Nuclear Energy Can Save US: Immigration and the American Dream

Nuclear Energy Can Save US--America�s 100 nukes equal four million barrels of oil per day.

Billions of lives and civilization itself may be at risk from the Global Warming & End of Cheap Oil, Crisis. Rising sea levels and rising oil prices could be the end of civilization as we know it. The problem is so huge that the most powerful answer, many nuclear plants, must be deployed. Currently, America‘s 100 nukes deliver the energy of four million barrels of oil per day. Wind and solar cannot do the job, and may delay the real answer too long. Still, all kinds of clean energy, plus conservation, plus reducing deforestation, will be needed to help the poor half of the world, and for civilization to survive through this century.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Immigration and the American Dream

Some Advocates say that immigrants to the US are entitled to work for the "American Dream". I truly wish them well. However, the American Dream may turn to nightmare if we reach the limits of the materials that our land can provide, just because we do not have enough energy. It will be even a worse nightmare for immigrants, because people will tend to blame them for shortages. What immigrants will be doing though, is only getting us to the limits a tiny bit sooner than we would do on our own.

There is no limit to the materials available, if we have enough energy. The ocean water could be desalinated and fresh water pumped to drought areas, or places now seen as wastelands; instead of just high assay ores, poorer grades could be mined; we might even mine materials from seawater; with enough energy. Instead of the world's current 400Q (BTU) energy, equal to 5000, one-gig nukes (or 8 million wind turbines), the world needs 2 to 3 times as much clean energy to make the difference between prosperity and disaster.
This future is not like the Y2K scare that was solved by the warning. Corporations and nations believed, and software geniuses turned to and fixed it. However, software cannot create commodities. Electrons weigh next to nothing, compared to trillions of tons of water, billions of tons of food grains, billions of barrels of oil per year. We cannot depend on the electron-pushers, brilliant as they are, to produce vast quantities of materials just by taking thought.