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Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Facing Forward: Energy, The Environment, And Human Expansion
Physicist Gerard O'Neill famously asked some years ago whether the surface of a planet is a suitable habitat for an expanding technological species. His answer was an emphatic no. Dr. O'Neill foresaw the expansion of Mankind into space -- space as a habitat rather than merely a barrier between habitats -- as the solution to many of the seemingly intractable problems of Earthbound existence.
What problems, you ask? The ones in the title to this screed:
- Where is the energy our technology requires to come from?
- How can we keep the waste products of human action from fouling our nests?
- What happens when we run out of room?
Well, it seems that a spaceborne Mankind isn't in our immediate future. There are many problems, not the least of which are that there's no air to breathe, it's too bloody cold for a T-shirt and shorts, and zero-gee rots the bones. Compensating for those things alone makes this "solution" too costly and delicate for immediate application. If there is to be a human future in space itself, it must be a trans-human future, populated by bioengineered descendants of Man as we know him, adapted to the rigors of space as we are adapted to the rigors of Earth.
Like it or not, we'll have to solve the problems of Earthbound existence here on Earth. Your Curmudgeon isn't giving up on expansion into space, mind you; he just doesn't expect it to have a near-term impact on the fortunes of present-day Man. It's a pity, for the extra room to move would solve many of our political problems, as well as our energetic and environmental ones.
So: Where is the energy for our continued use of high-powered technology to come from? What shall we do with our wastes, if we can't simply propel them into the limitless void? And what can be done about the crowding of the planet?
Glad you asked. There's no panacea, but there's a very nice salve that would simultaneously soothe all three sore spots: dense energy sources.
A dense energy source is one that uses a small amount of fuel to produce a lot of capturable energy. Of course, there's no ultimately dense energy source -- i.e., infinite energy from no fuel -- so we must speak of denser and less dense sources:
Very low density:
Exothermic human activity (exercise).
Mechanical friction.
Low density:
Burning wood or alcohols.
Solar energy.
Wind and tidal power.
Moderately dense:
Geothermal power.
Hydroelectric power.
Burning petroleum distillates or natural gas.
Very Dense:
Fission power.
Fusion power (theoretical).
The less dense sources are all characterized by the requirement for a great deal of fuel, land, or material, and usually the tolerance of large quantities of waste, to get relatively little done. The more dense sources use small quantities of fuel and land, produce small amounts of waste, and release a great deal of usable power. Both our needs for energy and our desire to keep the world clean militate toward the denser sources. Since dense sources are also highly portable, they allow people to spread out more widely than the less dense sources. Finally, abundant clean energy correlates with high prosperity, which also correlates with the convergence on Zero Population Growth -- a long-term solution to overcrowding and the destruction of non-human habitats.
Obviously, anyone genuinely concerned with the well-being both of Mankind and the environment must regard the densest known sources, nuclear fission and (eventually) nuclear fusion, as the way to go. Right? Right?
Of course, it hasn't been that way politically. Environmental activists generally regard nuclear power as the work of Satan. They'd like to see all the existing nuclear generators shut down at once. Permit new ones to be built? What are you, a conservative? Ask one why not, and stand back; they tend to foam at the mouth over the very suggestion:
If you ask me, it’d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won’t give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other. [Environmentalist Amory Lovins, in a 1977 interview with Playboy magazine]
Such an attitude is almost always found linked into a constellation of political preferences that styles itself "progressive." The word deserves some scrutiny.
Intuitively, we conceive of progress as advancement: the improvement of the human condition; a future ordinary individuals would regard as better than the present in measurable ways. Men may progress in many dimensions: material wealth, moral stature, personal freedom, peaceable international relations, the acquisition of new knowledge, the attainment of longer and healthier lives, and so forth. Viewed thus, the history of the human race has been one of progress; except for brief and deplorable flickers backward, the passing years have improved our lives, our minds, our morals, and our wallets at an accelerating pace. Granted that all good things come at a cost, the cost has proved bearable far more often than not.
How does the self-styled progressive regard all this?
- He deplores material and technological advancement and condemns capitalism, the engine that powers them.
- He rails against many of the technologies and practices that have been used by researchers to extend and improve our lives.
- He damns the United States, the "non-imperial empire" (Mark Steyn), for daring to celebrate and promote the libertarian ideals and institutions that have made it the supreme attainment of civilization, and demands that savage cultures and tribal oppressors receive respect and forbearance equal to that deserved by civilized peoples.
- He dismisses the notion of a universal moral standard, by which moral progress could be measured, as "racist patriarchal ethnocentrism," and demands that Americans cease to be "judgmental" about the behavior of others.
- He might use the word "freedom" with seeming approval, but what he means by it bears no relation to the American ideal. He has no tolerance even for polite verbal dissension, which he does his best to shout down or intimidate into silence. In his ideal society, men are only "free" to parrot the Party line, and to do what they've been told at the point of a gun.
The progressive's prescription for human advancement is unbounded coercion, enforced poverty and sterility, and the dethronement of the rights of the individual to make possible a completely regimented society. He's uninterested in the correlations from our past and present. He wants a Man on Horseback, a Maximum Leader who'll assume total power over all things and simply decree that our problems shall be solved.
If this man is facing forward, toward a future filled with longer, better, richer and more tranquil lives for all men, then there's something wrong with your Curmudgeon's reading of human history. Scant wonder that the progressive disapproves of nuclear reactors; they're just too futuristic, too far beyond his comprehension, for him to accept.
The original American progressives, though their politics were misguided, did indeed have the well-being of men at heart. They were genuinely appalled by the vestiges of poverty and pockets of squalor that marred America in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries. But they have gone from the scene. Those who've assumed the title have performed yet another linguistic hijacking, by linking "progressive" to a campaign of regress. They would have us return to:
...that primitive communism which was the normal condition of all human groups before the dawn of civilisation....As the result of their present organisation their strength has become immense. The dogmas whose birth we are witnessing will soon have the force of the old dogmas; that is to say, the tyrannical and sovereign force of being above discussion. [Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd]
Conservatives and libertarians, whatever our differences on a handful of contentious topics, are facing forward. On the subjects of energy, the environment, and the regulation of Mankind's numbers, this demands of us that we endorse and embrace the proliferation of the densest energy sources: nuclear fission today, and fusion tomorrow. The latter might take a while, but its promise is considerable. Controlled exo-energetic fusion would be the cheapest and cleanest source of energy the world has ever known. As a dividend, it would hold out the prospect of transmutation of the elements, which would put an end to all fears of scarcity for as far forward as anyone can see.
It would be a thumb in the eyes of the oil sheiks, too.
Comments
Transmutation of the elements also holds out the potential for converting our waste into a resource.
Also, thanks for your expansion on Progressive. I’ve only played with it; you are a master.
Posted by Pascal (the derivative) on 08/07/2007 at 07:39 PMThe last sentence is definitely my favourite. :D
Posted by Elijah on 08/07/2007 at 10:41 PMHere is one promising technology that is not getting the backing it needs to make or break it:
Bussard Fusion Reactor
Easy Low Cost No Radiation FusionSo I have decided to do an end run around the government by designing an open source fusion test reactor.
Any one care to help? You can start here:
IEC Fusion Newsgroup
IEC Fusion Technology blogPosted by M Simon on 08/08/2007 at 11:20 AM
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