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Originally Posted by usmc7011
I disagree, sure it wasn't cost efficiant to pump in the past do to tech. limmitations. Now it is a different story.
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No, it wasn't cost-efficient in the past even WITH current technology, because the price of oil was too low. It has become cost-efficient now because the price of oil has risen.
We must also ask ourselves how quickly the oil can be pumped. Another problem with the end of cheap oil is that it can no longer be extracted at the same rate as before. There's still about 50% of the world's oil in the ground, so our current difficulties don't stem from not having enough left in total, but from a slowdown in how much can be produced per year.
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Will it ever bring oil down to $10 a barrel...no oil will never be that cheap as long as we are using it as fuel.
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Exactly, and that's why this oil deposit is not a solution. We are suffering not from the loss of oil, but from the loss of
cheap and
abundant oil. There's still lots of oil left, but it is going to become increasingly scarce and expensive. The only solution is to stop using it as a fuel, switching to something else instead.
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Why not? High capital cost and long development times is a non issue.
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Of course they're issues. High capital cost results in high cost of power. Long development times means delays in power availability. These things, plus environmental concerns, mean that nuclear power is not the ideal solution. We are much better off using wind, solar, biomass, tidal, and geothermal,
if we can meet our needs that way, because they are cheaper and more ecologically friendly than nuclear and we can produce them more quickly. I agree that we shouldn't reject nuclear power entirely and absolutely, but it should not be our first choice. If we have to use nuclear to meet demand that would otherwise require coal plants, then we should. If we don't, we shouldn't.
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Environmental concerns is also a non issue which is displayed by the Navy's ability to operate without incident since the first nuke power boat.
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The Navy's operation is NOT without incident. Without meltdown, possibly. But not without environmentally-significant impact.
There are issues with nuclear waste disposal, hazards from mining and processing nuclear fuels, and leakage of radioactive materials from plant operation, even in the absence of a meltdown. There are steps that can be taken to minimize all of these, but all such steps increase the cost of production. For all these reasons, nuclear power should not be our first option, although I agree it should be on our list.
I'm not at all sure why you are so enamored of it, frankly. Can you explain that?