This story from the New York Times about the search for alternative energy sources suggests two things to me:
– firstly that, unlike Australia’s stimulus package, President Obama’s – regardless of how well it works at helping restore the economy – at least makes a decent effort at using the stimulus to start on a major shift to renewable energy;
President Obama’s stimulus package has given a terrific boost to renewable energy. It will pay lasting benefits. And we need to keep working on all forms of solar, geothermal and wind power. They work. And the more they get deployed, the more their costs will go down.
– and secondly, while we’ll still need more than that, hoping for the big technological fix is a nice dream, albeit possibly a dangerous one.
But, in addition, we need to make a few big bets on potential game-changers.
I complain frequently about how debates about climate change seem to usually avoid emphasising the need to significantly change our own lifestyles. So I am particularly sceptical about the use of constantly looking for the big technological fix, as it encourages us to keep thinking we can basically continue with business as usual and hope someone else will sort it all out.
I get even more sceptical about technological solutions that rely on hopes for fusion or technology that produces more energy than it expends. It all seems a bit too much like a perpetual motion machine to me.
This NYT story about a possible “laser-powered fusion energy plant” just seems like more science-fiction style wishful thinking. But there are certainly many far smarter brains than mine when it comes to physics, so I suppose I shouldn’t let scepticism completely obliterate hope.
If the latest climate change assessments by many of the smarter climate scientists are anywhere near correct, hoping for a miracle – technological or otherwise – might be getting close to our best chance.
2 Comments
Andrew,
Thanks for your frankness about the big energy issues on fusion. The US NIF project really is approaching a huge step forward, and there are follow-on projects setting up across the world right now to take forward their proof of principle as soon as they have achieved “first ignition” … actual fusion, triggered in a pellet of deuterium & tritium. The next big step, working closely with the people at NIF will be the European HiPER Project. This will seek to move from a one-shot proof that laser fusion works to a system which demonstrates that a commercial reactor can produce grid-level quantities of power on a continuous basis. The challenge (and cost) is big, and time is short, as the real race seems to be about how fast we can burn the remaining fossil fuels and how fast we can wreck the environment in doing so. This work will take a decade or so, but we have to start NOW. Wait any longer and it really will be too late. Meanwhile, we need to get all we can out of renewables (developed as far as they possibly can be) and we need to rely on a new generation of nuclear fission reactors… it is these that will get us through the period between run-down of fossil burning and the development of fusion to global supply systems. Once we get fusion going, oil prices will start to become irrelevant, and nations won’t have to worry about energy security anymore because, with most of the planet able to gain access to the fuel (from seawater), nobody will be able to do what Putin just did to Ukraine and part of Europe and “turn off the gas”. That has to be good news all round. By the way… there are two serious approaches to fusion… lasers are the new kid on the block but advancing very fast. The established approach (now building a reactor at Cadarache France) is the ITER Project, a “Tokamak” system which will run a continuous burning plasma to extract energy from neutrons being released. Don’t let anyone tell you this is a race between two teams of scientists.. it isn’t ! It’s more imporrtant than that… it’s a race between all scientists and the clock ! We need both approaches to fusion and we need them as soon as we can get them working. Governments MUST put serious backing behind this work, otherwise they are failing those who put them in power. Fusion is the only workable long-term energy answer for our children and generations beyond them. Without it, the lights will soon start going out !
For a clearer explanation Google “HiPER Laser” and watch the 13 minute movie linked from their home page.
JWM
The Europeans also appear to be serious about investing in renewables as a way of stimulating their economies with an announcement of €105 billion (about $AU220 billion) in subsidies.
About 350,000 Europeans already work in the renewable sector.
Meanwhile, here neither side of politics is interested as long as it means one coal miner or alumina smelter worker is at risk of loosing their job. Never mind how many alternatives might create. Sigh
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