Once Again: The Massive Potential of Nuclear Energy

It is hard to understand why no one seems impressed, that 100 small nuclear electric plants provide energy equivalent to 4MBPD of oil. No one has made any comment. Is this common knowledge? Maybe some comparisons will help.

One barrel of oil contains 42 gallons, and weighs about 275 pounds. It is simple enough math, but Google did it for me; one barrelPD of oil equals 50 tons of oil per year. Therefore, 4MBPD equals 75 billion tons of oil in a year. Each 4MBPD that America imports, equals nearly 1.5 BBPY. Each such quantity costs $90 billion cash that we have to export to other countries, for $60 oil. Many foreign countries will be happy to raise world prices still futher when oil becomes just the least bit scarce. At $100 oil, which I will see in my lifetime, despite being a senior citizen, 1.5BBPY will cost $150 billion. $200 oil will cost $300 billion. I might even be around long enough to see this.

I have seen two estimates of biofuel equivalence to oil. A Chevron ad claims that one acre of soy beans can produce 60 gallons of fuel. Therefore, 4MBPD of fuel would require 25 million acres of soy beans. A Cornell College professor (See Post "Ethanol From Corn Will Not Do"), says that it would take 11 acres of corn to power the average American car for a year. This means that 4MBPD of fuel would take 200 million acres of corn. Either use of acreage would be insanity for America, unless my math is wrong; anyone? 4MBPD is 20% of what America consumes nowadays, and we have only 400 to 460 million acres of arable land. (We even pave some of it every year.)

Ethanol Redux

This is a second try to show why I think making ethanol from corn is so bad; even if the corn to ethanol, conversion process improves so that it is energy neutral.
Several different goals have been suggested in government circles, and conversion efficiencies are all over the map, but none of those variations change the problem. To use a recent congressional proposal; by 2020, 30 billion gallons of ethanol would be made from corn. Suppose that clean energy for conversion would be provided by 50 nukes. 30 billion gallons would be equivalent to 2.0MBPD (same as 50, one-gig nukes); 720 million barrels per year of oil that we would not have to import. This might save $72 billion (of $100 oil) for this portion of America’s energy. Some people will then say that the corn-ethanol saved this much money on imports, but that will not be true.
The nuclear energy will have saved the import of 720 million barrels of oil. All that would be accomplished by destroying millions of tons of corn, would be to make the nuclear electric energy (or some fossil energy) into an automobile-friendly form.
Instead, if millions of cars are operating on hydrogen, an amount of hydrogen equivalent to 30 billion gallons of ethanol could be made by the nukes, from water, not food.
Even better, if hybrid gas-electric cars become popular, the electricity for an equivalent portion of cars could be delivered directly from the nukes, without corn or water intermediaries.
To me, better then any of these, would be all-electric cars, with batteries for town and rural roads, and brushes to pick-up electricity on long distance roads. America’s current automotive energy is equivalent to about 250, one-gig nukes. This is based on Scientific American Chart, Sept. 1990, showing transportation, worldwide, equals 51% of oil use. America’s current oil use is 40Q of energy (www.eia.doe.gov), equal to 500, one-gig nukes. America’s percentage of oil use may be higher than average, and 17 years makes some difference, but 250 nukes, for America’s transportation, is a fair estimate.