The Crash Course - Chris Martenson [86]
The rest of the reason that energy transitions take so long is simply the scale involved. Even if the world collectively decided that 1,000 brand new nuclear plants were exactly what it needed (and right away), it would still take decades to complete them all. Why? Because there aren’t enough manufacturing facilities to build the reactor cores. So those manufacturing facilities would have to be built first. Then, there aren’t enough engineers trained in reactor assembly and operation, and training takes time. Further, all of the world’s current uranium mines together wouldn’t be able to supply the required fuel, so new mines would have to be identified and opened. That, too, would take a very long time.
In every historical case, energy transitions required decades to complete, and there’s no reason to suspect that this time will be different. The only way to conceivably avoid this delay would be to override the markets and force the transition by government decree. Perhaps we need the equivalent of a Manhattan Project times an Apollo Project times ten: a massive, sudden, and global decision to put enormous resources into bringing a new energy technology or sources onto the scene without relying on market forces to get the job done. So far there are no signs of that happening anywhere, except possibly China. One example: A 2008 study by the National Research Council found that “plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will have little impact on U.S. oil consumption before 2030” and more substantial savings might be in the cards by 2050, reinforcing the notion that several decades separate the first launch of a new technology from its meaningful contribution to the energy landscape.8
The Nuclear Option
Even with significant current concerns about carbon in the atmosphere and recent technological advances in the field of nuclear reactor design, nuclear power still cannot step into the lead role and save us all from the effects of depleting oil. It will play a role, just not the lead role. Here’s why.
In 2004, nuclear power represented 8 percent of all energy consumed by the United States,9 while fossil energy represented 86 percent. Worldwide, there were 440 nuclear power plants operating in 2010, 104 of which were in the United States. In 2010, China had plans for or was already building 33 more nuclear plants to be ready by 2030, and a worldwide total of 61 were under construction in 16 countries.10
The very first question that must be asked before building a new power plant is, Where is the fuel for this plant going to be coming from? Power plants cannot run dry of fuel and need to be constantly fed, so sourcing the fuel is an extremely important task.
When it comes to fueling nuclear plants, there is a bit of an issue. The Chinese are already buying and stockpiling uranium for future use in their plants11 because they have apparently peered into the future and concluded that fuel security is an issue, so they are buying it now, just to be safe. The United States and France, the two countries with the most operating nuclear reactors, both hit a peak in uranium production back in the 1980s. Both countries only have very modest reserves of relatively low-grade uranium remaining within their borders.
The largest known uranium reserves in the world are located in Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia.12 By now, you’ll find the story of uranium to be familiar, because it so closely parallels the story of petroleum. The highest grades and most convenient ores of uranium were exploited first and are nearly all gone, and the remaining ores are more dilute and/or more difficult to exploit. It’s the same story as that of oil.
High-grade uranium ore deposits, such as those still found in Canada, can be close to 20 percent in purity.13 But most of the world’s known deposits are in the range of 1 percent to 0.1 percent, with a few deposits even listed as “proven reserves,” implying that they are worth going after even despite having an ore purity grade of less than