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Sf% Nor ~.f% H~n~Netrk aN OWr 34% HTinarYw ~J3% ~Yl~i W 3Nv E=ported Eaerp SZ80 Billb>r Aaaoal Leome Figure 27: Construction of one Palo Verde installation with 10 reactors in each of the 50 states. Energy trade deficit is reversed by $500 billion per yeaz, resulting in a $200 billion annual surplus. Currently, this solution is not possible owing to misguided government policies, regulations, and taxation and to legal maneuvers available to anti-nucleaz activists. These impedi- ments should be legislatively repealed. quirements. Moreover, if heat from additional nucleaz reactors were used for coal liquefaction and gasification, the U.S. would not even need to use its oil resources. The U.S. has about 25% of the world's coal reserves. This heat could also liquify biomass, trash, or other sources of hydrocarbons that might eventually prove practical. The Palo Verde nuclear power station near Phoenix, Arizona, was originally intended to have 10 nucleaz reactors with a generating ca- pacity of 1,243 megawatts each. As a result of public hysteria caused by false information -very similar to the human-caused global wamring hysteria being spread today, construction at Palo Verde was stopped with only three operating reactors completed. This installa- tion is sited on 4,000 acres of land and is cooled by waste water from the city of Phoenix, which is a few miles away. An azea of 4,000 acres is 6.25 square miles or 2.5 miles squaze. The power station it- selfoccupies only a small part of this total area. If just one station like Palo Verde were built in each of the 50 states and each installation included 10 reactors as originally planned for Palo Verde, these plants, operating at the current 90% of design capacity, would produce 560 GWe of electricity. Nuclear technology has advanced substantially since Palo Verde was built, so plants con- stmcted today would be even more reliable and efficient. Assuming a construction cost of $2.3 billion per 1,200 MWe re- actor (127) and 15% economies of scale, the total cost of this entire project would be $1 trillion, or 4 months of the current U.S. federal budget. This is 8% of the annual U.S. gross domestic product. Con- struction costs could be repaid in just a few years by the capital now spent by the people of the United States for foreign oil and by the change from U.S. import to export of energy. The 50 nuclear installations might be sited on a population basis. If so, California would have six, while Oregon and Idaho together would have one. In view of the great economic value of these facili- ties, there would be vigorous competition for them. In addition to these power plants, the U.S. should build fuel repro- cessing capability, so that spent nuclear fuel can be reused. This would lower fuel cost and eliminate the storage of high-level nucleaz waste. Fuel for the reactors can be assured for 1,000 years (128) by using both ordinary reactors with high breeding ratios and specific breeder reactors, so that more fuel is produced than consumed. About 33% of the thermal energy in an ordinary nucleaz reactor is converted to electricity. Some new designs are as high as 48%. The heat from a 1,243 MWe reactor can produce 38,000 barrels of coal-derived oil per day (129). With one additional Palo Verde in- stallation in each state for oil production, the yearly output would be at least 7 billion barrels per year with a value, at $60 per barrel, of more than $400 billion per year. This is twice the oil production of Saudi Arabia. Current proven coal reserves of the United States are sufficient to sustain this production for 200 years (128). This liquified coal exceeds the proven oil reserves of the entire world. The reactors could produce gaseous hydrocazbons from coal, too. The remaining heat from nuclear power plants could warm air or water for use in indoor climate control and other purposes. Nuclear reactors can also be used to produce hydrogen, instead of oil and gas (130,131). The current cost of production and infrastruc- ture is, however, much higher for hydrogen than for oil and gas. Technological advance reduces cost, but usually not abruptly. A pre- scient call in 1800 for the world to change from wood to methane would have been impracticably ahead of its time, as may be a call to- day for an abrupt change from oil and gas to hydrogen. In distin- guishing the practical from the futuristic, a free market in energy is absolutely essential. Surely these are better outcomes than are available through inter- national rationing and taxation of energy as has been recently pro- posed (82,83,97,123). This nuclear energy example demonstrates that current technology can produce abundant inexpensive energy if it is not politically suppressed. There need be no vast government program to achieve this goal. It could be reached simply by legislatively removing all taxation, most regulation and litigation, and all subsidies from all forms of en- ergy production in the U.S., thereby allowing the free market to build the most practical mixture of methods of energy generation. With abundant and inexpensive energy, American industry could be revitalized, and the capital and energy required for fiuther indus- trial and technological advance could be assured. Also assured would be the continued and increased prosperity of all Americans. The people of the United States need more low-cost energy, not less. If this energy is produced in the United States, it can not only become a very valuable export, but it can also ensure that American industry remains competitive in world markets and that hoped-for American prosperity continues and grows. In this hope, Americans are not alone. Across the globe, billions of people in poorer nations are struggling to improve their lives. These people need abundant low-cost energy, which is the currency of technological progress. In newly developing countries, that energy must come lazgely from the less technologically complicated hydrocarbon sources. It is a moral imperative that this energy be available. Otherwise, the ef- forts of these peoples will be in vain, and they will slip backwards into lives of poverty, suffering, and eazly death. Energy is the foundation of wealth. Inexpensive energy allows people to do wonderful things. For example, there is concern that it may become difficult to grow sufficient food on the available land. Crops grow more abundantly in a warmer, higher COz environment, so this can mitigate future problems that may arise (12). Energy provides, however, an even better food insurance plan. Energy-intensive hydroponic greenhouses are 2,000 times more productive per unit land area than are modem American farming methods (132). Therefore, if energy is abundant and inexpensive, there is no practical limit to world food production. Fresh water is also believed to be in short supply. With plentiful inexpensive energy, sea water desalination can provide essentially unlimited supplies of fresh water. During the past 200 years, human ingenuity in the use of energy has produced many technological miracles. These advances have markedly increased the quality, quantity, and length of human life. Technologists of the 21st century need abundant, inexpensive energy with which to continue this advance. Were this bright future to be prevented by world energy rationing, the result would be tragic indeed. In addition to human loss, the Earth's environment would be a major victim of such a mistake. In- expensive energy is essential to environmental health. Prosperous people have the wealth to spare for environmental preservation and enhancement. Poor, impoverished people do not. -11-