Re: the future long term financial apocalypse of the USA

On Wed, 22 May 2024, Chris Buckley wrote:

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

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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.

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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,

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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).
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).  It is purely an
commercial recognition of what is economical to search for at this
time; it's not worth looking for any more right now.  That amount is
not evidence to back up your claims at all.

Ah, thank you Chris, you jogged my memory! I remember now that Scott was
involved in another thread where he was throwing around some scientific
paper, and I think it was probably the same one.
It was completely debunked by people in the energy industry, so I think
I'd rather trust people who actually work with energy than someone who
just refers to a random paper.
What you're saying also squares with what I've been reading through the
year that is, when taking modern technology, fuel reuse, uranium and
thorium into consideration, mankind has all the energy it needs for
centuries to come.

it will take something like 20,000 new reactors to replace oil, gas and coal.
Those 20,000 reactors will require huge amounts of concrete, high-priced
specialty metals and other materials such as copper.   All the easily
(and inexpensively) obtained copper, iron and other required minerals
have been already exploited, the remaining sources become more expensive
to extract.  The process of obtaining those resources will require
massive amounts of energy, and will have consequential environmental
impacts - cement production, for example, releases large amounts of
carbon into the ecosysten.  These resource and energy requirements will be in
addition to the current annual worldwide consumption, rather than displacing it
given the current growth-based economic system.
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Looking at vogtle 3&4 for current cost estimates, each 1GW reactor
would cost $15 billion dollars.  And these two were not greenfield
sites.  Do the math.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant
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Thorium, aside a couple of 60's test reactors, has not yet been shown
to be commercially feasible.  Regardless, it would be decades before
any substantial fleet of such reactors would be available for use.
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The current Small Nuclear Reactor craze is disappearing as the startups
run out of funding and cancel projects.
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Fusion is always 50 years away, with no guarantees that it will ever
generate enough power to displace fossil fuel generation.
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Yes, nuclear fission will be part of the power mix.   No, it cannot be the
only source.

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and as the next sentence states, you two are in violent agreement on that.

I think I even wrote that I see personal wind and solar when appropriate
as an important factor as well.

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Basically, we could expand nuclear massively, absent politicians, and of
course complement that with solar/wind where possible and desirable.

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No, it is not physically possible given planetary resource limitations.

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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.)

Yep, this is the force of technology.

Completely leaving aside the considerations and costs of waste disposal.
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Looking at gasoline, that's another cheap source of energy and where I
live taxes on it is 50%, those could be removed.

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How would you pay for the roads?    Petroleum reserves are not increasing
at the same rate of production - it should be clear that as the ratio
reductions continue, the cost of production will necessarily rise.
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I could go on and on, and yes, I guess you might say it's wishful thinking
or that those regulations keep us safe, and I disagree with both.

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Feel free.   Yes, this is a science fiction newsgroup and it is good
to be optimistic about the future, but don't confuse the future with
fiction - understand the physical limitations that apply to life on
and off earth and consider them carefully.
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Nuclear, sun, wind, oil, all combined can absolutely support massive
energy growth. We can mine thorium as well, and with modern technology
reuse spent fuel.

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Just FYI - if the growth in energy consumption (which has been about
2.8% annually for the last century) continues for just four hundred more
years, the waste heat alone from energy production will have raised the
average temperature of the earth to 100C/212F.   That's just physics.

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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?
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What matters is the future. The current estimate for the US is to
grow between 0 and 15% by 2050.
 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56040
I couldn't easily find European predictions, but energy growth was
flat between 2005 and 2020 before diminishing significantly due to
external factors in the past few years.
 https://www.enerdata.net/estore/energy-market/european-union/
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Growth will be much, much smaller over the next 400 years than 2.8%
annually.  I do agree that waste heat will be a limit eventually -
in fact I would claim long before we run out of energy sources!
Energy sources are not a limiting feature.
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Chris

Thank you Chris, very informative!