Las que se despachen por ferrocarril

Nuclear power is often seen as the savior in that once fossil fuels are phased out, it is the only power source that is currently capable of delivering large amounts of electricity. Apart from the issues of processing and storing spent fuel rods (Appendix B), there is the issue that nuclear technology cannot deliver the needed volume of electrical power to replace fossil fuels (Appendix E). Also, nuclear power as it presents now has an ERoEI of approximately 5:1 (Appendix D), which is too low to be useful to society as a fundamental underpinning energy source to support industrial civilization. Appendix G (Depletion and Peak Production of Gas, Coal, Uranium and Phosphorous Resources) shows a more complete discussion of the Uranium resource net position.

In addition to these challenges, Uranium (fuel for nuclear power) is a finite natural resource. Figure 91 shows the spread and quantity of uranium resources globally.

Figure 91. Reasonably assured and inferred resources and cumulative uranium production of the most productive countries (Source: (Zittel 2013) Fossil and Nuclear Fuels – the supply outlook

Energy Watch Group, Ludwig-Bolkow Systemtechnik)

Nuclear power has a number of complications. The infrastructure to support it is quite complex and expensive. Power stations can take many years to build. The informally planned for incubation time between a proposed nuclear power plant submission, government administration processing, construction and then commissioning is about 15 years (many case studies are longer). Once these expensive industrial sites are operational they must be kept producing power at a steady capacity, or have serious maintenance issues and premature aging. Once a nuclear power plant has reached the end of its useful life it must be

decommissioned. Failure to do this correctly can lead to accidents. There have been relatively few nuclear power plant accidents, but they have been spectacularly difficult in their impact.

 The Three Mile Island accident  The Chernobyl disaster

 The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Just so, there is a decommissioning schedule. To maintain the existing nuclear power station fleet, new reactors need to be built. Figure 92 shows the required construction of new plants to replace the decommissioned plants in the existing schedule, just to maintain existing supply.

Figure 92. Required construction starts of new power plants to meet NEA forecast of nuclear capacity and to sustain current level (Source: (Zittel 2013), Ludwig-Bolkow Systemtechnik,

International Atomic Energy Agency (PRIS), Sept 2012)

To increase the power supplied by nuclear station fleet to the point where the energy supplied to society by just 1 year of oil consumption is replaced, 2,390 more reactors need to be built (using 2016 global oil consumption as an example). 12 months later another additional 2,390 would have to be commissioned. This is not practical. Nuclear technology in its current form is not a viable solution. This example is shown in Appendix E (Quantity of Energy at Point of Application for Energy Resources).

Figure 93. Historical uranium production and projection until 2100 with mine-by-mine production profiles based on Reasonably Assured Resources <130USD/kg

(Source: (Zittel 2013) Fossil and Nuclear Fuels – the supply outlook Energy Watch Group, Ludwig-Bolkow Systemtechnik)

Figure 93 shows historical uranium production (up till 2013) and then projected future production. So uranium is a finite resource that its consumption will result in its peak production then depletion. Figure 88 shows a scenario where consumption of uranium is increased as much as the market would allow (at a U price of $130 USD per kg). Not only would production not be enough to replace fossil fuels (approximate double the 2012 production rate), peak uranium would be somewhere around 2020-2025. After this, uranium would deplete just like all other resources human society has consumed. The issue with nuclear technology though is spent fuel rods need to be kept in powered cooling facilities for approximately 10 years due to excess heat and radioactivity (Appendix B). So, after oil, gas and coal have all been depleted and are not useful as an energy source, society would be required to consume energy to prevent an environmental disaster and radioactive fallout at a time when energy sources are at a much lower ERoEI (Appendix D). Not only is this not viable, it is dangerous to consider starting.

Figure 94. Peak energy resources current paradigm of society

Figure 95. Projected peak oil, gas and coal (Source: Maggio, G., Cacciola, G. (2012)

Figure 95 shows a modelled prediction of peak production for oil, gas and coal. The there are several predictions, many of them are clustering the predictions for peak oil to be around now (2012 -2020) and peak gas is projected to be around five to ten years away (2022-2027). Figure 96 shows an estimate prediction of peak total energy. This prediction was made in 2012.

Years Pr od u ct ion (Gb /Y ea r)

Figure 96. Peak total energy, normalized data from oil, NGLs, natural gas, hard coal, lignite and uranium reserves (Source: (Zittel 2013) Fossil and Nuclear Fuels – the supply outlook Energy Watch Group, Ludwig-Bolkow

Systemtechnik)

Figure 97 shows the outcome of an analysis done to include the effect of the price of oil and other commodities to influence when production declines. Fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables projected production in terms of what is able to be delivered to the market. An estimate of peak total energy production is to peak in 2015. What is remarkable is that this prediction of peak energy was made in 2014 (2014 Jan 29 Tverberg). It matches the data shown in Figure 76 (production of global total liquids), which also shows a peak oil & gas in 2015.

Figure 97. Estimate of Future Energy Production (Source: OurFiniteWorld.com Analyst – Gail Tverberg)

The actual date of the peak will be obscured by economic stagnation. This peak date is driven by oil production. It is to be understood that Figure 97 is a combination of the ability to extract these natural resources in conjunction with the cost of extraction exceeding what is practical economically. A

Where

• 1 Mtoe = 1 million tonnes of oil equivalent

• 1 Mtoe = 7.1 millon barrels of crude oil and condensate • 1 Mtoe = 10 million barrels

of natural gas liquids • 1 Mtoe = 1.16 billion m3_of

natural gas

• 1 Mtoe = 1.5 Mt hard coal (1.8 Mt sub-bituminous coal)

• 1 Mtoe = 3.5 Mt lignite • 1 Mtoe = 58 t of uranium

fundamental thesis of this report is that what is being observed in the dynamic interaction between four basic concepts (Figure 98).

Figure 98. Structural interaction between raw materials, the real economy and the fiat economy

A very valid question to ask is if there has been a contraction on the real economy in 2008, and measureable data indicates that the global economy has yet to recover, 9 years later, why does conventional indices like the stock market claim things are better than ever?