Four out of the past five recessions followed oil shocks, and the International Energy Agency now warns of $200-per-barrel oil; a global depression may follow. The United States needs a radically different energy policy to address volatile oil and gas prices, global warming and a shrinking economy – and fast.
Most purported solutions are either too small to matter or have a fatal flaw. Hydroelectric power is low-cost, but cannot be expanded. Geothermal power is only available in a few spots, and likewise cannot be expanded. Biomass as currently practiced (ethanol or soybean diesel) produces such small gains in net-energy that no amount of farmland could contribute significantly to reducing fossil fuel consumption.
The average capacity factor for photovoltaic solar energy in the United States is 14 percent; wind’s is 27 percent. The fatal flaw is that battery technology is not sufficient to store sporadic and unreliable power coming in off the grid for when it isn’t sunny or windy. And finally, while the world still has a lot of coal, we have yet to demonstrate large-scale, long-term storage of carbon dioxide.
As argued in Tom Blees’s “Prescription for the Planet,” one solution exists: nuclear fission. Integral fast reactors are 100 to 300 times as fuel efficient, and can even use existing energy in nuclear waste as fuel. The world desperately needs a massive source of reliable, long-lasting, low-pollution energy. And nuclear power may be all that stands between civilization and its alternatives.
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