Friday, January 20, 2006

Peak Oil discussion

quite a good summary of where the peak oil debate is at - via energy bulletin. I'm not too worried about peak oil in the long term - if we can shove a man on the moon in less than a decade we should be able to do something about replacing our energy source BUT every year that slips by without any concern worries me greatly. It would be nice if just once, we could plan ahead, replacing oil with nuclear energy is NOT a solution, it is a (expensive) delaying tactic.

2 Comments:

Blogger Eric McErlain said...

Actually, in the U.S. anyway, nuclear energy displaced oil-fired electric generating capacity in the 1970s -- so what you're referring to here has already happened.

And with the way electric markets are now in the U.S. and Europe, it could do the same with natural gas as well, freeing up capacity to be used for home heating and industrial purposes.

Granted, nuclear energy is not a panacea. Future electric demand is going to require that we rely on every source of fuel for electric generation.

2:43 PM  
Blogger Joe said...

can't argue with you there eric. i'm not nuclear's biggest fan but i don't think any other option comes close for use in the near term, i just worry that we'll forget to develop other forms as well and be having the same discussion in 2050... thanks for the comment.

4:57 PM  

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