Yeah... the numbers on that... not so much. Edit: I don't mean for this to sound ad hominem or overly pointed, but I've been shocked a lot lately--in the conte

Yeah... the numbers on that... not so much. Edit: I don't mean for this to sound ad hominem or overly pointed, but I've been shocked a lot lately--in the context of all these boycott discussions and so forth--by a widespread lack of basic energy density literacy. I'm no physicist myself, but I think the world could use a fast lesson in just how much energy is stored in oil and gas, and in concepts like EROEI. Without it, it's very hard to put the relative quantities in perspective and understand why it's so difficult to eliminate, substitute or reduce fossil fuel use, or why ramping up production or retooling for different inputs is something that happens more in decade time-scales than weeks or months... As sibling comments have intimated, the amount of power required even for a midsize city vs. what a small nuclear reactor on an aircraft carrier could provide is just stupefying. It's a microscopic contribution. Moreover, the energy in a single 42 gal barrel of refined oil (~5.8 million BTUs) is enormous. Matching that in any kind of reasonable way is not impossible, but it's an insanely difficult problem with no quick or easy solutions.