Nuclear

Breathe, Neo. I’ve been running a marathon lately to cover all the major players that may provide viable alternatives to fossil fuels this century. Even though I have not exhausted all possibilities, or covered each topic exhaustively, I am exhausted. So in this post, I will provide a recap of all the schemes discussed thus far, in matrix form. Then Do the Math will shift its focus to more of the “what next” part of the message.

Why would a fisher care about the forest? The person to ask is Shigeatsu Hatakeyama, an oyster farmer from Kesennuma in Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture. We can learn a great deal from Hatakeyama. He is one of those rare types of people who can see beyond the day-to-day preoccupation of how to make a living — in his case, with an oyster farm — and instead embrace the world around them.

Ah, fusion. Long promised, both on Do the Math and in real life, fusion is regarded as the ultimate power source—the holy grail—the "arrival" of the human species. Talk of fusion conjures visions of green fields and rainbows and bunny rabbits--and a unicorn too, I hear. But I strike too harsh a tone in my jest. Fusion is indeed a stunningly potent source of energy that falls firmly on the reality side of the science fiction divide—unlike unicorns. Indeed, fusion has been achieved (sub break-even) in the lab, and in the deadliest of bombs. On the flip side, fusion has been actively pursued as the heir-apparent of nuclear fission for over 60 years. We are still decades away from realizing the dream, causing many to wonder exactly what kind of "dream" this is.

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-the Iranian confrontation
-The Euro crisis
-Refining petroleum
-Quote of the week
-Briefs

Last March, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami left nearly 20,000 dead or missing and destroyed 125,000 buildings in the Tohoku region of Japan. The two disasters also caused three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to melt down, which released dangerous levels of radiation into surrounding areas and led to national power shortages. Tokyo’s iconic neon signs were switched off as rolling blackouts spread across the country. Faced with the greatest reconstruction task since World War II, Japan is asking difficult questions about the future of its energy supply and just what sort of society should emerge from the ruins.

There have been enough developments in the cold fusion story during the last two weeks to warrant revisiting the subject. ... while it seems likely that LENR reactions are a real phenomenon, it has yet to be proven that commercial products which can start replacing fossil fuels are only months away. We should have some answers to this question - one way or another -- before the year is out.

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Iranian confrontation
-The EU downgrade
-Nigeria
-Quote of the week
-Briefs

- The Nature of Oil: Reconsidering American Power in the Middle East
- The Expert's Report that Damns the Northern Gateway Pipeline (David Hughes)
- Plentiful Energy – the book on the Integral Fast Reactor
- Fidel Castro on fracking and climate change (cites Yergin)

-For global gasaholics, ending fuel subsidies is the first step
-Obama bans uranium mining around Grand Canyon
-Oil Sands Foes Are Foes of Canada, Minister Says

Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy "chokepoint" could set a region aflame, provoking bloody encounters, boosting oil prices, and putting the global economy at risk. With energy demand on the rise and sources of supply dwindling, we are, in fact, entering a new epoch -- the Geo-Energy Era -- in which disputes over vital resources will dominate world affairs. In 2012 and beyond, energy and conflict will be bound ever more tightly together, lending increasing importance to the key geographical flashpoints in our resource-constrained world.

A recent thrust on Do the Math has been to sort our renewable energy options into "abundant," "potent," and "niche" boxes. This is a reflection of my own mathy introduction to the energy scene, the result of which convinced me that we face giant—and ultimately insurmountable—hurdles in our quest to continue a growth trajectory. It is not obvious that we will even manage to maintain today's energy standards...Meanwhile, requests for me to address the nuclear story are mounting. So before readers become mutinous, I should interrupt the renewable thread to present my nuclear reaction.

- Iran Threatens to Block Oil if West Sets New Sanctions
- Fracking Opens Fissures Among States as Drillers Face Many Rules
- 'Secret' Environment Canada Presentation Warns of Oilsands' Impact on Habitat
- Nickel-hydrogen low energy nuclear reaction (links)

- Keystone XL Is Back on the Table—for Now
- IEA warns high oil prices threaten global economy
- Oil’s getting harder and harder to come by
- Ugo Bardi: Peak E-Cat
- The questionable safety of life extensions for Russian nuclear power plants

- Al Jazeera on World Petroleum Conference in Doha (video)
- Reining In the ‘Soft Costs’ of Solar
- Overview of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) - NASA presentation
- Canadian MP, Laurin Liu, proposes sustainable energy strategy
- ASPO-Switzerland: Benzin und Diesel immer teurer

How best do you help a resilient economy emerge in a region that has one foot in ancient ways and traditions - its other in the world of global universities and nuclear power?