http://www.rollingstone.com/news/st..._long_emergency

great article. can't believe it was written 3 years ago. oil is now at what, $90 a barrel?

Three things that caught my eye.

quote:

America today has a railroad system that the Bulgarians would be ashamed of. Neither of the two major presidential candidates in 2004 mentioned railroads, but if we don't refurbish our rail system, then there may be no long-range travel or transport of goods at all a few decades from now. The commercial aviation industry, already on its knees financially, is likely to vanish. The sheer cost of maintaining gigantic airports may not justify the operation of a much-reduced air-travel fleet. Railroads are far more energy efficient than cars, trucks or airplanes, and they can be run on anything from wood to electricity. The rail-bed infrastructure is also far more economical to maintain than our highway network.

quote:

If we wish to keep the lights on in America after 2020, we may indeed have to resort to nuclear power, with all its practical problems and eco-conundrums. Under optimal conditions, it could take ten years to get a new generation of nuclear power plants into operation, and the price may be beyond our means. Uranium is also a resource in finite supply. We are no closer to the more difficult project of atomic fusion, by the way, than we were in the 1970s.

quote:

The upshot of all this is that we are entering a historical period of potentially great instability, turbulence and hardship. Obviously, geopolitical maneuvering around the world's richest energy regions has already led to war and promises more international military conflict. Since the Middle East contains two-thirds of the world's remaining oil supplies, the U.S. has attempted desperately to stabilize the region by, in effect, opening a big police station in Iraq. The intent was not just to secure Iraq's oil but to modify and influence the behavior of neighboring states around the Persian Gulf, especially Iran and Saudi Arabia. The results have been far from entirely positive, and our future prospects in that part of the world are not something we can feel altogether confident about.

And for further information :

http://technology.newscientist.com/.../nuclear/dn9956

quote:

Atoms for peace Nuclear power generation has been linked to nuclear weapon proliferation. In fact, the first industrial-scale reactors, built in the US in 1944, were designed to produce plutonium for weapons and the energy generated was wasted. The first nuclear reactor to provide electricity to a national grid opened in Calder Hall in England in 1956. Today countries such as Japan and France use nuclear power to provide up to 75% of their energy. Unlike in atomic weapons, nuclear reactors must tightly control the fission chain reaction. To prevent a runaway reaction, control rods are interspersed with the fuel rods of uranium or plutonium. The control rods absorb neutrons, and can be lowered into the reactor core to regulate energy output. A moderating substance, such as water or graphite, surrounds the rods, slowing neutrons emitted by the reaction, and deflecting them back to the centre. A coolant circulates around the core, and is pumped to a heat exchanger, where water becomes steam and drives electricity-generating turbines. Advanced gas-cooled reactors, such as those used in the UK, use compressed carbon dioxide as the coolant. Light-water, heavy-water and pressurised-water reactors, use water as moderator and coolant. These reactors are inherently inefficient, only utilising around 1% of the energy stored in the uranium fuel. To overcome this inefficiency and minimise nuclear waste, some countries re-process nuclear fuel. The Sellafield facility in the UK is the largest re-processing facility in the world, but has suffered many problems. More advanced (but less safe) breeder reactors use liquid sodium metal as a coolant and generate plutonium fuel. Breeder reactors such Superphénix in France, Dounreay in the UK, Monju in Japan and planned reactors in India, can utilise up to 75% of the energy contained in uranium. New miniature Rapid-L reactors might one day even provide power in the basements of apartment blocks and "take-away", portable reactors are planned for the future. Nuclear fuel has also been used to power submarines, such as Russia’s doomed Kursk; spacecraft such as Cassini, Galileo and the failed Mars-96; and ice breakers, aircraft carriers and other ships. The Pentagon even briefly entertained the idea of a nuclear-powered jet.