Nuclear Energy Reserves and Long-Term Energy Requirements

In this article the world's potential energy reserves are summarized on the basis of available estimates, and the future energy consumption is estimated with the aid of a working hypothesis relating to the growth of the world's population (P) and the energy consumption per capita (γ). According to this estimate, the energy requirements in 30 years will be about seven times and in 80 years about fifty times as high as they are today, and all the concentrated energy sources will be exhausted in about 120 to 160 years. – The energy requirements in the steady state (P_γ = const.) could be of the order of 10¹³ MWh per year and could be met out of magmatic rocks (U,Th) and sea water (U,D). High priority should be given to research and development work on the construction, reliability, and safety of breeder and fusion reactors, the chemical treatment and final disposal of radioactive waste, the extraction of uranium, thorium, and deuterium from the “primitive” raw materials, the relevant problems relating to protection of the environment, and the worldwide control of the excess birthrate.