uranium may have hyper price run, page-23

Looks like I stepped into a minefield. There are a lot of issues wrapped up in the previous threads. My own experience over the years has been trying to get away from these isolated costing exercises. To a more holistic approach where energy efficiency is more important.


I am not taking a -ve view to nuclear industry. As Australia is a major exporter of Uranium oxide, how could I be.

My view is one of skepticism of figures relating to energy returned on energy invested. The fact that coal & oil have such a dominant position gives them the cost advantage as overheads are spread over a much larger industry. And clean up bills can be avoided because again their dominant political position would push up costs too much for society to clean up mess efficiently & effectively. Bury the issue is the alternative.



The only thing I beleive in is the second law of thermodynamics which is s = -kln(w). All the rest of the costings with inputs & outputs everywhere, even to labour & energy substitution, just confuses the whole picture making me even more skeptical of nuclear. What is the energy returned on energy invested for nuclear. Is it really greater than 6.0. I am sure coal & oil is better than nuclear which is why we need a major transformation of society to get nuclear dominant in our society with as good an EROEI as coal & oil.


Just working out the GST applied to a chain of transactions in a society is complicated enough. But energy is even worse. Far more complicated. Labour plus energy goes into all products & services. Coal & oil just happens to be cheapest combination but with diminishing supply.


Just for the record my views are:
1)I am skeptical of global warming & climate change;
2) Peak oil & net energy cliff is a reality & inevitable;
3) second law of thermodynamics is a major constraint making clean cheap energy a near impossibility;
4) second law of thermodynamics is a tautology;
5) formation of coal, oil & uranium deposits ie all economic minerals are on tails of normal distribution when dice is rolled(freakish really)to create the same economic deposits;
6) any energy source which has ubiquity, dispersed, or requires lots of infrastructure, will be very expensive in terms of EROEI ( real scary), this is where your energy density argument comes in;
7) solar , wind, geothermal etc require heaps of infrastructure & hence will always be expensive;



the overall conclusion leaves us back to second law of thermodynamics & the following tautology;


" the only events most likely to occur in the future are the events which have the highest probability of occurring in the future." The corollary is the opposite "the only events with highest probability to occur in the future are the events which are most likely to occur in the future. I hope you get the picture & costing energy & labour as inputs in complex processes follow these same laws. We always seem to follow path of least resistance because thats where path goes in costs of energy & labour.


This means that when you roll the dice you always end up with the most probable outcome, especially when defined as permutation & combination of states. The tails in normal distribution are difficult & costly to sustain. Once tails in normal distribution are chopped out(ie cheap energy, coal, oil, uranium deposits) the more expensive energy really becomes a problem.


The sheer insanity I am expressing is the only way I can express these ideas of skepticism of costing figures as well as cleanliness or density or ubiquity or any other measure of permutation & combination. What costs do you take out or leave in?

Basically the debate could rage on forever with the net energy cliff approaching just like a curve of s = - k(lnw) or even the weird distribution of elements in periodic table from most hydrogen to least higher elements. I hope you get the picture I am painting. It appears to be statistical phenomena that I am expressing.


Many years ago I had a more simplified debate of home delivery vs Woolworths & coles in terms of energy efficiency & it turned out just the same. The one that wins is the one that has dominant market share with the dominant claiming they subsidise the small market share ie home delivery. I was a milkman in a previous occupation..

Sorry for getting on my soap box. You asked the right questions & made the right assertions. Sorry for being far too philosophical. But I am just plain skeptical of all the assertions of which is best energy and I will let the situation pan out into future to see what happens with the net energy cliff. Good luck with your high energy density argument.


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