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ORIGINAL: Dr.Sardonicus
I see a lot of reference here to tax credits, wind power, efficient cars, and the like.
I can never see a path for these things to work. IMHO they are chipping away in little bits at a problem that as Mistrad points out is massive. Further, some of them (wind power) will have very negative consequences. (I can imagine in 2060 a rebellion against the ugly turbines that are destroying the beauty of nature. I might lead that protest). Even further, each item in this laundry list of things that will help some, but not cure the problem, faces very significant political or social oppostion. In other words each one of these little things would be a devil to get instituted.
I would like to propose a massive response to this massive problem. I haven’t seen anyone mention it here, and have heard almost no one mention it in the press.
That is fusion power.
Take water, split it into oxygen and hydrogen, fuse the hydrogen, and get a massive amount of power. Side product is not soot, sulphur dioxide or anything else, but it is heavy water.
We can’t do this now. So what. If I were president, I would announce a massive federal project to make this work. The manhattan project and the Apollo project would be 2 examples. I would put us on a timeline and throw massive amounts of money at it. Even if we do not succeed immediately, that money still works as an economic stimulus. (And we are still reaping benefits from the engineering advances that the space program gave us)
If we succeed, our energy problems are over forever. Further, it is possible that these plants could be miniaturized to have one in each neighborhood or in your garage, This avoids centralization and removes a single fail point for the system. Bye Bye terrorist threat.
The availability of nearly free power could also be used to light crops at night and increase food production. You could heat or cool the fields as necessary to maximize production. Perhaps food production would not need to stop simply because winter set in. (this is a little far off, but it MIGHT be possible.)
Looked at very broadly, energy is (of course) the ability to do something. If this is free, then barriers to third world countries improving their economies go away. They could produce more than enough food for their people. This would be a major stabilizing influence in the world when a country does not have to conquer another to get its energy and food needs.
If we had fusion power, electric cars would be here now. Free fuel. Can you imagine a single better economic stimulus? Someone might even develop an electric jet engine (or maybe each jet contains a fusion reactor to heat the air in the engine).
That’s all the time I have to write today, but think about this. Yes it is pie in the sky, no we can’t do it today. That was true of Manhattan and Apollo both. Our survival depends upon this. We should move on it today.
Actually, there is much active research in the area of fusion power. We probably will have economical fusion plants within about 20 years. They will be expensive to build, and so the cost per kilowatt will not be much lower than current prices despite the very low deuterium fuel prices. However, the environmental cost will be much less from this form of power.
As for a miniature fusion power source, I haven’t heard of any promising technology in that area. I don’t think that will happen in our lifetimes.
