Reply #14: Energy security is determined by resources vs demand.

[Statistical]

Saudi Arabia has very good petroleum energy security (15% of supply and <2% of demand). The United States not so much (5% of supply and 20% of demand).

If Saudi Arabia stopped exporting oil their reserves would last hundreds if not thousands of years. Of course their economy is completely dependent on exporting oil so that is unlikely to happen. US economy isn't dependent on exporting uranium.

The US has a 100 year reserve of Uranium and 5000 year reserve of Thorium. That is just economical reserves at current prices. At $300 per kg (current prices are $60) virtually unlimited amount of Uranium can be extracted from seawater. The "Black Current" off coast of Japan is estimated to circulate roughly 6 million tons of Uranium annually. World wide consumption of uranium with no reprocessing is roughly 70,000 tons.

The nice thing about nuclear is that unlike fossil fuels increasing cost of uranium by 500% only raises cost of electricity by 15%.