Posted on 10/27/2013 7:03:12 PM PDT by ckilmer
Once we reach our “oil independence” and figure out the best way to use NG or electrical for crusin, the ChiComs and socialist EU can have all the fun fighting over and harvesting the Empty Quarter.
Nuclear power plants generate/produce electricity. What fuel do they use to operate?
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Thorium will likely be the big breaking story over the next decade. The US had working reactors during the 60’s but abandoned them in the early 70’s for dumb reasons. lftr Thorium reactors are not only safe but they also have virtually no radiation. They can be used to burn uranium wastes. Portable low cost versions can be made in factory and shipped to locations where there’re needed. Best of all they can produce electricity for 1/4-1/10 of current cheapest coal costs.
for more info
google lftr thorium reactors
Oil in Colorado? Seems I read a story about that once.
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Yeah Colorado has run out of oil several times.
But new imaging technology plus fracking and horizontal drilling is enabling them to find more oil and pull it up economically.
I read a sci fi story once where humans went on and on and on with all the free lunches with everything under the sun, including the sun itself, used for fuel.
FINALLY, at the very end, when ALL, that is, ALL sources for fuel and power were 100% exhausted. Humanity was at its very end of existence.
Then,
was heard:
LET THERE BE LIGHT.
Great sci fi, innit? :o)
Do I smell a free lunch?
I didn’t think it existed.
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There is no such thing as a free lunch. Everything gets paid for. You don’t want to be mixing up theology and physics.
What you do smell is new money.
The USA has essentially been bleeding money since the 1970’s. US Oil production peaked in 1970 and in 1973 the first arab oil embargo came that jacked up the price of oil. The USA was designed for cheap energy. Expensive foreign energy has essentially sapped 500 billion annually from the US economy for 30 years.
It will take another 30 years for the USA to fully recapitalize. But yeah we’re in the very first years of that process. Bottom line. What this means is ignore the gold bugs, the doom and gloomers, and the end of the worlders. That stuff may still happen but not this time and not for reasons of a poor economy.
On top of the wild increase in USA oil production somewhere out there in the next decade or two— 4th generation nuclear reactors will cut the cost of energy. This will cause an enormous boost in the wealth of everyone. (The rich of course will get richer. But the middle class will stop shrinking and start expanding again.)
if you want to do nuclear research on your own — google the keywords +lftr +thorium +reactor
Amazing stuff and process.
This country can’t keep pulling stuff from the money tree. Capital must come IN some times. Mustn’t it? Or is the gubmin money tree indefatigable?
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What added oil production does is keep money from flowing out.
The USA is adding 1 million barrels@day production in 2013 (as it did in 2011 & 2012 & will do the same for the next 4-5 years. Five years from now the USA will become a net oil exporter. That won’t reverse capital flows into the USA. That won’t happen until another great technological revolution picks up steam. That would be advanced robotics and 3d printing. These two together will return much of the industry that has gone to China—back to the USA.
Then the capital flows will come to the USA.
The government’s money printing machine would place the USA in serious do do if not for the enormous growth in oil production.
If not for the oil production growth, the dollar would go down the toilet. As it is, the dollar has been going roughly sideways since the oil boom began in 2009. That is the downward pressure on the dollar of the money printing has been met by the upward pressure on the dollar of oil production.
The US dollar has been the world’s reserve currency. This has given the USA enormous advantages. The USA can essentially borrow money at zero percent interest rates. The Chinese are working overtime to undermine the reserve status of the dollar but imho things like US oil production will thwart their efforts.
A big issue in congress that the dems have totally screwed up is offshore US corporate profits. American corporations have 1 trillion dollars sitting in offshore accounts that they can’t repatriate or invest in the USA because of the tax consequences of moving the money back into the USA. Until congress can lower the taxes to make it logical for them to repatriate their offshore capital—the money will remain abroad.
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