Monday, October 15, 2007

Why is getting data so hard - Nuclear Energy Position Paper

Just finished a first cut at getting my thoughts in order on nuclear energy and the bit that took the longest? Trying to find numbers on the percentage of world energy production filled by nuclear. It seems to hinge on what proportion of world energy you think electricity is as there seems to be consensus that nuclear delivers about 16% of electricity. But electricity as a portion of world energy varies from 15% to 40%!

I havn't got to the bottom of question at all. I presume it depends on what you include and exclude. Transport, wood fires for cooking food in third world counties? Does you include the energy used to produce more energy? Does it matter?

Position paper: http://www.vividlogic.ie/uploads/Nuclear_Position_Paper.pdf

1 comment:

Unknown said...

You might try Google for the energy density of yellow cake. This principal uranium ore is mined for the most part in Canada and Nigeria. Maybe you can get world production figures then multiply by energy density and subtract weapons' use to get a rough idea of electrical energy derived from nuclear.