A Freezing Earth Eyes Nuclear Energy

Across the globe, more nations are starting to look at nuclear energy as a way to power industrial growth and to keep warm as the Earth cools. From Eastern Europe to Arabia to South and East Asia, most of the world is starting to reject the nuclear phobia so common in most of western Europe and North America.

Better nuclear fuels will be needed, and the competition for optimal reactor fuels is just beginning. There is enough Uranium to keep the world from freezing for a hundred years or more, but there is enough Thorium to keep the world going for at least a thousand years.

The nuclear phobic attitudes that are delaying the needed innovation and new development in nuclear power in EU nations and North America will be bypassed by the new generation of nuclear entrepreneurs, and the nuclear phobics are likely to get left out in the cold -- particularly if they are also carbon hysterics and climate catastrophe orthodoxers.

Another new approach involves making small “backyard” reactors. The most aggressive proponent is Santa Fe, N.M.-based Hyperion Power, which seeks to build hot-tub-size reactors that can generate 25 megawatts of electricity, or enough juice to power 20,000 homes.

The company is already negotiating with several entities for the sale of 200 reactors, each at a cost of about $30 million. The idea is to deliver power at a cost of less than 10 cents a kilowatt-hour to locations — say remote areas of Alaska, military installations or industrial locations in Canada’s tar sands — where it’s difficult to obtain conventional power, said John Deal, Hyperion’s chief executive officer.

Hyperion is still finishing its manufacturing design and hopes to obtain federal licensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other bodies within a few years. Deal expects to deliver the first units to customers in less than five years.

Much of the demand has come from overseas. The United States, where much antipathy remains toward nuclear energy despite public surveys showing falling opposition, will have to wait.

“Honestly,” Deal said, “right now, I’m not really interested in fighting American ignorance about nuclear power.” _Chron _ via _ Brian Wang

Under the new energy starvation reich of Obama / Pelosi, there will be precious little new energy development, with the threat of much old energy being shut down out of faux-environmental concerns -- carbon hysteria. A surfeit of governmental and non-governmental "environmental" lawyers will be in full control, and they intend to create a type of havoc for ordinary persons previously unknown.

How do you plan to stay warm as the planet cools?