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Present theory holds that when the Earth was formed, it was made up of primary uranium and Iron, both sunk to the deepest part of the planet. Resent theory holds that Uranium being the heaviest natural element sunk even further, and became so concentrated a Nuclear Fission reaction was started. This reaction is what keeps the Iron the surrounds this Uranium mass molten. Being Morten the Iron mass breaks out in areas of the Surface where there is weakness in the mantel, generally in the form of Volcanoes. Since the formation of the crust of the earth these Volcanoes have exploded over different parts of the world at different rates. This is why we have Iron in certain locations, that is where molten iron penetrated the crust sometime since the crust was form 100s of Millions of years ago (If you want to get the approximate date look it up on the net, I am just to lazy to do so right now).
In addition to Iron being pushed up, other materials have been pushed up, Copper, Gold, Silver etc but also Uranium. Sometimes these were pushed up and the Iron was absorbed by the earth, other times these were pushed up but no iron came with it. The easier deposits have been found, but it is believe deeper deposits may exist and these would be richer then the deposits we have at present. While Australia is the biggest know spot for uranium right now, Iran is a spot many people suspect may have Uranium. Given this background it is hard to set a "peak" uranium date (and I am NOT excluding the possibility of Space explosion for Uranium, one prospect is the Asteroid belt. Find a stone with Uranium and process it is space using Solar Power to remove the non-uranium and maybe even most of the U-238, leaving u-235 that could be easily shipped to the earth for use as fuel, this is a very distant future possibility but it shows how it is hard to set a peak uranium date.
Now Peak Uranium came out of the debate for Peak Oil. Peak oil is easier to determine for it is NOT a NOT a product of the formation of the plant earth, but the remains of plants that converted solar energy to plant energy. As a product of plants, oil has to be produced (or the plant is is derived from) at the surface of the planet. How these plants died and became oil was understood by the 1930s, furthermore how the oil remained underground for 10s of millions of years was also understood by the 1930s, including the unpleasant fact that if the oil ever fell below about 20,000 feet it was converted to Natural Gas, if the plants that made up the oil was mixed with seaweeds and other large plants, it became Natural gas (and if seaweeds and larger plants were the majority of the plant material, coal). Furthermore the Algae that made up what later became oil had to exist in a swallow sea, deep seas crushed the algae and returned the algae remains to the surface (Sometime thousands of years later, but did and does do so). These swallow seas could NOT be off a coast, for that would bring with it to much seaweed. The best sites of such swallow seas was the American Plains (Including New Orleans) which was, at times, a huge swallow sea, the Mid-east oil fields, other huge swallow sea that later became an even larger oil field, Central Siberia, and other land based oil fields. The Mexican fields seems to be tied in with the Gulf of Mexico and how it expanded and contracted over the last 100 million years.
Furthermore it was found, by 1900 that some sort of cap had be be over the oil to preserve it till it was found, the two main caps were Clay and Salt. Either of these two caps had be to over porous rocks for the oil to seep through once form, no porous rocks, oil never gathered in one place to be found later. No Cap, oil seeped to the surface and was destroyed by bacteria. Thus you need porous rocks underneath salt or Clay that never fell below 20,000 feet AND was at one time a Swallow sea where Algae dominated but had few or no larger plants. It was possible to drill down below 20,000 feet by the 1930s, and do to that drilling the above comment of oil converting to Natural Gas was found.
Thus, given the technology of the 1930s, we could approximate who had oil where, by the 1950s most of the world had been explored for oil at least superficially, to an extend that we could existed how much oil existed in the world. It was also found out that oil fields tended to follow a standard statistical bell curve, so estimating when Peak Oil will occur could be done with some accuracy. By he 1950s Hubble (Who did the first calculations on this matter) estimated peak oil in the 48 would occur around 1969 (he was off, it occurred in 1970). There is a speech by Admiral Rickover from the 1950s that indicated a 2000 world wide peak oil date had been calculated at the same time, but not released to the General Public. By the early 1970s oil reserves world wide were known well enough for people to again make the estimates (One estimated said the Soviet Union would peak in the mid 1980s, which it dead and subsequently collapsed do to the inability to adjust ot the lost of foreign exchange do to the drop in oil production). These estimates, again indicated 2000 as the magic date (Through the drop in oil consumption do to the oil embargo of the 1970s reduced overall oil consumption so that 2005 became the earliest date for world wide peak oil, most people who have access to the data and makes predictions indicate 2010-2012, through OPEC estimates 2035, Whig no one believes).
I point out Peak oil to show that Peak oil is based on well known facts, including a good idea of how much oil is on this planet. We can NOT do the same when it comes to Uranium. It can exist below 20,000 feet, it can exist in Outer Space (Oil can exist in neither place). Where oil can be found, we have had the technology to remove it since the late 1930s, we do NOT have the technology to mine extremely deep uranium deposits NOR outer space deposits of uranium. Thus Peak Uranium many be centuries away, we do not know, but we are no wear near finding or mining 1/2 of the uranium we know of, nor are we near 1/2 of the uranium that MIGHT exist on this planet and is mine-able with current technology (Unlike oil which can be mined/drilled for with present technology in all the places it exists).
Side-note: I did not go into the possibility of a Fusion reactor coming on line within the next 20 years. It is still possible (It has been predicted since the 1950s that Fusion was only 20 years away, but as we learn more about Fusion that 20 year date becomes more and more possible every year). Fusion could be produce clean energy for the next 300 years, just on the heavy Hydrogen atoms that can be found in the Ocean, if perfected. The 300 years estimate is based on present energy levels, but it could provide the power needed to go deep into space and get the Heavy Hydrogen for even more Fusion reactors in addition to the Uranium reactor mentioned above. Just comments on where we are in regards to Peak Oil, Peak Uranium and Peak Heavy Hydrogen, except for Peak oil, we do NOT have enough data to make an educated guess. As to Peak Oil, we can make an educated guess and that it is hitting us right now. The recession has dropped usage extremely and thus today's low prices, but when this economy gets going again (and it will) the price will slowly raise like it did after 2003 to 2007 (The Peak price of 2008 may have been the product of speculation, but it was the peak price that caused this recession that lead to a severe drop in oil usage, through the severe drop in oil usage is what broke the speculation market, so we quickly come to a question of what came first, drop in usage or price drop much like what came first the Chicken or the egg? Drop in usage lead to end of speculation which lead to a recession which lead to even more drop in usage. Prices seems to have bottomed out, but that will last only until usage return to what it had been last spring, before the drop usage. When demand for oil returns so will price, but then so will a recurring drop in demand. In extraction markets that tends to be the norm, fast and famine, nothing in between.
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