What you said about Nukes directly replacing oil in the 19703 and early 1980s was probably true, but not today. For example, historically, both Denmark, and France were heavily dependent then on middle east petroleum for electricity production. Because of the oil shocks, they chose different routes to replace petroleum. As you probably know France choose the Nuke route (80 % electricity production), and Denmark chose the coal/wind (coal 80%, wind 20% production – coal 88% wind 12% consumption approach). The main reason for Denmark choosing coal is that they could cheaply import abundant coal from Poland, and they had excellent wind resources coupled with their history of generating electricity from wind–about 100 years). Today only a small fraction of world petroleum is devoted to electricity production. Petroleum is absolutely essential for the transportation industry, and the petrochemical industry, now, and in the near future–20+years. Natural Gas, Ethanol, BioDiesel, Hydrogen, Batteries, Compressed air, superconducting portable energy storage, etc, just doesn't cut it!! Until the American People, and the Politicians realize this fact, then there can be no real solution to this enormous problem facing the US and the World.

For example, the media reported today that Russia is sending warships to the arctic, to military support their claim to the petroleum under the arctic.