not going to be practical to convert most cars; they will be replaced. Neither are you going to convert a home to nuclear. Converting to electric is cheap, converting natural gas appliances to hydrogen would also be cheap if it could be made safe enough (which I doubt). Cost of energy would be much higher; it would be cheaper to re-insulate, change building codes and use e.g. solar water heaters.
5. How much of this cost should be picked up by the government?
   • Do you mean paid out of increased taxes or added to the deficit? (The question betrays stupidity.)
6. Bottom line: is nuclear power cheaper than our current oil-driven middle-east policy, with all of its blowback?
   • When we could do it for $100 billion/year or less over 10 years? Absolutely.

Oil 39%

Natural gas 24%

Coal 23%

Nuclear 8%

Hydropower 3%

Other 3%

The coal, nuclear, and hydro are almost all for electricity generation. If we got up to roughly four times as many nuclear plants as we currently have, we could stop burning coal, and we'd be up with France (see here in total energy from nuclear power.

Oil is used mostly for transportation (and feedstock for the chemical industry). Without a major breakthrough in transportation energy (hydrogen, fuel cells, batteries), nuclear can't replace oil for transportation,

1) We can recycle the nuclear waste we have. Yes, it is possible. What we essentially do is re-enrich and purify it. The problem with this is that it is that it is the same process used to create weapons grade material. I think that is the only reason why it is not done. If we start refining the waste, the amount of toxic material left over shrinks rapidly to less than 1% of the volume.

2) Nuclear power supplies about 20% of the total power generated in the US. There is a lot of uranium and plutonium in the world. We have enough in order to supply it. Epsecially if we start re-enrichment of the waste.

Volcanos produce so much CO2 that what humans produce theoretically should be negligible

By the way, here is the data for the US, and despite 70 active volcanoes in the US, non-energy sources of CO2 only contribute 1.7% of all greenhouse gas output (compared to 82.8% energy related CO2 generation). Similarly detailed data is available for the rest of the world. We don't have to guess about these things.

I googled for Yucca mountain and it says:

Yucca Mountain has changed little over the last several million years. Extensive scientific studies of potential natural hazards at the site show it is highly unlikely that volcanoes, erosion, or other geologic processes and events would disrupt a repository at Yucca Mountain. In addition, by locating the repository in solid rock about 1,000 feet under the surface and on average 1,000 feet above the water table, the waste would be protected from the impacts of earthquakes. Damaging ground movement is the most intense at the earth's surface and decreases with the depth underground.

So, normaly there shouldn't be a problem, right?

Was this some sort of ironic post? All your blames against the enviro-extremists, can be equally repeated. Negate through your own post and you have pretty much what can be said about the ignorant american techno fanatism that works to destroy the world for its own benefit claiming that if you can earn money then it must be good.

America has about 4% of the world population, yet consumes more than 25% of world energy production according to this statistics http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/stats_ctry/Stat1. html
(1998).

Just to compare, EU represents about 6% of the world population, and consumes 16% of the worlds energy - the average european consumes only 40% of the energy resources of the average american. China, about 25% of the world population consumes 10% of the energy. (see http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/euro.html)

Comparing the EU and US economies, they are about equal size. This means european energy to money conversion is about 40% more effective than US. Taking into account the larger population of Europe the production per capita is about 65% of US, but the average efficiency per capita (that is the conversion of energy to money per capita) is some 60% better (consuming 40 units of the energy to produce 65 units of value).

In other words, US can do a lot to improve efficiency!

Continuing with status quo, America has a lot to loose if the world should even out the energy consumption to countries like China, India and the rest of the developing countries.

If everyone in the world consume the same ammount of energy as the average american then the consumption would 5-double. This is both far beyond sustainable consumption and production capacity. If the rest of the world get such access to energy resources, prices would skyrocket and this would put the american lifestyle under pressure.

This is why american anti-enviro extremists regard any movement towards sustainable development as anti-american. US has a huge interest in keeping the rest of the world poor.

I met a guy - he claimed to be internationally minded because he had a stamp in his passport - he was republican, and told me that going into Iraq was a brilliant move. Not because US needed the energy, but because there were plans building a pipeline from China. So the war was really about preventing other potential consumers getting access, or put another way, keep developing countries poor. "Brilliant", he said.

Appaerently you think it is unfair that others get a piece of the cake. This is why people favoring a sustainable development regard american policies as anti-world, and this also explains why americans are becomming increasingly less popular if at all welcome in the rest of the world.

The american lifestyle is not sustainable and the only way that the world as a whole can become a better place is if America gives up wasting energy and resources.

I'm European, I'm not particular anti-american, I'm just pro-world.

Yes and this is a systematic problem with our government, not a particular political party.

Um, yes. Your point? Both parties also have started pointless foreign wars, which mitigates the current pointless war not at all. Get this straight: I don't care what party a rotten politician is from, I care that they are rotten.

So if cheny used to say head up the red cross should they not be allowed in? This argument *might* hold some water if Clinton had not done the *exact same thing*

That depends. Is the Red Cross a publicly traded company in which Cheney had more than 400,000 stock options? Do we give them multi-billion contracts?

Ok So if I get you right, even though oil is fungable, and even though Clinton gave no bid contracts to halliburton in the 90's its still blatent proof this was was about oil?

So those are our two options as you put them: blatant proof, or no basis in reality. Sorry, but this discussion would be more fruitful if we could acknowledge shades of grey. Substantial conflict of interest, acting in ways beneficial to said interest, all while lying about the conflict of interest is not proof of anything, but is still as real as anything.

No I pointed out facts, I fully expected you to ignore them and contiune an anti-bush rant

I'm not ignoring it, I'm questioning how you think it is supposed to sway me.
Me: Handing these overpriced contracts to Halliburton was indefensible.
You: Just as it was when Clinton did it.

Okay. That changes the word "indefensible" in my first statement how?

Do you really think Iraq was the most politically expedient way to get halliburton money? hell Bush could have rammed anwar through (he did have the votes) and gave halliburton a no bid contract for that.

Who said it was the most politically expedient, or had to be?

Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, possibly more in the nine tenths of the country that are unexplored, more than ten times the amount in the ANWR. And Alaska isn't going anywhere, so Iraq or ANWR is a false dichotomy. Lifting the sanctions may have lowered oil prices, but it wouldn't provide long term strategic control over the 3rd largest oil reserve on earth. That this would also result in financial benefit to Halliburtion is something I'm sure Cheney would say doesn't impact the decision at all, while eyeing the stock price.

It's not just about oil; it's not just about feeding Halliburton money. Those are strawmen. And yet, the first thing we secured was the oil fields, which are still better protected than Iraqi cities outside the Green Zone. We'll let cities go without electricity for weeks, but damned if we let the terrorists stop the flow of oil for more than a day. It's not all about oil and money for Halliburton, but it's a far, far cry from not being about oil.

And no, the background radiation does not cause cancer, or at least it doesn't at the current dose you're getting.

The background radiation does cause cancer.

Now we only need about 15,000,000 of these and we can power Pennsylvania!

US Electricity production in 2003 was 3800 Billion KWh (=3.8 PWh =13 Quad); 21% nuclear (.76 PWh=2.6). For comparison, hydro was 7%; solar, geothermal, and other alternative sources about 1%.

Total energy consumption, however, is about 100 Quad, once you include all energy use ("petroleum, dry natural gas, coal, net hydro, nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind, wood and waste electric power").

Since nuclear energy is used exclusively for electricity generation (neglecting the effect of a few floating cities), it would not be impossible to replace nuclear power with an expanded coal program, especially given the vast proven US coal reserves. However, coal-fired plants have arguably greater drawbacks-- coal ash is radioactive, and burning more coal would release more CO2.

Replacing nuclear power with an expanded alternatives program (wind or solar) would require an order of magnitude increase in generation capacity. It would also result in a cost increase; wind energy costs around .

Actually, China uses quite large amounts of coal and oil for its burgeoning industry and its surging automobile market. Their emission standards are very poor, and combined with their tremendous population, it has caused a significant air pollution problem, especially along the coast. China is the second biggest energy consumer in the world (behind the US), but spends 30000 Btu per dollar of GDP versus the US's 9000 Btu per dollar.

Oh, and here are some references.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/china.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/chinaenv.html
http://app.quotemedia.com/data/newsItem.htm?storyI d=1129363

Actually, China uses quite large amounts of coal and oil for its burgeoning industry and its surging automobile market. Their emission standards are very poor, and combined with their tremendous population, it has caused a significant air pollution problem, especially along the coast. China is the second biggest energy consumer in the world (behind the US), but spends 30000 Btu per dollar of GDP versus the US's 9000 Btu per dollar.

Oh, and here are some references.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/china.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/chinaenv.html
http://app.quotemedia.com/data/newsItem.htm?storyI d=1129363

Second, home energy costs make up 3.83% of the CPI budget, auto fuel makes up 3.25%, dairy makes up 0.84% of the budget, and all food makes up 15.38% of the budget. Assuming a $2,000/month budget, this translates to $76.60 a month for home energy, $65 for auto fuel, $16.80 for dairy, and $307.60 for all food. None of those figures look too terribly out of line to me. Specifically, which one do you object to?

Third, the BLS table shows dairy up 10.4% since August 2003, and auto fuel up 16.5% over the same period. I calculate the price rise from the USDA numbersto be about 23%, and the Department of Energy has fuel prices up 15.9%. Granted, the milk number looks skewed, but the DOE numbers are actually higer for fuel costs.

I will concede that the CPI numbers aren't perfect; no measure of "inflation" can be. But, to insinuate they are cooked or are made up is really tenuous.

Wow. Just when you think you've read it all. And here I was thinking it was a positive that coal reserves may last for another two centuries. Everything is such a damn boondoggle. I guess it's just par for the course that a pdf claiming to be unverisally useful can't take the hits and is shut down in minutes when it is made universally available.

Certainly not if there if there is a substantial risk of fuel cost rises for current preferred energy generation methods in a timeframe less than or on the close order of the lead time for putting a currently-nonexistant wind plant on the grid (both for construction and dealing with NIMBY locational issues that may arise).

Large supply shocks are MINDBOGGLINGLY bad for the economy especially for something as fundamental these days as the cost of electricity, and are far worse for consumers than for corporations or corporate stockholders-- especially for the corporations producing the shocked supply. You don't remember the economy of the early 1970's very well, do you? It royally sucked. "Those who do not study their history...."

It takes time to develop the engineering expertise to make wind plants economical, efficient, and integrated into a fairly regular cyclical demand grid (nontrivial given the intermittency of wind supply). Subsidies make it look at least marginally economical to build plants now. Once you have people building plants, greed will drive them to try to figure out how to improve them to make more money... which will start pushing the calendar on developing the aforementioned expertise, so that we will (hopefully) have it before the need for it is critical. Yeah, it's a "carrot for the jackass" approach, but given the number of stupid jackasses in the US, and given the traditions of this country, we really can't use a stick exclusively.

Lots.

The Danish Wind Industry Association says infrastructure is just under $100K per 100Kw peak production... our total peak capacity is about 1 TW. At 100% efficiency, that's $1 trillion (assuming I'm not doing slashdot math). So expect the real cost to be at least 4X that (guessing?)

Nice of you to decide what Iraq should do with its oil. Way to call Iraq a blood for oil war on one hand and ignore your own cliam the next.

What? This is a stunningly stupid remark. Who else should decide what Iraq does with its oil? How about.... the Iraqi people! Basically, Hussein should have been deposed in 1992, and reconstruction should have occurred back then. Then, the Iraqi government could then decide what to do what they wanted with their own oil, unlike how any of the other Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia do. I guess you're arguing that the US should decide what is done with Iraqi oil? But, I don't actually know, because you aren't *making* any arguments, you're just being an ass...

And, how am I ignoring my "blood for oil war" claim? I do feel that this administration has started a war of aggression for control of the second-largest oil and natural gas reserves in the world, in that if there were no oil in Iraq, we NEVER would have sought to depose Hussein; in fact the US government helped put him in power.

doesn't anyone realize we're using more electrical power than ever before?

Coal 52%
Nuclear 20%
Gas 16%
Hydro 7%
Oil 3%
Non-hydro Renewable 2%

(Source)

actually US already works on the issue. America started Generation IV power systems initiative few years ago http://gen-iv.ne.doe.gov/

I've read here in russian press that recently russian scientist visited US to discuss possible cooperation to build pebble bed reactors. as thought it is not mentioned in article - many things in new chineese reactors are developed by russians and here we developed plans on pebble bed reactors which span to year 2020 and 2050 ( you might see old russian pdf file http://old.minatom.ru/presscenter/document/news/st rat.pdf - at least as matter of fact that in russia there are plans on pebble bed reactors as well)

And as it was already mentioned - the most problem which US scientist rise with the new reactors is the way to deal with waster - so far americans are reluctant to reprocess it ( as it might lead to more places where nuclear materials could be stolen for nukes) but reprocessing is a way to make less waster.

... because:

1) by-products are carbon dioxide and methane.

2) unseen by-products: whatever is required to grow sunflowers (fertilizers & their production, tractor fuel by-products, etc)

3) scaling: how many sunflowers does it take to make how much usable fuel?

4) scaling: how much viable farm land can afford to be lost to the production of "fuel" vice "food"?

Fuel cells are really neat. The problem of fuelling fuel cells is huge. Even without fuel cells the whole concept of biomass based fuels simply can't scale to current demand . Think about it, the U.S. produces amounts of oil measured in millions of barrels per day to sustain current consumption (let alone what it imports)! What quantity of biomass is required to come close to that and what are you willing to sacrifice to do it?

Sorry, but this story is a non-starter. If we're serious about addressing the dangers of fossil fuels, then we have to cut back on our energy consumption first and foremost. Anything else is just a "diet pill" approach. Don't change your fuel or engine, learn to live without/depend less on the vehicle(s).

The vehicular power requirements of the United States average close to 200 GW. Then you have losses in transmission, conversion and storage. Total US electric generation capacity in 2002 was about 900 GW.

"plenty of oil, "

Even that didn't turn out as planned:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/prices.h tml#Crude

Doh!

Nuclear is cleaner in air emissions than burning hydrocarbons (although natural gas in modern plants is also quite clean). However, the cost of nuclear generation is pretty high when you factor in all of the safety measures that we require in modern society.

It's not clear to me that nuclear is the way of the future, although I'm willing to keep an open mind and compare based on a realistic analysis of the costs and benefits. I think that nuclear may win out over coal in the short term, although fuel disposal is a concern. Alternatives such as wind are interesting, although they have capacity concerns and other uncertainties.

Nuclear is cleaner in air emissions than burning hydrocarbons (although natural gas in modern plants is also quite clean). However, the cost of nuclear generation is pretty high when you factor in all of the safety measures that we require in modern society.

It's not clear to me that nuclear is the way of the future, although I'm willing to keep an open mind and compare based on a realistic analysis of the costs and benefits. I think that nuclear may win out over coal in the short term, although fuel disposal is a concern. Alternatives such as wind are interesting, although they have capacity concerns and other uncertainties.

Fact is less than 25% of all oil is consumed to fuel our cars and power our homes. The other 75% goes directly to manufacturing

GE made a presentation to the DOE detailing their project plan and how it would work. DOE has published this on the web. It can be seen here.

Also, many people have asked how such energy savings could be arrived at (2% of all of the electricity generated in the U.S. per year could be saved). This is based on a DOE study, but more facts can be found here.

Full Disclosure: I am currently an employee of Sensicast, hence the anonymous coward post.

GE made a presentation to the DOE detailing their project plan and how it would work. DOE has published this on the web. It can be seen here.

Also, many people have asked how such energy savings could be arrived at (2% of all of the electricity generated in the U.S. per year could be saved). This is based on a DOE study, but more facts can be found here.

Full Disclosure: I am currently an employee of Sensicast, hence the anonymous coward post.

Why don't we just install a "Spaceballs" style solar glass enclosure around the earth at 26000 miles from the center? Just high enough to keep the geostationary satellites inside (wouldn't want to lose our tv). The surface area should be about.

131,657,416,704,000,000 sq/ft

and cost

$5,924,583,751,680,000,000

in raw materials (maybe we could get a bulk discount)
we should also try to cash in on a "free installation"

The output of such a sphere would be

500,298,183,475,200,000 watts continuous

Or (for sake of easier calculation in an already complicated process) if only half of the sphere received light at any given time

250,149,091,737,600,000 watts continuous
250,149,091,737.6 kW continuous
250.15 Petawatt continuous

Power demand in 2002 for the entire world
13,747,393,531.8 kW continuous
0.0137474 Petawatt continuous

sure every living thing on earth would probably die and we would enter a perpetual ice age from the lack of light and heat but, you could throw away the sunscreen and with all that extra energy maybe we could string up some halogens or something along the inside! We could also sell advertising space on it.

All conversions made with http://www.onlineconversion.com/
Power consumption data from http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/total.ht ml#IntlConsumption
Geostationary orbit data from how http://octopus.gma.org/surfing/imaging/howhigh.htm l
Radius of the earth from http://www.page.sannet.ne.jp/ikenoue/e-mode/earth. html (seems accurate)
Output and cost from RFTA

If you think that my math is wrong then check and let me know, too tired to think anymore.

Energy content data for coal is here.

Actually, steel melts around 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Memory cards melt around 9,980 degrees Fahrenheit.

Wait--what? Memory cards aren't made of neutronium?

Oh, sorry, nevermind.

Maybe we should stop and think about the wonderful applications this could have. Systems that are meant to monitor information for years, like space satellites or Yucca Mountain systems (http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ymp/index.shtml), could be equipped with these chips and last many more times longer than they would have before. And what about equipping space shuttles with these? Or public utilities like power grids?

This is a huge accomplishment!

Just for you, here's some figures from the gov't:

The US uses 20 million barrels per day.

The ANWR has could produce 1.4 million barrels per day.

We import 12.2 million bbl per day. So we would reduce our imports by around 11.5 percent.

Of course, if we managed someohow to use the oil from the ANWR at the rate we use oil overall, we'd be out of oil in 520 days.

So it's not quite 30 days. That's an extreme exxageration. But it's not any sort of a real solution either. It wouldn't even let us stop importing oil from the Persian Gulf. We could stop importing from Venezuala if we wanted to. However, if people could get over their light truck and high power addiction in cars, we could stop importing oil from the terror-funding Saudis. Just a 21% improvement in fleet mileage would do it.

Okay, fair enough. 102 nuclear reactors (104 licensed, but 2 are cuurently down) provide 21% of all US electricity. That's it. Little more than two per state provides 21% of all electricity to the grid.

No, these aren't Enron numbers.

Speaking of which, could you please explain to me how Enron would benefit from elevated nuclear power output numbers? Or were you just referring to the general concept of funny numbers?

As for taxpayer "discounts," please cite your sources. I figure it's only fair since you asked me to cite mine.

FYI: When I say "nuclear accidents," I mean "nuclear power station accidents." The Freedom of Information Act applies to civilian power stations and any associated threats to public safety. Save the conspiracy theories for someone else.

DOE is more than capable of doing this and have done so for many years. Admittedly there have been a few problems but it never started a real situation of calamatious proportions.

Last I checked, the DoE ran the Pantex nuclear weapons plant. The same site with some obscene safety issues. Accidentally drilling into the core of a nuclear device resulted in the evacuation of the entire plant. Securing a warhead with duct tape increased the chances of a flat out nuclear explosion. And that's ignoring the clichéd "OMG THREE MILE ISLAND" commentary.

+++Warning to any fool that thinks it's easy to steal radioactive material from one of these teams. You'll die twice before you get to pull your trigger once!+++

Perhaps you reached this conclusion because the security teams were cheating during their security drills ? Cheating. for twenty years. It's not too hard to look impenetrable when you know the exact building and wall where an attack will take place. A DoE whistleblower admitted to a 50% success rate for security tests. Special forces teams were able to penetrate Los Alamos and wander off with enough material to create a nuclear bomb. Even an freakin' journalist was able to sneak into Los Alamos. There are plenty of other issues raised over at the Project On Governmental Oversight. Again, that's ignoring all the major security issues with CREM's going on over the last month.

Now, you're absolutely right in the fact that we need to get that waste cleaned up. But thinking that the DoE, NNSA, or the US government on the whole is "more than capable" is bullshit. We're flirting with disaster. If we take the outlook that everything is fine and dandy, we're going to quickly hit the point where someone will cause a situation of calamatious proportions.


--LordPixie