Re: the future long term financial apocalypse of the USA

On 2024-05-22, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com> writes:

On 2024-05-21, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

...

In terms of energy, this is a solved problem which is only being stopped
or slowed down by politicians and over regulation.

>
Please enlighten us with exactly how those problems have been
solved, and exactly which regulations you think are standing in
the way.

>
Nuclear power. The regulative burden of building nuclear power is well
known in many countries in western europe. I think I've heard about 5
years from plan to production in south korea, but I'm not sure. Cutting
regulations and moving to cutting edge SMR:s should cut that.

>
There is not enough nucelar fuel to replace any substantial fraction of the current
fossil fuel sources.  Not to mention the outright cost of building nuclear
plant.   Current known fissionable uranium reserves are about 90 years
--for the existing fleet of a few hundred reactors--, at 1GW per reactor,

>
Scott, you're back again with your nonsensical claims based on a
self-published Malthusian doomsayer.  As was established last time,
there is plenty of uranium out there (in the oceans if not elsewhere).

>
Yes, there is a lot of U in seawater.  The question is not whether it
is there, but whether it can be 'mined' from the seawater using less
energy than it will produce.

WRONG! The initial question is precisely whether there is enough U out there
to replace any substantial fraction. You made the flat claim that there is not.
Do you agree that your claim is wrong? And you made it very clear later that
you were taking about physical limitations, not economic:
    "it is not physically possible given planetary resource limitations."

I remember discussing the secondary question of whether it's
economical to extract U from seawater in great detail with you last
time. The upshot (unobjected to by you) was that since the cost of U
is a reasonably small part of the cost of a nuclear plant, that
increasing the cost of U by a factor of 10 (current technology
scientific estimate of seawater extraction cost) would increase the
cost of nuclear power by a factor of 2.  Not nice, but not prohibitive,
and certainly would not be a limiting factor in the production of
large amounts of nuclear energy if required.

And as was established last time, the 90 year estimate of reserves is
in no way a scientific estimate of the amount of uranium out there to
be mined (except in the minds of doomsayers).

>
You didn't establish anything other than a bald assertion.

False. I suggest you review the discussion.

>

You have presented no evidence of this. You have presented reasonable
arguments that just nuclear power expansion is not economically
feasible, though it is much more feasible than you state. (Capitalism
(to get back to the subject) will reduce the cost of nuclear plants
immensely once you start building even a dozen a year.)

>
Ah, vague assertions about "capitalism".  You sound like D - there
will be pie in the sky, by and by (RAH).
>

>
A funny thing about predicting the future based on the past, you can
really get different results depending on your starting point. I'll
take your word on 2.8% annually for the last century.  If you had
started 2 centuries ago, it would have been much higher.  If you had started
3 centuries ago, it would have been much much higher. Which is more accurate?
Why does a century matter?

>
Because the exploitation of fossil fuels didn't start until the
mid 18th century, and really didn't take off until the 20th century.

Yes, I agree, but you're missing the point.  Why does that not apply
to your 100 year ago stats as well?  Can you explain in detail why you
feel that energy growth of 100 years ago, in a world of energy usage
far different than today, can be used to predict energy usage 400
years from now?

And after that, can you explain why my citations, which you oh so
conveniently clipped, don't completely discredit your estimates?

Chris