How nuclear energy may make it happen
Okay, this is going to be a bit of a long entry. Like many people, I'm a little concerned about the price of gas/oil these days. There are lots of ideas as to exactly why this is happening, and the why of it all isn't really pertinent to my entry, so I'll leave that for a different thread at another time.
Anyway, I was discussing the current situation with Marcus Aurelius, a co-worker of mine, and I mentioned that things are just going to get worse as China continues to develop economically. They have the fastest growing middle class in the world, and as the U.S. knows all too well, middle class = consumer. Mass consumerism will mean that the pictures we all know of hundreds of millions of Chinese riding bikes to work will change to hundreds of millions of Chinese driving cars. They will buy cheap consumer products made of plastic, which also comes from petroleum. I told Marcus that I expected China to become the #1 consumer of petroleum in the world within 5-10 years, and their consumption will grow exponentially over the next 20 years. This drastic increase in demand will cause oil prices to skyrocket globally... not a pretty picture.
Marcus then went on to enlighten me. He turned me on to an article in Wired Magazine that discussed China's move to gain massive growth in domestic energy through nuclear reactors. If you want all the details, read the article, but here's the short version:
China has developed a "new" type of nuclear reactor, called a Pebble Bed Reactor. This type of reactor is MUCH safer than the reactors currently used around the world, which utilize fuel rods and water. The pebble bed reactor is also more efficient, and can produce roughly 30% more power from the same amount of fuel, and by it's design, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a meltdown. China has already built a 10 megawatt test facility, and shut down the cooling system, and the reactor cooled itself without any incident at all. Also, the facilities are much cheaper to build and run. By 2020, China plans to be producing 300 gigawatts per year, up 50 times over what they currently produce. Oh, and the temps created during the process are perfect for creating hydrogen... up to 60% more efficient than current low temperature methods.
So, what does this all mean? China, which has a booming economy, will be able to provide it's own energy. That means it won't have to send BILLIONS of it's $$ overseas for foreign oil. It will also be able to produce hydrogen (potentially even mass produce it). If it can develop the technology to build practical hydrogen-powered cars, it will be able to domestically produce it's transportation vehicles, and the fuel to drive them, again saving BILLIONS of dollars. If they can mass produce hydrogen, and if (big if here, I know) the rest of the world buys into hydrogen-powered vehicles, then they could sell their hydrogen for BILLIONS of $$.
So, as China becomes an economic giant in the next 20 years, they will save themselves TRILLIONS of $$ by not importing petroleum to supply domestic energy, and potentially have petroleum free cars. They may also have the ability to grow their economy with international sales of hydrogen. This would make China the undisputed economic leader of the world, with the ability to influence the world in a number of ways.
We need to wake up and compete here folks.... pebble bed reactors anybody?
