The Energy Issue and the Possible Contribution of the Various Nuclear Energy Production Scenarios

Since the beginning of the industrial era, less than two centuries ago, our society has relied heavily upon fossil fuels. It was, first, coal that provided ample energy for industry and transport, that allowed the generalization of electricity and even town gas obtained by reacting coal with water vapour.

In the first half of the twentieth century oil took over coal as the most used fossil fuel. It was much easier to use and became intimately intertwined with the exponential development of the “automobile society”. It also started to displace coal as fuel in electric power plants. However following the 1973 oil price crisis the use of oil was restricted to transportation and petro-chemistry. Natural gas became more and more popular for electricity and heat production.

In 2004 the World Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES) amounted to 11 Billion tons oil equivalent (toe) [1], of whom 34% was provided by oil, 25% by coal and 21% by gas. Thus fossil fuels provided 80% of our energy supply. It appears that the amount of oil and gas reserves discovered every year has fallen below their yearly consumption. It is predicted that the amount of extracted oil will start decreasing within the next 10 to 15 years (peak oil) and that of gas will behave similarly within 20 to 25 years. This means that the price of oil and gas will increase steadily until consumption decreases to the level of production. There might come a point where it will become cheaper to make oil and gas out of coal via chemical reactions like that of “Fischer Tropsch”. Reserves of coal are plentiful and should allow to pass this century without real energy shortage.