It is easy to get the impression that proposed new modular nuclear generating units will solve the problems of nuclear generation. Perhaps they will allow more nuclear electricity to be generated at a low cost and with much less of a problem with spent fuel.
As I analyze the situation, however, the problems associated with nuclear electricity generation are more complex and immediate than most people perceive. My analysis shows that the world is already dealing with “not enough uranium from mines to go around.” In particular, US production of uranium “peaked”about 1980 (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Chart prepared by the US Energy Information Administration showing US production of uranium oxide.
For many years, the US was able to down-blend nuclear warheads (both purchased from Russia and from its own supply) to get around its uranium supply deficit.
Today, the inventory of nuclear warheads has dropped quite low. There are few warheads available for down-blending. This is creating a limit on uranium supply that is only now starting to hit.
Nuclear warheads, besides providing uranium in general, are important for the fact that they provide a concentrated source of uranium-235, which is the isotope of uranium that can sustain a nuclear reaction. With the warhead supply depleting, the US has a second huge problem: developing a way to produce nuclear fuel, probably mostly from spent fuel, with the desired high concentration of uranium-235. Today, Russia is the primary supplier of enriched uranium.
The plan of the US is to use government research grants to kickstart work on new small modular nuclear reactors that will be more efficient than current nuclear plants. These reactors will use a new fuel with a higher concentration of uranium-235 than is available today, except through purchase from Russia. Grants are also being given to start work on US production of the more highly enriched uranium fuel within the US. It is hoped that most of this highly enriched uranium can come from recycling spent nuclear fuel, thus helping to solve the problem of what to do with the supply of spent fuel.
My analysis indicates that while advanced modular nuclear reactors might theoretically be helpful for the very long term, they cannot fix the problems of the US, and other countries in the West, nearly quickly enough. I expect that the Trump administration, which will start in January 2025, will see this program as a boondoggle.
[1] Current problems with nuclear electricity generation are surprisingly hidden. World electricity generation from nuclear has been close to flat since 2004.
Although there was a dip in world generation of nuclear electricity after the tsunami that affected nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011, otherwise world production of nuclear electricity has been nearly flat since 2004 (Figure 3).
US nuclear electricity production (Figure 4) shows a similar pattern, except that production since 2021 is down.
[2] The total amount of electricity generated by nuclear power plants is limited by the amount of uranium fuel available to them.
I believe that a major reason why the electricity supply from nuclear has been quite flat since 2004 is because total nuclear electricity generation is limited by the quantity of uranium fuel that is available for the nuclear reactors that have been built.
The price of uranium can perhaps rise, but this doesn’t necessarily add much (or any) supply very quickly. It takes several years to develop a new uranium mine.
In theory, reprocessing of spent fuel to produce uranium and plutonium is also possible, but the amount of that has been performed to date is small. (See Section [6].)
[3] The World Nuclear Association (WNA) published Figure 5 that hints at the world’s uranium supply problem:
The black line showing “reactor requirements” (Figure 5) is in some sense comparable to world generation of nuclear electricity (Figure 3). Both figures show fairly flat lines since about 2004. This relationship hints that there has not been a significant improvement in the efficiency of electricity generation using uranium fuel in the past 20 years.
Figure 5 shows a huge gap between the production of uranium from the various countries and “reactor requirements.” The single largest source of additional supply has been down-blended uranium from nuclear bombs. The EIA reports that the US purchased a large number of nuclear warheads from Russia between 1995 and 2013 for this purpose under the Megatons to Megawatts program. The EIA also reports that for the period 2013 to 2022, a purchase agreement was put in place allowing the US to purchase commercial origin low-enriched uranium from Russia to replace some of down-blended nuclear warhead material. In addition, the US had some of its own nuclear warheads that it could blend down. It was the availability of uranium supply from these various sources that allowed US nuclear electricity generation to remain relatively flat in the 2004 to 2023 period, as shown on Figure 4.
The US’s own uranium extraction reached a peak about 1980 and is now close to zero (Figure 1). The world’s supply of warheads is now over 85% depleted, leaving very little stored-away, highly enriched uranium to blend down (Figure 2)
A hidden problem is the fact that uranium production available today is largely from Russia and its close affiliates. The data underlying Figure 5 shows that uranium production in 2022 is dominated by close allies of Russia (55% of the total coming from Kazakhstan (43% of total), Uzbekistan (7% of total), and Russia (5% of total)). The US (at almost 0%), plus production of its close affiliates, Canada and Australia, provided only 24% of world uranium. This imbalance between Russia and its affiliates, and the US and its affiliates, should be of concern.
[4] The current conflict between the US and Russia adds to nuclear problems.
The US is trying to impose sanctions on Russia. The EIA reports:
“The origin of uranium used in U.S. reactors will likely change in the coming years. In May [2024], the United States banned imports of uranium products from Russia beginning in August [2024], although companies may apply for waivers through January 1, 2028.”
This seems to imply that a transition away from Russian uranium dependence must be made in only a little over three years. This is a short time frame, given the difficulty in making such a transition.
EIA data show that in the year 2023, the US sourced only 4.6% of uranium supplies from the US. (This could be partly or mostly down-blended nuclear warheads). Material purchased from Russia comprised 11.7% of uranium. Kazakhstan provided 20.6% of uranium purchased, and Uzbekistan provided 9.5%. Among US allies, Canada provided 14.9%, and Australia 9.2%.
[5] The WNA does not hint at any uranium supply problems.
The WNA is an advocate for nuclear energy; it cannot suggest that there is any problem with uranium supplies. WNA has the opinion that if there is a shortage of uranium, prices will rise, and more will become available. But even if prices rise, it takes several years to bring new mines into operation. Prices need to stay high, or companies will not pursue what appear to be opportunities.
Readers of OurFiniteWorld.com have seen that oil prices tend to spike and collapse. They don’t stay high for very long because if prices stay high, the end products made with oil tend to become unaffordable. I expect a similar problem occurs with uranium.
The necessary price threshold for high uranium extraction that is mentioned by the WNA is $130/kg in 2021. By coincidence, when a translation is made to dollars per pound using 2024$, this corresponds quite closely to the current price line on Figure 6. Indeed, prices do sometimes bounce high. The problem is getting them to stay as high as the dotted line for long enough to support the multi-decade life of a mine. Economists were forecasting a price of $300 per barrel oil a few years ago, but they have been disappointed. The price is under $75 per barrel now.
The country with the most potentially recoverable uranium is Australia. It produced only 9% of the world’s uranium in 2022, but is reported to have 28% of the world’s remaining reserve. Consistently higher prices would be needed for Australia to start opening new mines.
It is also possible that more uranium supply might become available if improved extraction techniques are developed.
The world seems to be past peak crude oil. By itself, the peak oil issue could limit new uranium extraction and transport.
[6] Recycling of spent fuel to recover usable uranium and plutonium has been accomplished only to a limited extent. Experience to date suggests that recycling has many issues.
It is possible to make an estimate of the amount of recycling of spent fuel that is currently being performed. Figure 3 in Section [1] shows about 65,000 metric tons of uranium are required to meet the demands of existing nuclear power generation, and that as of 2022, there was about an annual shortfall in supply of about 26%. Based on what information I have been able to gather, existing recycling of uranium and plutonium amounts to perhaps 6% of the overall fuel requirement. Thus, as of 2022, today’s recycling of spent fuel could perhaps shave this shortfall in uranium supply to “only” 20% of annual nuclear fuel requirements. There is some recycling of spent fuel, but it is small in relation to the amount needed.
There seem to be several issues with building units to recover uranium from spent fuel:
- Higher cost than simply mining more uranium
- Pollution problems from the recycling plants
- Potential for use of the output to make nuclear warheads
- Potential for nuclear accidents within the plants
- Remaining radioactivity at the site at the end of the reprocessing plant’s life, and thus the need to decommission such plants
- Potential for many protestors disrupting construction and operation because of issues (2), (3), (4), and (5)
The US outlawed recycling of spent fuel in 1977, after a few not-very-successful attempts. Once the purchase of Russian warheads was arranged, down-blending of warheads was a much less expensive approach than reprocessing spent fuel. Physics Today recently reported the following regarding US reprocessing:
“A plant in West Valley, New York, reprocessed spent fuel for six years before closing in 1972. Looking to expand the plant, the owners balked at the costs required for upgrades needed to meet new regulatory standards. Construction of a reprocessing plant in Barnwell, South Carolina, was halted in 1977 following the Carter administration’s ban.”
Japan has been trying to build a commercial spent fuel reprocessing plant at Rokkasho since 1993, but it has had huge problems with cost overruns and protests by many groups. The latest estimate of when the plant will actually be completed is fiscal year 2026 or 2027. The plant would process 800 metric tons of fuel per year.
The largest commercial spent fuel reprocessing plant in operation is in La Hague, France. It has been in place long enough (since 1966) that it has run into the issue of decommissioning an old unit, which was started as a French military project. The first processing unit was shut down in 2003. The International Atomic Energy Administration says, “The UP2-400 decommissioning project began some 20 years ago and may be expected to continue for several more years.” It talks about the huge cost and number of people involved. It says, “Decommissioning activities represent roughly 20 per cent of the overall activity and socio-economic impact of the La Hague site, which also hosts two operating spent fuel recycling plants.”
The cost of the La Hague reprocessing units is probably not fully known. They were built by government agencies. They have gone through various owners including AREVA. AREVA has had huge financial problems. The successor company is Orano. The currently operating units have the capacity to process about 1,700 metric tons of fuel per year. The 1700 metric tons of reprocessing of spent fuel from La Hague is reported to be nearly half of the world’s operating capacity for recycling spent fuel.
I understand that Russia is working on approaches that quite possibly are not included in my figures. If so, this may add to world uranium supply, but Russia is not likely to want to share the benefits with the West if there is not enough to go around.
[7] The concentration of the isotope uranium-235 is very important in making fuel for the proposed new modular nuclear reactors.
Uranium-235 makes up 0.72% of natural uranium. Wikipedia says, “Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it [uranium-235] is fissile, i. e., it can sustain a nuclear reaction.” In most reactors used today, the concentration of uranium-235 is 3% to 5%.
According to CNN, the plan in building advanced modular small reactors is to use fuel with a 5% to 20% concentration of uranium-235. Fuel at this concentration is called high assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU. The expectation is that power plants with this type of fuel will be more efficient to operate.
Producing higher concentrations of uranium-235 tends to be problematic unless nuclear weapons are available for down-blending; warheads use high concentrations of uranium-235. Now, with reduced availability of nuclear warheads for down-blending, other sources are needed in addition. CNN reports that the only commercial source of HALEU is Russia. The EIA reports that the Inflation Reduction Act invested $700 million to support the development of a domestic supply chain for HALEU.
[8] The US is trying to implement many new ideas at one time with virtually no successful working models to smooth the transition.
Strangely enough, the US has no working model of a small-scale nuclear reactor, even one operating on conventional fuel. A CNBC article from September 2024 says, Small nuclear reactors could power the world, the challenge is building the first one in the US.
The new small-scale nuclear projects we do have are still at a very preliminary stage. In June 2024, Bill Gates wrote, “We just broke ground on America’s first next-gen nuclear facility. Kemmerer, Wyoming will soon be home to the most advanced nuclear facility in the world.” The plan is for it is to become operational by 2030, if it has access to HALEU fuel.
With respect to how far along the ability to make HALEU from spent fuel is, an October 2024 article in Interesting Engineering says, “US approves new facility design concept to turn nuclear waste into reactor fuel:”
“The facility whose conceptual design has been approved will be located at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). It will help turn used material recovered from DOE’s former Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II reactor) into usable fuel for its advanced nuclear power plant. . . The plan is to recover approximately 10 metric tons of HALEU from EBR-II fuel by December 2028 using an electrochemical process that was perfected over the years at Idaho National Laboratory (INL).”
Assuming this can be done, it will be a step forward, but it is nowhere near being an at-scale, commercial project that can be done economically by other companies. The volume of 10 metric tons is tiny.
Starting at this level, it is difficult to see how reactors with the new technology and the HALEU fuel to feed them can possibly be available in quantity before 2050.
[9] It is difficult to see how the cost of electricity generated using the new advanced modular nuclear reactors and the new HALEU fuel, created by reprocessing spent fuel, could be low.
As far as I can see, the main argument that these new modular electricity generation plants will be affordable is that they will only generate a relatively small amount of electricity at once —about 300 megawatts or less, or about one third of the average of conventional nuclear reactors in the US. Because of the smaller electricity output, the hope is that they will be affordable by more buyers, such as utility companies.
The issue that is often overlooked by economists is that electricity generated using these new techniques needs to be low cost, per kilowatt-hour, to be helpful. High-cost electricity is not affordable. Keeping costs down when many new approaches are being tried for the first time is likely to be a huge hurdle. I look through the long list of problems encountered in recycling spent fuel mentioned in Section [6] and wonder whether these issues can be inexpensively worked around. There are also issues with adopting and installing the proposed new advanced modular reactors, such as security, that I have not even tried to address.
The hope is that somehow, the whole process of building the advanced modular nuclear reactors and creating the HALEU fuel can be standardized and can be organized in such a way that economies of scale will set in. It seems to me that reaching this goal will be difficult. In theory, perhaps such a goal can be reached in 2060 or 2070, but this is not nearly soon enough, given the world’s current shortage of uranium from mines.
[10] The Trump administration will likely drop or substantially change the current program for advanced modular nuclear reactors.
The US plan that is discussed in this post has been developed under the Biden administration. This group was voted out of power on November 5. The Democratic administration will be replaced by a new Republican administration, headed by Donald Trump, on January 20, 2025.
I would not be surprised if the advanced modular nuclear generation plan disappears, almost as quickly as the currently subsidized offshore wind program, which Trump has vowed to end. The two programs have many things in common: Both programs provide an excuse for more US debt; they provide many jobs for researchers; and the devices that they relate to can be purchased in fairly small increments. But the cost per kilowatt-hour of electricity is likely to be high with either program. In some sense, as they are currently envisioned, they will not efficient ways to produce electricity. A major problem is the lack of fuel for the new modular reactors, and the slow ramp-up time to obtain this fuel.
I expect that under Trump, the sanction against purchasing HALEU from Russia might be replaced with a tariff. That way the US could have the benefit of HALEU, purchased from Russia, but at a higher price. This would allow research to continue, if desired.
[11] If solutions cannot be found, electricity generation from nuclear is likely to gradually disappear.
Over time, the world’s self-organizing economy tends to eliminate its more inefficient parts. When I look at the past experience with nuclear, what I see seems to be another example of the self-organizing economy squeezing out the inefficient parts of the economy (Figure 7):
In this chart, “Advanced Economies, ex US” are defined as members of the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), excluding the US. “Later Entrants” are non-OECD members, excluding Russia and Ukraine. They include China, India, Indonesia, and many other lower-income countries. Many of these countries are in East Asia.
What I see is that the relatively “flat” overall nuclear electricity production has been accomplished, to a significant extent, by the “Advanced Economies, ex US” dropping back in their use of nuclear electricity at close to the same time the “Later Entrants” have rapidly been increasing their use of nuclear electricity. The Later Entrants can make goods for sale in international markets much more cheaply than the Advanced Economies, ex US through their efficient use of cheap energy (often from coal) and their lower wages. This more efficient approach gives the Later Entrants an “edge” in buying the uranium that is available.
I expect to see more of this pattern of squeezing out in the future. In fact, new and recently re-opened nuclear plants will need to compete existing nuclear generation units for available uranium.
Given the way squeezing out takes place, very few people will realize that there is a problem with uranium fuel. It will just be that leaders of some parts of the world, as well as some parts of the US, will start emphasizing stories about how dangerous nuclear energy is. Instead of nuclear, they will emphasize electricity generation from wind and solar and allow these approaches to “go first” when they are available. The result will be wholesale electricity prices that will be far too low for nuclear power plants, much of the time. It will be these low wholesale electricity prices that push nuclear power out.
Thus, unless there truly are breakthroughs in recycling spent fuels, or in uranium mining, electricity generation using nuclear energy may gradually slip away from many parts of the world currently using it.
“he ran on a promise not to go to war
0:06
he said I I I I won’t get you in war we’ll have peace peace will break out he made certain statements about you know
0:13
talking about normalizing relations with Iran not seeking regime change um looking for the potential to lift
0:19
sanctions he made the same statement about Russia and Ukraine and then he hires uh a national security adviser
0:25
Michael Waltz who’s just a lunatic on both issues uh a secretary State Marco
0:30
Rubio who is a lunatic on on both issues um and then this Sebastian Gorka comes
0:36
in who’s literally insane I mean the man is you saw this he’s he’s this is not
0:41
the language of um the you know somebody who supposed to be advising a president whose policies are uh leaning towards
0:49
peace um he’s a warmonger um so is Michael Walt so is Marco Rubio and um
0:58
I Donald Trump is making the same mistake mistake that he made last time
1:03
surrounding himself with people who seek confrontation”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTDoI8U626Y
This ZeroHedge article is difficult, but I am afraid the author may be onto something.
The author talks about a possible upcoming liquidity crisis, perhaps at the time everyone makes a dash for cash to make payments for the April 15 deadline. One thing he points out is that for the market to function properly, there needs to be ultimate buyers for treasuries–just intermediaries is not good enough. The yield, or the yield differential, must be high enough to be attractive. Regulatory changes can be used to fix the situation, but they may not be implemented very quickly.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2024-11-30/verge-liquidity-event
On the Verge of a Liquidity Event
“Bankruptcy Filings Up In CA, Nationwide: Study
“California was among the 10 states with the highest recent increases in bankruptcy cases filed, according to the ranking.
” … ‘There are several factors driving the rise in bankruptcy cases across the U.S.,’ a spokesperson for the law firm said. ‘These factors include consumer debt, medical expenses, job loss, and the ongoing increase in the cost of living.'”
https://patch.com/california/across-ca/bankruptcy-filings-ca-nationwide-study
Russian oil pipeline to Europe having problems.
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/northern-druzhba-pipeline-springs-possible-leak-while-terror-threats-plague-southern
Northern Druzhba Pipeline Springs Possible ‘Leak’, While Terror Threats Plague Southern Stretch
From the blog of Patrick Raymond .
Malinvestment also concerns stadiums. Today, are we making fun of the PSG idiots?
They want a bigger stadium, 90,000 people, “to be able to accommodate more people and generate more revenue”, for around fifty years.
Of course, it does not occur to anyone among these “decision-makers” that the bigger it is, the more complicated it is to fill and make profitable.
Moreover, by 2031, the date of its planned completion, we have time to see its construction fail, unless, of course, we transform it into a giant prison intended for drug traffickers who we no longer know how to manage.
The profitability of the project is far from assured and also requires major development work in the surrounding area, where the taxpayer will be required to spend much more than the planned billion euros.
In fact, we are banking on maintaining an oil company and energy abundance, which allows large populations to be concentrated over short periods for reasons that are as stupid as they are futile. In a stadium of 90,000 people, bring binoculars to watch or stay at home in front of the TV, it will save you two hours of travel there and back.
But hey, there’s nothing wrong with being an idiot.
For the leaders, it’s just a sign of virility to say that they have the biggest…
https://www.foot01.com/equipe/paris/1-milliard-d-euros-et-90-000-places-le-futur-stade-du-psg-est-enorme-446196
Thanks for the post, Patrick. From the post:
People cannot imagine how the world is changing. The 1 billion euros investment will (or perhaps “might”) help the economy now, which I imagine is all that leaders are looking at. But trying to an adequate return on such a stadium in the future is extremely uncertain.
If this is true, then the situation in.China gets really serious
Shanghai is dying: 5 million have left..
https://youtu.be/bTqt-uQM944?si=7UzNMcKJQ509tr7_
Wow!
in our modern context—civilisations can only exist by the production and exchange of viable commodities at a faster and faster rate
thats why its known as a ”consumer economy.”—we have consumed ourselves into oblivion.
there is no other way—nobody is getting uploaded anywhere, or getting deepfrozen for a utopian future.
commodities, large or small represent embodied energy, we are running out of the necessary energy to make ”stuff’.—starships and space elevators are not going to change that.
it kicked off 316 years ago, some of it quite literally in my own backyard, which is an odd sensation—
it was supposed to go on forever.—it can’t, and it won’t.
This story seems to be related to other stories I have read recently. From the WSJ, recently:
China’s Local Governments Hold Back Wages in Desperate Scrape for Cash
Beijing’s recent attempt to address municipalities’ trillions in hidden debt only scratches the surface
So local governments do whatever they can think of to get the money from citizens. The video talks about very high fines of newly thought of misdemeanors. And people leaving because conditions are so bad.
From March, 2023, WSJ
China’s Cities Struggle Under Trillions of Dollars of Debt
Financial obligations built up during pandemic weigh on growth as China’s legislature meets to address economic needs
all modern economic systems function on the basis of unsupported debt increasing forever.
collapse becomes a matter of degree, according to where you happen to live and under what political system
In the USA, this will mean violent civil unrest, brought about by collective denial of reality. (MAGA nuts basically)
The seeds for this are being sown by the loonytoons politicians being hired to run the country on Trumps behalf.
Its all happened before.
I’ve been seeing a host of reports of data breaches and hackers recently…
Very much concerning
Largest Hack in US History Puts You At Risk – Act Now!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lxbQx2sZYTQ
And this one too just now
Hackers claim to have cracked Microsoft’s software licensing protection almost entirely
Martin Brinkmann Nov 30, 2024 Updated • Nov 30, 2024
Windows | 11
A team of hackers claim that they have cracked “almost the entire Windows / Office software licensing protection”. The breakthrough allows them to activate “almost any version of Windows and Office” permanently.
Suppose there is no such thing as Data Security..watch out
Too many things going wrong!
Throughout history most people lived a hardscrabble lifestyle with few luxuries, and only the top 1-2% lived well.
Today’s world is an anomaly something which will be corrected.
People knowing their places, and not complaining the existing order, is the first requirement before advancing to the next stage of civilization, not some strange contraption which continues to let peoples who do not deserve higher standard of living to continue their wasteful lifestyles.
Ok everyone, somethin big is brewing. The world bank just came out recently at the last second , saying next year and for a decade. We are going to witness the largest oil glut in oil history. (200 years). In a nutshell.
Now, they are claiming the main reasons are “electric cars sales, and china slowing down”. And a few others, OPEC cuts expiring, offshore increasing, etc.
Whatever the reasons maybe and how significant each one doesn’t really matter. It appears that a huge demand drop is coming, and I would guess another pandemic or just massive deaths for flu/sickness etc.
And Schwab just warned a month prior “A black swan will come our way”
I just feel like this is a huge warning that is being ignored. IMO
Looks like so
Time for a big haircut
People cannot afford the oil. The economy collapses from low wages.
Demand destruction is such a simple concept. Why do so many miss it?
On the upside, here in Manitoba we just got hit with massive snowfalls and bitterly cold temperatures. Global warming is utter nonsense.
Timber wolf packs killed and consumed one of my herd before we managed to get them out of early winter pastures. Wolf packs are burgeoning here in the north. I wonder how long before people regain their age old fear of them? The wolves themselves are much bolder than in my childhood. Fewer humans blasting them high powered rifles no doubt.
If they come to our yards they will meet the industrial world via steel snares hung in strategic locales. I have a standing order for wolf fur coats.
/////On the upside, here in Manitoba we just got hit with massive snowfalls and bitterly cold temperatures. Global warming is utter nonsense.////
global warming just dont work like that.–you are describing weather—not climate i’m afraid.
like that nutty senator Inhofe, who brought a snowball into the senate to prove GW wasnt real.
beliving otherwise wont alter reality.–neither will quoting a few alternative scientifi ‘facts’
oh—and you are the intruder into wolf territory
the wolf is not intruding into yours
wolves need to eat too—just like you do.
The energy shortage manifests itself not directly but indirectly through high interest rates and what is generally called the cost of living, also in new vehicle prices that are now out of reach for most Americans. The fuel price itself remains apparently reasonable but nonetheless consumers are becoming poor at a rate of knots and companies, especially car makers, are sinking beneath the waves as fast as you can blink.
the problem is not energy use per se
it how much surplus energy is available after we’ve used it for essential purposes
Stating the economy doesn’t have enough energy includes that idea as a given for this audience, you could say.
New cars aren’t really essential if used cars or alternative transport forms still exist but if the new car market completely collapses it’s game over, thanks for playing, insert coin.
transport—in all its forms—now forms a critical pat of our economic system,
we cannot remove any segment of it without collapsing the whole
Without new cars being manufactured, sold and financed, a huge chunk of the economy goes away. This would also affect things like pensions, bank accounts, bonds, you name it. Car finance, like mortgages, creates an awful lot of financial assets. And of course there’s the insurance as well.
“Most importantly, inflation-adjusted wage growth has been strongest for the lowest-income workers, whose real wages are 16 percent higher than they were before the pandemic.* Wage growth for low-income working Americans has been so much stronger than for other groups that it has led to a decline in wage inequality, undoing roughly one-third of its growth since 1980—right before Ronald Reagan became president.”?
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/americans-wages-are-higher-than-they-have-ever-been-and-employment-is-near-its-all-time-high/
“Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated 6 million tonnes of tire fragments.
These tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food. Researchers in South China recently found tire-derived chemicals in most human urine samples.”?
https://www.sciencealert.com/almost-30-of-microplastics-come-from-a-hugely-overlooked-source
https://climateandeconomy.com/2024/11/30/30th-november-2024-todays-round-up-of-climate-news/
From your above link from climate and economy, so is Latex paint! That also contributes to maybe up to 30% of micro plastics into the environment.
Suspicious the rise in illnesses, such as, Pancreatic cancers and Parkinson disease, maybe a connection….
From the link.there is a world conference, similar to the CC COP, in South Korea to address plastics now. But the article says more study and research is needed to be certain, just like with GW and the accord probably will be voluntary.
GREENLAND’S 20-YEAR COOLING TREND
https://electroverse.info/
Melting Faster Than Ever: Greenland Loses 610 Gigatons of Ice in One Summer
https://scitechdaily.com/melting-faster-than-ever-greenland-loses-610-gigatons-of-ice-in-one-summer/
By University of BarcelonaSeptember 29, 202421 Comments4 Mins Read
The study, published in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate, shows that the last decade has seen peak years of extreme melting in Greenland. For example, during the summer of 2012, 610 gigatonnes of ice (the equivalent of 244 million Olympic-size swimming pools) melted, and in 2019, 560 gigatonnes (224 million Olympic-size swimming pools) melted.
More to argue about!
I wasn’t aware there was an argument, not by not by me at least. Just presenting evidence
LOL!
The cornucopians like Elon Musk promote infinite consumerism. But consumerism is a trap. Their ideas are identical with those of the communist parties of Eastern Europe before 1989: no conquering of the stars followed, but a terrible crash of the economies, a huge fall of the living standards of the populations.
Musk is just another power hungry maniac
All the discussipns by people who refuse to accept death are just coping
I agree with you. And to be fair, Musk knows the world is round therefore its “finite”. With that being said, I think people like him think we can have endless growth at least for their own foreseeable future. And what happens is another Elon Musk comes along in 25-30 years and thinks the same way. So, our society ends us following a path of endless growth forever.
If that makes any sense.
to explain it more concisely.
Musk, and others like him, think that wealth buys exemption from economic catastrophe—just like the freezenuts think they are exempted from the laws of thermodynamics
they will get a rude awakening—or non-awakening if you are freezenut
Several SciFi writers called the ones who actually took the cryogenic plunge “corpsicles”.
A corpsicle is a deceased body that has been cryopreserved through cryonics.
The term is a combination of the words “corpse” and “popsicle”.
A quick online search reveals that this word was first used in print in 1969 in Frederik Pohl’s book The Age of the Pussyfoot. It has also been used in other works of fiction, including:
Immortality Through Freezing: An essay by Pohl published in 1966 in Worlds of Tomorrow;
Rammer: A 1971 short story by Larry Niven;
A World Out of Time: A 1976 novel by Larry Niven;
The Precipice: A 2001 novel by Ben Bova; and
Event Horizon: A 1997 film by Paul W. S. Anderson.
i like corpsicle
if one becomes a corpsicle—i wonder where the iclcles hang longest?
Trump is to impose 100% tariffs on states that de-dollarize.
Sweet, everyone will be forced not only to dump the dollar but also to cut off all trade with the USA.
I suppose that we will see how that works out for the USA.
Humans learnt how to deal with bullies long ago when neurochemical changes allowed the suppression of reactive and immediate aggression in favour of calculated and collaborative aggression.
It is called ‘reverse domination’ or ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’.
Besides USA is really not all that any more either economically or militarily.
It obviously just has to learn that the hard way…. the very hard way.
Tick, tock.
Good point. Apes do that also if the leader becomes a bully. Three or four subordinates work together and finish him off, then one of them becomes the leader.
As for Trump, he threatens and blusters a lot to get call attention to a problem, then he backs off and negotiates. That is his tactic. We will see what happens.
We don’t really know what is ahead. Whatever Trump says is likely to change, as times go on, and as others weigh in. We know the world is likely to change in the near future, but precisely how, is not clear.
You nailed it.
Dr. Jessica Rose talks to Bret Weinstein on DarkHorse about SARS‑CoV‑2, did it exist, how dangerous was it, how unusual and novel was it, and how crazy were the restrictions that were put on society supposedly to deal with it, and how much o a psyop was “the Pandemic.” Good stuff if you have a working brain and want an interesting chat to listen too while waiting for Gail to publish her next post.
https://rumble.com/v5q0zl8-what-jessica-rose-knows-dr.-jessica-rose-on-darkhorse.html
Thanks. It looks like the video is a little over 2 hours long.
I am having a little trouble with WordPress. I feel like they put out a new version (without announcing anything), and it is still somewhat “buggy.” They have added more AI, but they have taken away other things I depended on.
Also, I have been enjoying Thanksgiving.
Speaking about valuable islands no one will ever visit, there was the case of Ocean Island/Banaba, in the Gilbert Island chain, later named Kiribati which is how the islanders pronounce Gilbert.
The British took the trouble to evacuate the islanders during WW2 to an island in Fiji, and since there were phosphates in there, they were mind and the islanders were not returned.
The islanders complained and they raised a big case in the 1970s but the British court, not willing to make the 300 islanders millionaires like their equivalents in Nauru (which was not evacuated and 1/4 of the islanders died – since it used to be ruled by Germany until 1918 slightly different laws were applied there which enabled the islanders to live high on hock for a couple decades), threw the suit out but it did enrich a lot of lawyers.
Now new technology has found some hidden phosphates in the depleted landscape and the islanders want their cut. (Similar developments occurred in Nauru but since the Nauruans had signed away all rights when they allowed their depleted island to be used as refugee camps, they won’t profit)
Again none of these would have occurred if the islanders were not evacuated and left at the mercy of the Japanese, who would have treated them much more harshly than the British.
Being nice to the ‘little peoples’ do bring bad consequences in the end.
(About Starmer trying to handle Diego Garcia to Mauritius)
I rarely agree with Peter Cassidy but I do agree with him on here.
This is a HUGE treason against the Western Civilization.
None of these would have occurred if the sailors, not seeing an inch forward, had the foresight to dump all of the natives of Diego Garcia to the sea instead of sending them to Mauritius which had no claims over it but is now claiming that thanks to the denizens who complain being sent there to this day.
How many of them were there when they were deported? Maybe a few hundred. Dumping them to the sea would not have been too hard and no one would have noticed.
Meanwhile, the Japanese had exterminated the Ainu people in Sakhalin and the Kuriles (Japanese until 1945 when USA, ever generous to USSR, handed them to the Soviets which has remained a point of contention between Japan and Russia to this day) altogether, and reduced the Ainus in Hokkaido, which was much larger, to a few hundred , to the point of irrelevance so there is no voice of separation from what is remaining of the Ainu people (most of them by now having Japanese ancestors too).
Sometimes the Asian race is more strict on doing things than the Roundeyes.
Using around 4,000 tonnes of liquid oxygen per launch of starship, at 70 launches/d for Keith’s power satellites, would require 280,000 tonnes of liquid oxygen per day or around 102,000,000 tonnes/ year, which is around current global capacity of production for all other purposes..
So we’d need to double world liquid oxygen production, which is more growth here on Earth to get the plan started, plus of course the extra 61TWh of energy to run these extra liquid oxygen producers..
It’s always all the extra that needs to be built here on Earth before any of these plans come to fruition that get left out of calculations of energy required to build everything first. We need more mining for the raw materials to build the plants that make the liquid oxygen, on top of what we do at present.
Basically it means the current system of civilization has to continue to be in growth mode for decades more for any of it to be built, which we mostly agree is simply not going to happen for much longer.
Once we are in energy decline here on Earth, without enough energy and materials to maintain and operate existing systems, which already takes 97%-99% of all energy used, then every pie in the sky concept will be left in fairytale land, as building all the new will simply not be possible as people just try to survive.
Once energy availability is in decline, with feedback loops accelerating the downside availability in energy and materials, just getting enough food to cities will become very, very difficult, let alone building anything new….
The energy cost of cryogenic LOX is about 250kWh/tonne.
https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2007/data/papers/78_6_080.pdf
Of the many potential problems involved in scaling up rocket launches to these levels, LOX availability is one of the least concerning. Making 100 million tonnes per year would require input power of 2.8GW. That is chump change for the global economy.
I was waiting for someone to come up with something like this number, as it highlights everything wrong with all our energy calculations on everything.
Apparently using such a number makes it sound very doable, yet assumes there is no energy required for building the plants, providing power to them, nor any energy used in all the workers that turn up each day, including management, lawyers, accountants in all the capital raising to build and operate the plants, nor any energy to build the factories that made all the new equipment in the new liquid oxygen plant, nor the roads and bridges crossed by all the trucks delivering all the liquid oxygen, nor there manufacture etc, etc …
We calculate the energy required to do anything new totally incorrectly, which is precisely why we head into kollapse when oil production starts to contract at an accelerating rate and overall energy available to humanity declines.
None of these future plans has a hope of success because we never count how much energy is really involved to make it happen…
The assumption on all these calculations is that the energy for building LNG plants is a small fraction of the energy in the fuel.
Same as the cost of a truck or car is spread over thousands of trips.
If a rocket flies 100 times, the cost per flight is 1% of the front end cost, including the energy.
But the real kicker is that an awful lot of natural gas is used for power generation. Power satellites can replace this use and as Gail worries, they might displace so much gas that the price falls to the point people quit drilling.
Keith, you missed the biggie in all of it, as does everyone discussing the energy use of these things. It’s all the people involved that have energy use on top of current energy use. All the employees from management down that turn up to the factories every single day.
Also it’s interesting how you and Peter both want to talk LNG when it’s the liquid oxygen that needs to double on a world wide scale.
All the built environment is suffering from entropy and constantly needs to be replaced as well as operated and maintained over time.
The energy not counted is precisely why all the nuclear power plants are meant to produce power at a ratio of 100/1, output to input, yet make dollar losses over time, mostly needing subsidies to keep going.
Everyone forgets all the energy inputs of all the workers in all the mines, processing facilities, smelters and factories, let alone truck drivers, couriers etc, and the actual energy they use, which we count in dollar terms, instead of energy terms. But all those people use real energy to exist and get to work each day with the dollars paid to them.
Every time we have to add something to civilization, the rest is expected to exist as per usual, and our ‘as per usual’ mode is growth as it has been for over 200 years.
How much fuel does Starship consume? Could shortages of fuel be a problem?
According to Wiki, Starship has total takeoff propellant mass of 3400 tonnes. The oxidiser-fuel ratio is 3.6:1. This implies 740 tonnes of methane are consumed per launch.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship
If we were to launch 70 Starships every day, we would be consuming 51,800 tonnes of methane per day. Methane has density of 0.657kg/m3. So that is 79 million cubic metres per day, or 28.8bn m3/yr. World production of natural gas in 2022,was 4.1 trillion m3.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_production
So 70 Starship flights each day would increase annual global natural gas consumption by 0.7%. This is not a negligible addition to global energy consumption. But it is small.g
You need to include the booster fuel, then main engine fuel that I notice many articles leave out. Total is around 4,600 tonnes of which 920 tonnes is methane and 3,680 tonnes is liquid oxygen.
I was clearly talking about the liquid oxygen component and what needs to be built here on Earth to produce it.
The methane itself looks OK, but if all sorts of uses spring up for it when oil is in decline, assuming we don’t quickly Kollapse, then the price may become much higher than present, which makes all the costs too high.
I would suggest that if everything held together, it would still take over 2 decades for everything to be in place to allow 70 launches per day. Every single Starship launch is just one minor fault away from being a complete failure that authorities may then step in and require major overhauls before allowing further launches.
Every plan about the future I see, allows for everything to work perfectly, plus become cheaper, all while it takes more energy to mine lower grades of every metal and mineral our civilization uses.
What leaves me most doubtful about the ability to launch the starship frequently is the heat shield. Inspecting thousands and thousands of tiles could be time-consuming and above all can undermine the possibility of reusing the rocket for dozens and dozens of times. Starship seems a some sort of Shuttle 2.0 and even at that time there was a high expectation regarding the fast reusability and the cost to access to space. The Falcon 9 booster has been reused 20 times but has never been subjected to the stresses of an 8 km/s reentry from LEO and the faster turnaround for the booster is 14 days. I do find that the “Stoke space” approach with the heat shield with regenerative cooling is more sustainable if it works.
Agreed. The Columbia disaster demonstrated just how fragile the heat shield is with its thousands of flimsy carbon composite tiles. It is hard to believe that SpaceX could not have found a better engineering solution for a reentry shield.