I have written extensively on the subject of Peak Oil as indeed have many others. This is not surprising perhaps in view of its significance, and the almost certain consequences of ignoring its eventuality, which some think will be the collapse of civilization as we know it. The worst case is the "Die-Off" prognosis, in which around half the world's population of 6.5 billion will be consumed through wars over resources and by starvation. This is unlikely to be an evenly proportional loss of life, as is indicated by the relative population increases across the world. For example, in the UK in 1900, the population was close to 40 million, and now it is 60 million. As a world total it was around 2 billion, and so there has been an overall more than tripling in numbers, mostly in the developing world. Hence, without a plan, it is there that the greatest losses will be suffered.
The growth in human population can be plotted on the same curve as that for the rise in oil production, and that is not surprising given that we depend on oil or gas (which are interrelated in their production) not only for fuel to drive transportation and to provide much space-heating too, but also as a chemical feedstock for industry, and there is practically nothing we use that does not depend on hydrocarbons in some way, including food. Even "natural materials" like wood are treated with chemical preservatives. At one time the main wood preservative was creosote, and made from coal tar, now it is a mixture of more exotic substances sythesised ultimately from oil. If we are close to the peak in conventional world oil production, beyond which it is thought the amount of oil recovered will begin to drop at a rate of 2 - 3% per year, then what? Is a Die-Off scenario leading to a post-apocalyptic Mad Max outcome inevitable?
I don't believe it is, but exactly what happens depends acutely on what we choose to do about the impending oil-crisis, now. There are many who think that this is just another scare because we have seen "oil-crises" before, notably in the early 1970's, when the OPEC cartel flexed its political muscles to drive up the price of crude oil. But it was merely a political matter - there was still plenty of oil in the ground to be recovered and OPEC could decide how far to open the valves from the wells of its giant fields. Now the constraints are not political but geological, and it will simply become impossible to pump enough oil out of the ground to match an inexorable thirst for it. Indeed, production of the "sweet" (low sulphur) light crude oil which is most readily refined into gasoline (petrol) and aviation fuel has already peaked, and henceforth we will rely increasingly on processing heavier kinds of oil and that produced by thermally cracking tar sands and shales which are all highly energy-intensive processes, and the latter especially demanding additionally in the resource of water required to run them.
Future historians may well record that it was a pity humankind did not act 30 years before the peak, probably when OPEC temporarily throttled-back its output of oil. There were many research projects inaugurated to find alternatives to oil, but they did not become large-scale enterprises, because cheap crude oil came back onto the market and quenched the incentive for them. Now the incentive is paramount. For example, food production depends on oil to run farm machinery etc., and on natural gas to manufacture chemical fertilisers to squeeze greater crop-yields from land that has become extremely depleted in organic matter. If we lack oil, we have no choice but to return to organic farming, ploughing manure from animals back into the ground to nourish the next year's harvest. Organic farming requires far more land to yield a given quantity of crop than chemically-driven modern intensive farming methods do, and so to keep a nation fed, there is little arable land left on which to grow crops for biofuels. New cellulose-fermenting technologies that turn waste into fuel then look increasingly attractive, but we need them on-line as soon as possible, not forgetting that all our implementations of alternative technologies must be done within about 10 years, by when oil supplies will have begun to fall significantly, and against a demand for oil that grows by around 3% each year.
Transportation is THE big problem. I retain considerable optimism that cellulose-based methods will prove useful and I like the idea of making biodiesel from algae, although that technology too has many problems that need to be ironed-out before it might be possible to do so. Implementing a "Hydrogen Economy" on the scale required to substitute for oil-driven (forgive the pun) transportation would demand a feat of engineering so great that it is probably prohibitive, as I have indicated in previous postings and so I think that given the limited time left to us, we would be better to seek our salvation elsewhere. There seems no doubt that we will be forced to curb transportation (especially personal transportation) considerably, perhaps by 80 - 90% within 15 years, and that inevitably means a considerable relocalisation of society into relatively small communities, supplied by local farms. If that sounds like a slide-back to the Stone Age, it is probably worth recalling that this is exactly how Cuba managed not only to survive the abrupt loss of oil and chemical fertilisers from Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed, but to become a thriving nation based on local-economics. In Cuba, local farms provide for local markets, and while there are still some food shortages in more populous places like the capital Havana, as an overall strategy it has worked.
We must plan now, rather than remaining in denial that the onward march of progress is at all possible. The future can be an optimistic one, if we choose the simpler way. We will have this ultimately, whether we choose it or not, since it is the "default-setting" for a society with less energy at its disposal. That said, it is in our hands just how rough the transition is from now to then.
Related Reading.
www.relocalize.net/groups/saltlake
www.relocalize.net
Monday, May 14, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Biofuels Take Another Knock.
I have written on the subject of various kinds of biofuels, and broadly concluded that even if we were to stop growing food in the U.K. we could at best match only somewhere between 16% and 50% of our current transportation fuel based on petroleum, depending on whether biodiesel or bioethanol is the substituting fuel. My figures are based the requirements for the U.K., but they broadly scale-up to similar conclusions for the U.S., in terms of the greater area of arable land available but the greater overall "national" fuel consumption. It amounts to the same for European countries in addition to the U.K., nonetheless, everybody seems to be going hell-for-leather for biofuels.
George Bush wants to free his country from the need for fuel imports from the Middle East especially, and probably from a less friendly South America too (notably Venezuela), although its supplies from Canada are likely to be fairly secure for the foreseeable future. The U.S. imports almost three quarters of its fuel from abroad, and consumes one quarter of the world's production. However, other nations are in a flux of rapid and massive development (China and India) and so the tug-of-war over the world's oil reserves is becoming a fraught and complex game with many more than a simple two sides pulling at them. In short every nation wants to be set free from demand on oil, for the simple reason it is running out, but how much time can biofuels really buy us? If the amount of them we can produce without starving, is a fraction of the energy equivalent currently supplied from petroleum, at best we have a shallow safety-net, that "might", and I use that word advisedly, make the bumpy ride down the oil-poor edge of Hubbert's Peak a little smoother. But there is no doubt we will end-up in a world with much less transportation fuel, even if wholesale coal liquefaction is done to make it, and on environmental grounds, e.g. climate change, this would seem unacceptable.
I have no doubt that many environmental concerns will take a back seat to attempts to maintain economic growth, and so I expect the U.S. will begin to produce synthetic hydrocarbons from coal, given their enormous reserves of it, some 30% of those known in the world; however, since much of this will be scraped from the Earth in open-cast pits, it is going to create quite a mess, and I'm sure too that Europe will not be too far behind in implementing the technology, and China and India are already considering large scale coal liquefaction projects. Now coal is an obviously dirty material, but what about biofuels - even if the amount we can feasibly make of them is limited, the technology is at least clean...or is it?
I am skeptical how much environmental good will be done by blending biofuels with petrol, in relatively low proportions (5 - 10% say), partly in terms of emissions and probably more impact will be made there as petrol begins to run out and we have less fuel to burn and pump CO2 into the atmosphere. However, America wants to double its biofuel production to 7% of the total within 18 months, while Europe aims more modestly for just under 6% by the end of the decade (slightly under 3 years). It is intended that the share of the market from biofuels will grow to 15% in the U.S. and around 10% in the EU. To encourage its own market the U.S. has imposed tough import tariffs on Brazilian-made ethanol but subsidises its own corn-ethanol. However the Brazilian product can be produced at a yield of around 6,000 liters per hectare and is the world's most efficient, whereas its corn-based equivalent is the least so.
There are fears that forested land will be cleared to grow fuel crops, as is happening in Asia, mainly in Indonesia and Malaysia, to produce palm-oil, diesel from which overall is ten times as polluting in terms of CO2 emissions than petroleum-based diesel. According to Friends of the Earth, 87% of deforestation that occurred in Malaysia between 1985 and 2000, was carried out to provide palm oil plantations. The U.K. government has said that a "significant proportion" of this country's biofuels will be imported, from places where they grow best, like Brazil and Indonesia, leaving both direct and indirect consequences of deforestation to follow. Economically, it is a difficult transitional period too, because the "second generation biofuels" made from cellulose are expected to come on stream perhaps in five years and so why would companies want to invest in massive biofuel production now, when these "first generation" plants would then have to be decommissioned? The second-generation approach sounds good, because it is intended to use household waste, sewage, chaff from food crops and so on, but the technology remains to be proven on the grand scale as is true of producing biodeisel from algae, which looks particularly promising.
In my opinion the jury is still out on how much biofuel can be produced altogether, and although I am optimistic about some of the putative technologies for doing so, I don't believe we can ever match the amount of petroleum-based fuel we now get through, and bearing in mind that the world supplies of oil are running out. In less than 20 years there will be practically no conventional oil left, and it is against this backdrop that all other considerations must be contrasted.
Related Reading.
(1) "Biofuels: The great green con", by Tim Webb. http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/article2516619.ece
(2) "A Lethal Solution," by George Monbiot. http://www.monbiot.com.archives/2007/03/27/a-lethal-solution/
George Bush wants to free his country from the need for fuel imports from the Middle East especially, and probably from a less friendly South America too (notably Venezuela), although its supplies from Canada are likely to be fairly secure for the foreseeable future. The U.S. imports almost three quarters of its fuel from abroad, and consumes one quarter of the world's production. However, other nations are in a flux of rapid and massive development (China and India) and so the tug-of-war over the world's oil reserves is becoming a fraught and complex game with many more than a simple two sides pulling at them. In short every nation wants to be set free from demand on oil, for the simple reason it is running out, but how much time can biofuels really buy us? If the amount of them we can produce without starving, is a fraction of the energy equivalent currently supplied from petroleum, at best we have a shallow safety-net, that "might", and I use that word advisedly, make the bumpy ride down the oil-poor edge of Hubbert's Peak a little smoother. But there is no doubt we will end-up in a world with much less transportation fuel, even if wholesale coal liquefaction is done to make it, and on environmental grounds, e.g. climate change, this would seem unacceptable.
I have no doubt that many environmental concerns will take a back seat to attempts to maintain economic growth, and so I expect the U.S. will begin to produce synthetic hydrocarbons from coal, given their enormous reserves of it, some 30% of those known in the world; however, since much of this will be scraped from the Earth in open-cast pits, it is going to create quite a mess, and I'm sure too that Europe will not be too far behind in implementing the technology, and China and India are already considering large scale coal liquefaction projects. Now coal is an obviously dirty material, but what about biofuels - even if the amount we can feasibly make of them is limited, the technology is at least clean...or is it?
I am skeptical how much environmental good will be done by blending biofuels with petrol, in relatively low proportions (5 - 10% say), partly in terms of emissions and probably more impact will be made there as petrol begins to run out and we have less fuel to burn and pump CO2 into the atmosphere. However, America wants to double its biofuel production to 7% of the total within 18 months, while Europe aims more modestly for just under 6% by the end of the decade (slightly under 3 years). It is intended that the share of the market from biofuels will grow to 15% in the U.S. and around 10% in the EU. To encourage its own market the U.S. has imposed tough import tariffs on Brazilian-made ethanol but subsidises its own corn-ethanol. However the Brazilian product can be produced at a yield of around 6,000 liters per hectare and is the world's most efficient, whereas its corn-based equivalent is the least so.
There are fears that forested land will be cleared to grow fuel crops, as is happening in Asia, mainly in Indonesia and Malaysia, to produce palm-oil, diesel from which overall is ten times as polluting in terms of CO2 emissions than petroleum-based diesel. According to Friends of the Earth, 87% of deforestation that occurred in Malaysia between 1985 and 2000, was carried out to provide palm oil plantations. The U.K. government has said that a "significant proportion" of this country's biofuels will be imported, from places where they grow best, like Brazil and Indonesia, leaving both direct and indirect consequences of deforestation to follow. Economically, it is a difficult transitional period too, because the "second generation biofuels" made from cellulose are expected to come on stream perhaps in five years and so why would companies want to invest in massive biofuel production now, when these "first generation" plants would then have to be decommissioned? The second-generation approach sounds good, because it is intended to use household waste, sewage, chaff from food crops and so on, but the technology remains to be proven on the grand scale as is true of producing biodeisel from algae, which looks particularly promising.
In my opinion the jury is still out on how much biofuel can be produced altogether, and although I am optimistic about some of the putative technologies for doing so, I don't believe we can ever match the amount of petroleum-based fuel we now get through, and bearing in mind that the world supplies of oil are running out. In less than 20 years there will be practically no conventional oil left, and it is against this backdrop that all other considerations must be contrasted.
Related Reading.
(1) "Biofuels: The great green con", by Tim Webb. http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/article2516619.ece
(2) "A Lethal Solution," by George Monbiot. http://www.monbiot.com.archives/2007/03/27/a-lethal-solution/
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
U.N. say Climate Change can be Halted.
Experts from the United Nations have concluded that it is still possible to avert global warming and climate change, but the world needs to act immediately to do so. In a recent report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that a range of established and emerging technologies including renewables and nuclear power, along with carbon capture and sequestration are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2, to a level where global warming would be stabilised. The refusal of the US to tackle the issue, and also the massive volumes of carbon expected to be emitted by developing nations such as China and India, are predicted to increase global temperatures by up to 6 degrees C during the next century.
The report asserts that renewable sources of energy could be increased to provide 35% of the world's electricity by 2030, up from the 18% it currently generates, and that nuclear could provide 18% by that same date, meaning a relatively marginal increase from 16% as now. It is worth pointing out however, that many of the existing nuclear power pants will need to be decommissioned and replaced by new before then. Biofuels are also promoted as offering the potential to cause significant reductions in emissions from transportation. However, as I have stressed in previous postings, it appears unlikely that the massive quantities of petroleum that the world currently gets through to run the global fleet of vehicles, including aircraft and ships, could be matched in kind by biofuels, unless new technology based on algae is successfully introduced to make biodiesel on a huge scale, otherwise there is insufficient arable land available to grow fuel-crops without severely compromising food production.
Energy efficiency is sensibly promoted too, and also quite blue-skies methods, such as putting a shield in space to screen-out sunlight are mentioned but are considered to be at best "speculative". Carbon offsetting appears strangely absent in the proposal, where for example a firm might be paid to plant trees to soak-up the CO2 emitted by its fleet of planes. Trading carbon credits between nations appears likely. The whole venture is estimated to cost about 1% of the world's GPD, which is perhaps a price well worth paying.
The main recommendations of the report can be summarised:
Lifestyle, which means cutting back on personal emissions (i.e. travelling less, and ideally not by air).
Energy supply: as noted, with a bigger share from renewables and nuclear.
Farming and Forestry: careful farming to retain carbon in the soil and minimise emissions of CO2 and methane too?
Industry: cut back emissions from highly polluting manufacturing plants.
High-tech means: the giant sun-shield and fertilizing the oceans to grow more phytoplankton to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere are thought to be unproven.
Related Reading.
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
The Independent, "Climate Change can be Halted", by Michael McCarthy. http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article
The report asserts that renewable sources of energy could be increased to provide 35% of the world's electricity by 2030, up from the 18% it currently generates, and that nuclear could provide 18% by that same date, meaning a relatively marginal increase from 16% as now. It is worth pointing out however, that many of the existing nuclear power pants will need to be decommissioned and replaced by new before then. Biofuels are also promoted as offering the potential to cause significant reductions in emissions from transportation. However, as I have stressed in previous postings, it appears unlikely that the massive quantities of petroleum that the world currently gets through to run the global fleet of vehicles, including aircraft and ships, could be matched in kind by biofuels, unless new technology based on algae is successfully introduced to make biodiesel on a huge scale, otherwise there is insufficient arable land available to grow fuel-crops without severely compromising food production.
Energy efficiency is sensibly promoted too, and also quite blue-skies methods, such as putting a shield in space to screen-out sunlight are mentioned but are considered to be at best "speculative". Carbon offsetting appears strangely absent in the proposal, where for example a firm might be paid to plant trees to soak-up the CO2 emitted by its fleet of planes. Trading carbon credits between nations appears likely. The whole venture is estimated to cost about 1% of the world's GPD, which is perhaps a price well worth paying.
The main recommendations of the report can be summarised:
Lifestyle, which means cutting back on personal emissions (i.e. travelling less, and ideally not by air).
Energy supply: as noted, with a bigger share from renewables and nuclear.
Farming and Forestry: careful farming to retain carbon in the soil and minimise emissions of CO2 and methane too?
Industry: cut back emissions from highly polluting manufacturing plants.
High-tech means: the giant sun-shield and fertilizing the oceans to grow more phytoplankton to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere are thought to be unproven.
Related Reading.
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
The Independent, "Climate Change can be Halted", by Michael McCarthy. http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article
Friday, May 04, 2007
Thermal Solar Power.
An array of 600 mirrors has been installed in a field outside Seville, in southern Spain, in an adaptation of the solar-furnace. I am familiar with the latter from working at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, with a power output of just 40 kW, but when the bank of mirrors is positioned almost at 90 degrees to the horizontal, the immense energy can be felt instantly by anyone walking past it. The Spanish installation generates 11 MW, and focuses the Sun's rays onto a boiler (a network of pipes) positioned on top of a concrete tower 40 storeys high. Set in the midst of the Andalusian countryside, the thermal solar-power station must be quite an impressive sight, basking in the reflected sunlight.
It is indeed the first of its kind to operate commercially in Europe - i.e. it is not merely a research installation - and its operator, Solucar, announces proudly that it produces no greenhouse gases. True, as is that frequently cited advantage of nuclear power, but there is obviously a "carbon debt" to be paid-off, incurred in crushing rock to make the concrete and in the fabrication of the mirrors; however, the plant should run for years and certainly produce a lot less CO2 than a conventional gas or coal-fired station. This comparison has a further note, in terms of the relative generating capacity of the different technologies, namely that a standard electricity-generating station has an output of around 1 GW, i.e. 1,000 MW. Hence, the thermal solar-powered plant produces just about 1% of that. Put differently, it would take one hundred such installations for each gas or coal-fuelled plant it might be desired to replace by this sustainable technology.
As I have stressed over the putative hydrogen economy, the scale of engineering required to implement thermal solar-power on a comparative level with that which we currently enjoy from fossil-fuelled plants (and nuclear, especially in France where it produces 80% of the nation's electricity) would be truly collosal. The Spanish plant is undergoing a phase of development, and more fields are being cleared into which to install further banks of mirrors with the ultimate intention of providing enough electricity to meet the requirements of 600,000 people, which coincidentally is the population of Seville. In my opinion, we will need all the renewable energy we can lay our hands on, in order for human civilization to survive in the post-oil era that is at hand, but I think this technology will contribute a fairly minor component to the final energy mix, that I wrote about in the very first of these postings back in December 2005.
Who occupies centre stage in the new world order must follow the kind and amount of resources that each country ultimately has. In saying this, normally it is gas, oil, coal and uranium that is meant, and yet it might prove that an especially valuable and unlimited resource is available to the sun-kissed lands of the Mediterranean and Africa. If sufficient of thermal or photovoltaic generating capacity could be installed in sunnier regions, the electricity thus generated could be wired-off to the cloudier European climes. However, for any serious quantity of solar-power to be inaugurated, it is necessary to begin the process now, while we still have sufficient of our existing resources of oil and gas to do the job. In 10 years it may be too late to introduce any of the alternatives that are currently being speculated upon.
Related Reading.
"Power station harnesses Sun's rays," by David Shukman.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/
It is indeed the first of its kind to operate commercially in Europe - i.e. it is not merely a research installation - and its operator, Solucar, announces proudly that it produces no greenhouse gases. True, as is that frequently cited advantage of nuclear power, but there is obviously a "carbon debt" to be paid-off, incurred in crushing rock to make the concrete and in the fabrication of the mirrors; however, the plant should run for years and certainly produce a lot less CO2 than a conventional gas or coal-fired station. This comparison has a further note, in terms of the relative generating capacity of the different technologies, namely that a standard electricity-generating station has an output of around 1 GW, i.e. 1,000 MW. Hence, the thermal solar-powered plant produces just about 1% of that. Put differently, it would take one hundred such installations for each gas or coal-fuelled plant it might be desired to replace by this sustainable technology.
As I have stressed over the putative hydrogen economy, the scale of engineering required to implement thermal solar-power on a comparative level with that which we currently enjoy from fossil-fuelled plants (and nuclear, especially in France where it produces 80% of the nation's electricity) would be truly collosal. The Spanish plant is undergoing a phase of development, and more fields are being cleared into which to install further banks of mirrors with the ultimate intention of providing enough electricity to meet the requirements of 600,000 people, which coincidentally is the population of Seville. In my opinion, we will need all the renewable energy we can lay our hands on, in order for human civilization to survive in the post-oil era that is at hand, but I think this technology will contribute a fairly minor component to the final energy mix, that I wrote about in the very first of these postings back in December 2005.
Who occupies centre stage in the new world order must follow the kind and amount of resources that each country ultimately has. In saying this, normally it is gas, oil, coal and uranium that is meant, and yet it might prove that an especially valuable and unlimited resource is available to the sun-kissed lands of the Mediterranean and Africa. If sufficient of thermal or photovoltaic generating capacity could be installed in sunnier regions, the electricity thus generated could be wired-off to the cloudier European climes. However, for any serious quantity of solar-power to be inaugurated, it is necessary to begin the process now, while we still have sufficient of our existing resources of oil and gas to do the job. In 10 years it may be too late to introduce any of the alternatives that are currently being speculated upon.
Related Reading.
"Power station harnesses Sun's rays," by David Shukman.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Putin Sanctions Nuclear Industry Reforms.
I have touched on this important development before, but it appears that Russia is set to become a major player in the world nuclear power game through the creation of Atomenergoprom, which President Putin has said: "will be a vertically integrated entity and unite the entire atomic technological cycle - from the production of uranium and nuclear fuel to the construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear power plants." Now this is highly significant, since there is no counterpart anywhere in the world to this enterprise which would control all aspects of the Russian contribution to world nuclear power, presumably including providing enriched uranium to Europe and potentially (if they accede to this option) to Iran in order to break the threat of sanctions imposed by the UN.
This holding will enable Russia to beat its competitors on the world board of nuclear "Monopoly" and the initiation of the enterprise is expected to be complete by January 2008, in the form of a joint stock company owned wholly by the government. Russia has great strength in its natural resources, and has made determined efforts to consolidate and retain its gas and oil production and infrastructure within Russian control, even to the extent of sending some who would act against this aim to prison for significant terms. This appears to be a follow-on strategy to consolidate the share of nuclear resources, and in combination of all these sources of energy, Russia will indeed be a force to be reckoned with, in the shifting politics of the new world order, which must depend ultimately on who owns what and how much in terms of primary energy resources.
Fifty-five different unitary enterprises will be made corporate and subsumed into the holding by the 1st of December 2007, collectively including the means to mine uranium, process it, fabricate it into fuel-rods, build power plants and ultimately knock then down again at the end of their working life, including the final disposal of nuclear waste and radioactive components of decommissioned nuclear power stations. It is thought that isolated nuclear energy companies may well go to the wall against the competition from the international markets, for example large trans-national companies including French-German Areva and Siemens and the alliance between the US and Japan, Westinghouse-Toshiba.
The plan apparently does not include the creation of weapons-grade nuclear materials (HEU or plutonium), but as a force in the ongoing and undeniable economic war which has been described as the real (hidden) WWIII, mostly being fought over resources, it is a mighty launch indeed.
Related Reading.
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/prnt/htm1?newsID=11482592
This holding will enable Russia to beat its competitors on the world board of nuclear "Monopoly" and the initiation of the enterprise is expected to be complete by January 2008, in the form of a joint stock company owned wholly by the government. Russia has great strength in its natural resources, and has made determined efforts to consolidate and retain its gas and oil production and infrastructure within Russian control, even to the extent of sending some who would act against this aim to prison for significant terms. This appears to be a follow-on strategy to consolidate the share of nuclear resources, and in combination of all these sources of energy, Russia will indeed be a force to be reckoned with, in the shifting politics of the new world order, which must depend ultimately on who owns what and how much in terms of primary energy resources.
Fifty-five different unitary enterprises will be made corporate and subsumed into the holding by the 1st of December 2007, collectively including the means to mine uranium, process it, fabricate it into fuel-rods, build power plants and ultimately knock then down again at the end of their working life, including the final disposal of nuclear waste and radioactive components of decommissioned nuclear power stations. It is thought that isolated nuclear energy companies may well go to the wall against the competition from the international markets, for example large trans-national companies including French-German Areva and Siemens and the alliance between the US and Japan, Westinghouse-Toshiba.
The plan apparently does not include the creation of weapons-grade nuclear materials (HEU or plutonium), but as a force in the ongoing and undeniable economic war which has been described as the real (hidden) WWIII, mostly being fought over resources, it is a mighty launch indeed.
Related Reading.
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/prnt/htm1?newsID=11482592
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