Nutty Doomsday Worriers

I've read about the worry of "peak oil" for nearly 30 years. My father told me when he was in school in the 1930s that he had a course where they mentioned that "all the oil will run out in about 10 to 20 years".

Here's a kind of "peak uranium" worry to add to the pile. This is from physicst John Baez's blog Azimuth:

Here’s a guest post by Charlie Clingen. It’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation that tackles this question:

If we kept using electricity at a constant rate, how long would today’s uranium supply last if the world switched overnight to generating all electrical power with today’s nuclear technology?

His answer: 10 years.

Your first reaction may be a howl of indignation. After all, you’ve probably seen drastically longer times mentioned as answers to this question… or… umm… at least similar-sounding questions. For example, read:

• Martin Sevior, Is nuclear power a viable option for our energy needs?, The Oil Drum, March 1, 2007.

He says “unlike conventional oil, uranium resource exhaustion will not be an issue for the foreseeable future”. And he shows a truly heart-warming graph by M. King Hubbert, who is famous for his ‘peak oil’ theory.

go read the original post to see the graph>

So maybe Clingen’s answer is way off. It certainly involves a lot of simplifying assumptions that are clearly unrealistic. But because these assumptions are clearly stated, we can change them and see how the answer changes.

For example, his calculation assumes that the world has about 5 million tonnes of uranium ready and waiting to be mined and refined for a reasonable cost. This comes from the Red Book, put out by the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the Red Book also says that over 35 million tons could be lurking around somewhere if we’re clever enough to find it. If you’re willing to go with that higher figure, just multiply Charlie’s answer by 7. The new answer: 70 years. Of course, this neglects the fact that electricity usage may go up.

So, please take this in the right spirit: it’s not supposed to be a definitive answer, just a starting-point for more detailed work. Criticism is cheap: see if you can do better. I would love it if you did some more detailed and realistic calculations!

So... I understand the "fascination" with end times, doomsday, apocalyptic visions, worries over the end of resources, etc. So John Baez throws another on the pile. I'm not an expert, but I'll trot out the standard replies:

• It doesn't pay to go find "all the resource that is available. Resource companies find enough to make sure their development pipeline is full. Depending on how much time it takes to bring a new resource on-line, this can vary from a few years to a decade or two. Oil companies typically plan out for a decade or two. Consequently any accounting of "accessible resources" is going to show us "running out" in about a decade or two. Governments don't have the expertise to find this stuff. They rely on the resource companies. Consquently, the "independent" and supposedly "objective" resource estimates reflect the


• The debate as framed by the above posting ignores human invention. The British did a calculation around 1600 and decided that they were running out of a crucial resource: trees. They set about setting up laws and limits. The joke was that within decades people stopped using wood for heating, they used coal instead. They stopped worrying about the dwindling forests of England because they had opened up North America with seemingly limitless trees. If you really want to understand "limits", first spend some time on Julian Simon's book The Ultimate Resource. Simon was a hard-headed economist who won a famous bet with Paul Erhlich. Simon has "street cred". Most doomsday fanatics have no track record of being right, have no understanding of history, and certainly don't understand human inventiveness.


• I'm not an expert in nuclear energy, but if you read Wikipedia on breeder reactors, the very first line tells you "A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates new fissile material at a greater rate than it consumes such material.".


• If you understand psychology and know a little history, you know that certain personality types are pessimistic by nature. They are the natural fodder on which doomsday cults are grown. When you hear some end-of-days predictions, take a moment and think through man's history. Think of how many false prophets have stood on the corner with their sandwich board "message" about the end being nigh. Why would this latest prophet deserve much consideration? He comes from a long line of worriers. I say: if and until they come up with some really compelling scientific data and a fully standard physical theory, don't believe them. Even if it looks like they have a compelling theory and set of facts. Realize that senior scientists have been fooled by street magicians again and again because scientists don't have any special training in seeing tricks, lies, distortions, or psychological manipulation. Think of those esteemed Victorian scientists who went to the end of 19th century seances and reappeared saying that those knocking sounds and table moving convinced them that there was something real to this psychic world!


• My basic philosophy: humans will "muddle through". We are terrible at organizing. We are slow to see threats. We respond late and wastefully. But the fact that we are still hear is good inductive evidence that we will survive the latest doomsday prediction!