tyler, you my dog
by Eli
two weeks ago, hannah had her official birthday party over at her place. it was a great night of general funnery, accompanied by quite a bit of drinking and smoking by most involved. it is no suprise to the reader(s) of this blog that amoung those in “our” circle tyler can certainly consume his fair share of alcohol and then procede to talk loudly and frequently. but who really is to blame? no one, and i wouldn’t wish tyler to stop either; it’s part of what makes tyler, tyler.
in this particular situation, as the evening wore on and the crowd dispersed, the conversation turned toward Peak Oil. i know it sounds like a bad idea, but this time it wasn’t my fault. i walked into the kitchen to hear drew and tyler going on about something related and i chimed in. the conversation followed a certain pattern as drew and i danced from point to point, but there seemed to be a constant deterant: tyler. as brandon says, when tyler gets drunk, he says something and then says it again louder and slower. rinse and repeat.
the basic gist of the discussion was this: tyler and drew believe that at some point in the distant future (when oil is no longer an option) something else will jump up in it’s place and start pulling some weight. tyler thinks it’s should/could be nuclear and drew thinks it will be some currently unknown fuel source. [i say all of that with the utmost attempt at objectivity and hope that i have represented their opinions accurately] in my opinion, there never has been and never will be another fuel source quite like oil. start saying your goodbyes now.
regardless of the actual outcome of the evening’s discussion (nothing but love for you Ty), i did realize one thing: i am not very familiar with nuclear energy. some say that nuclear power is the solution to our energy problems and some say it will be the death of us all. i decided to do a little research. keep in mind that this is my best effort at a simplified view of things, so i may have left out a few bits here and there. either way, this is what i have found so far.
Nuclear Energy 101
the form of nuclear power that produces energy that we are all generally familiar with is specifically nuclear fission, fuelled by Uranium-235, which is an isotope of uranium. when one of those isotopes is bombarded by a neutron it splits in two, which then produces more neutrons that then split more atoms of Uranium-235 in a chain reaction that creates a huge amount of energy. this energy is used to boil water and the steam from that water is used to turn a turbine. that’s the basic idea.
this process sounds similar to the process that occurs when a nuclear bomb is detonated, and it is. that’s why the reaction has to be controlled by a “moderator,” usually just huge amounts of sea water. the moderator makes it more difficult for the stray neutrons to find the next link in the chain and is used to keep the reaction in check or stop it all together when the fuel cells need changing. the longer a fuel cell is in use the more “clogged” it gets with “radioactive impunities” such as barium and krypton, and after about 2 years the fuel elements need replacing.
most of the used fuel cell is composed of Uranium-238, which is incredibly radioactive (if you stand close to it for a few seconds you will die) and it must be disposed of somehow. some of the used fuel cell can be re-used to extract more energy, but eventually all nuclear waste must be disposed of, and this usually means burying it in a mountain. the only problem with this solution is that it never really goes away: Uranium-238 has a half life (the amount of time it takes for half of it to decay) that is just about as old as the earth – 4.5 billion years.
Can nuclear energy save us all?
there’s much more to the process than what i’ve mentioned above: mining and milling, preparing the fuel, creating and decomissioning reactors, and the list goes on and on. each step requires immense amounts of fossil fuels, but for the sake of brevity (have i already lost that?) i’ll only go into the mining and milling.
most of the time uranium exists in small quantities all over the earth. in some places it exists in concentrations as high as 1 percent, but that is rare and is usually found at levels at or below 0.1 percent (one part per thousand). this means that every 1000 tons of rock we extract yields only 1 ton of fuel. how much fuel does it take to run a standord 1GW nuclear power plant for a year? anywhere from 150 to 200 TONS. can you imagine how much energy is required to mine 200,000 tons of rock from the earth, extract the uranium, and then process that for use in a power plant? and that’s only enough for ONE plant for ONE year!
but let’s imagine for a second that we could find and process all of the fuel necessary to run all the nuclear power plants in all the world. let’s imagine that we could replace all of our current energy consumption (including transportation) with nuclear power. how many power plants would the world need to build in the next 25 years? over 6000. and once those are built we’d have to build about another 500 each year thereafter. that is simply impossible when you consider the amount of time (about 10 years per plant), resources, and energy it takes to build ONE new plant.
but let’s forget about the rest of the world for a second. currently, about 100 active nuclear plants in the US generate about 20% of our total electricity. if this were to be expanded to even 50%, about 150 new plants would need to be constructed, operated, and fueled (~30,000 tons of it each year).
what am i trying to get at here?
what we are really talking about here is energy, and since the beginning of time humans have been finding every means possible to “harvest” it from the environment. initially that came from encouraging the growth of wild foods that we enjoyed. then came agriculture, then domestication of animals, then whale oil and coal, then oil and natural gas and nuclear. the list goes on and on. but how much energy is actually contained in oil?
it really helped me to understand it’s true power when it was put into perspective for me. imagine one hour of hard human labor (are you imagining?). the amount of energy produced during that hour is approximately 100 – 200 BTUs. keeping that in mind, it’s pretty impressive to learn that a single gallon of gasoline contains ~125,000 BTUs. do the math and you’ll realize that’s about the equivalent of 6 weeks of hard human labor. 6 WEEKS in one gallon of gasoline, which costs $3.19 currently in Seattle. if we were to make things even, we’d either by paying 1/2 cent per hour for human labor or over $1000 per gallon of gasoline. we aren’t doing either.
if you extrapolate that even further, a barrel of refined oil produces about 20 gallons of gasoline (among other by products), and the US alone uses about 20 millions barrels of it every day. thats 400 million gallons of gasoline, which is about 250 trillion hours of hard human labor EVERY SINGLE DAY just to keep the country running. does that amaze you?
oil is an amazingly cheap, dense, and convenient energy source. it is incredibly portable and abundant, and our entire system depends on it (especially for transportation). it will eventually becomes to expensive for most of us to afford, and it simply cannot be replaced.
I wanted to comment to let you know that I read this, but I can’t think of anything.
Another option for depleted Uranium 238 (instead of burying it in a mountain) is on the nose of many kinds of ammunition, because it can melt through the side of a tank with ease. the U.S. military and others have scattered large amounts ( somthing like 1000-2000 tons between 2003-2004) across iraq, making it a toxic wasteland for the next 4.5 billion years. Google it.
good call, bookis.
Very cool, I learned a lot about nuclear and the efficiency of oil. nice.
Yes its true, I probably have spent nearly 1.5 trillion man hours drinking (does that amaze you?) and a good deal of that has been spent dolling out my own personal brand of rhetoric (I’m drinking right now, no joke). And while most of it can, nay must, be dismissed with a roll of the eyes and a “wanking motion” I feel that I need to clarify my stance on nuclear power.
First I never claimed that uranium was going to be the energy Jesus here to save us all from an un-electrified world, I simply feel that it is an under-utilized, and highly effective commidity right now.
And to address the issue of gathering uranium for the plants, you made it seem as if oil and coal fall out of the sky right into energy plants and cars. There is a shit-ton of time, money, resources and yes virginia, energy that goes into the gathering of those fuels as well. Not as much probably as uranium, but then again I never saw a graph breaking down the energy spent to gather the fuels versus BTU’s or kilo watt hours that said fuels generate, so I can’t say with any certainty that its significantly more efficient, however for the sake of argument I will.
Heres the other side of that coin, once the uranium is inside the power plant there is virtually no pollution to produce the power (I’ll get to the nuclear waste in a sec). Where as say a coal burning plant pumps out TONS of impurities into the air every year.
And what about that pesky nuclear waste? Now for those of you who don’t know me, Eli gave a very accurate description of what I’m like when I’m drunk and “feel like talkin.” I’m that way right now, so i’m going to repeat myself many times, and although you can’t see or hear me, I will be doing it louder and slower each time. Here’s my plan for the waste. You take it and bury it under two miles of solid granite, hundreds of miles away from any human being and forget about it. Once it is locked away deep inside a fucking mountain there is no way in hell that it will ever affect a single living thing. EVER. EVER. E-V-E-R.
And if a few thousand tons should end up littering the perinal hell-hole that is the middle east, I guess that just means a terrible place is that much worse. Its not uranium’s fault that its high molecular density makes it the perfect candidate for armor peircing rounds. Also its depleted uranium, so I’m not even sure exactly how much radiation risk it actually poses.
Long story short, nuclear power got a bad rap. Plenty of BRAND NEW nuclear power plants in the U.S. have been shut down before they generated a single joule of energy because of ignorant people voting them closed (talk about wasted energy). No, nuclear power will not be our salvation, but its not our enemy either.
Thank you Eli for including me in your blog, I honestly do apprieciate it. And as always I admire you for sticking to your “the world is completely screwed” guns, its what makes you, you. ; )
wow, ty, that was like the best response that i think i have ever receive on this here blog. wow. wonderful. and in response:
as far as the gathering of fossil fuels vs. the gathering of uranium vs. the BTU output of each, i guess my main point there was to address how dense AND portable the energy is that comes from a gallon of gasoline. even if you subtract the amount of energy that goes into getting it out of the ground and into your gas tank, it is still the most portable, dense, cheap, and convenient source of energy that exists. you certainly can’t fill your car up with nuclear energy (supposedly you can fill it up with hydrogen derived from nuclear, but that’s a whole different story).
also, when i was pointing out how much fossil fuel energy is required to build a plant, mine and process all the fuel, dispose of the fuel, and then decomission a plant, my main purpose was not to say that those things are not necessary in fossil fuel plants. i was basically saying that the amount of input energy required is not worth the output energy at this point. that energy would be much better spent in rebuilding the railroads, subsidizing organic farming, and/or developing a post-oil infrastructure, for instance.
as far as the pollution goes. to me that’s a tough one. i find it hard to believe that an active nuclear power plant isn’t producing any pollution. it might produce “no pollution” at certain points in its life time, but if you take into consideration the energy used across the whole cycle. nuclear reactors produce more carbon dioxide than gas-fired power stations until they have been in full-power production for about 10 years. coal is certainly much different, and worse, in that regard.
i just think that at this point it is too late to start building new plants. it would take at least 10 years before they are operational, and i think we will be living in a considerably different world by then.
This is great.
i barfed after i read this. god.
did you save that barf? because barf is actually a very cheap, dense, and portable source of fuel.
Great one. Has anyone seen CARS yet? I hope it doesn’t suck.
I think this conversation takes us to solar power.
And several people agree, at lease legislators in California You see California is now offering special incentives for people who put solar panels on the roofs of homes. For those of use who live in sunny area, it is the perfect source of energy.
Go green!
it’s funny that this topic has been such a runaway post. and as much as i would love to indulge in some humor about the impending halt of our fossil fuel society, i’ve found that i’m out of sunny optimism.
i’ll try to keep this short. a few weeks ago, at a job interview for a radical enviro group i’m working for in the fall, they asked me the following: “so pete, where do you stand on the nuclear issue?” after letting the depth of the question sink in, there was only one answer i could think of.
the issue we face is not a nuclear issue, it’s a lifestyle issue. we, as a culture, consume a quantity of energy that is not only unsustainable, it is arrogant. we live a lifestyle built upon survival insured by energy. our food is shipped from not only across the country, but across the world. the same holds true for most of our goods. if you cut the power, what would happen? my bet, a majority of americans would be rendered helpless. they would have to wash their own clothes, heat their own homes, walk to the store and, gasp, entertain themselves. granted, the power will not just be “shut off.” but it’s interesting to think about what i would do if it did. i think that the first step in solving the energy problem is to seek a shift in our mindset and culture to the more self-sufficient. we are rome and energy is our slave. we all know how that story ended – over extened and dependent, the empire crumbled from within. the war, the health, the environment, and the mock democracy of our country are symptoms of a sick society.
the only imagery i can muster is a that of a train on a track. our culture is moving full steam ahead on rail of cheap energy. for years, the trip was safe and secure. but we face the end-days and, though our speed has only increased, the presence of the track ahead has come into question. nuclear energy is nothing more than a few more yards of track that is a band-aid on a bullet wound. what is the easiest way to prevent a train on limited track from crashing? is it to frantically try to lay track in front of it? or is it to slow the speed of the train and question if a train is what we really need at this point in the game.
well spoken pete. i couldn’t have said it better myself.