>>11957739Geologist here again. This is unlikely. First nuclear is unsustainable. We would need tens of thousands of nuclear plants to reach the capacity we're doing now. This is problematic for several reasons, it would increase nuclear proliferation around the world, it would increase the risk of serious accidents, and our supply of fissile material would run out in 60 years or less.
Now I'm a geologist, so you guys would know more about engineering and physics than me but I've heard some of other materials that are available for nuclear power but I doubt these materials are long term sustainable either. Fissile material is extremely rare on Earth. I can't see this as a sustainable solution even if we use exotic materials with less chance at meltdown.
Second, the amount of oil on Earth is about equivalent to the amount of water in the great lakes. That is a fuckton of oil. We will not run out for about 2,000 years. Peak oil is an economic collapse because it's more expensive to pull out of the ground each year and you get less and less of it as you do and our economy is tooled to run on oil. I say this because there's another deal breaker out there.
Coal.
The US has more coal than the entire middle east has oil. There's a reason two ages of Earth history were named Pennsylvanian and Mississippian in a period called 'The Carboniferous'. We have literal mountains of coal and the only reason we're not digging that shit out of the ground today is it's less profitable than oil.
Given the choice when we run out of easy oil between nuclear and coal for electricity that will power our electric cars I guarantee you 120% we will choose coal because it makes a few people very rich. You are dreaming if you think we'll switch to nuclear. Nuclear makes fewer people rich than coal.
