PowerSwitch

I haven't had a chance to study this in detail, but it looks like a major advance towards controlled nuclear fusion.

http://www.physorg.com/news183879299.html

Watching the film you can't help but wonder where the catch is in this smooth presentation. And what will man do with this unlimited power and how will it effect our environment? Am I the only one to wonder if the introduction of unlimited power into the earth's atmosphere will cause its own global warming problem?

kenneal wrote:Watching the film you can't help but wonder where the catch is in this smooth presentation. And what will man do with this unlimited power and how will it effect our environment? Am I the only one to wonder if the introduction of unlimited power into the earth's atmosphere will cause its own global warming problem?

The energy generated will eventually degrade to heat, but this will, I think, eventually radiate into space. No CO2 will be produced, though, so it won't make the earth's atmosphere any more of a greenhouse than it is already.

The two issues are (a) will nuclear fusion be ready before we run out of affordable energy from fossil fuels, and (b) might it mean that people's lifestyles will become even more extravagant, causing us to run into other, equally serious problems? One reason to be optimistic about (a) is that the prototype fusion reactor will be in France, most of whose energy comes from fission, so is less susceptible to peak oil.

Laser fusion or Tokamaks are very large and expensive. Some of the smaller programs like Focus Fusion or Polly well seem more promising, or that might just be because everything looks promising until you find out how hard it is. But if one of those panned out it could give you enough energy to be free of fossil fuels and mine the asteroid belt to build all the batteries you would need. Enough energy to desalinate water and irrigate all the deserts.

Of course if such a development like that does allow the industrial age to continue much longer eventually within a few decades it will lead to this:

I think what Ken was talking about was more mineral extraction (other than coal and oil), more pollution (other than CO_2), more fishing, more soil erosion, more chucking native people out of their forests (because we want more soap and more garden furniture), etc. All of this is enabled by more energy. Sadly more energy doesn't make us, collectively, much cleverer

RenewableCandy wrote:I think what Ken was talking about was more mineral extraction (other than coal and oil), more pollution (other than CO_2), more fishing, more soil erosion, more chucking native people out of their forests (because we want more soap and more garden furniture), etc. All of this is enabled by more energy. Sadly more energy doesn't make us, collectively, much cleverer

Plus high rise buildings everywhere; high rise hydroponic food production; every building air conditioned 24/7; electrically powered tar sand and shale extraction to keep millions more cars on the road; billions more people enabled by this new power source and the food it would provide.

And no place for the natural world. Because we will all be too busy growing the population and making money to spend on the myriad electrical gadgets that will be on sale to keep growth going, until the earth wears out.

kenneal wrote:And what will man do with this unlimited power and how will it effect our environment? Am I the only one to wonder if the introduction of unlimited power into the earth's atmosphere will cause its own global warming problem?

Faced with one of two choices ken, which would you pick:
a. Stop the majority of the world's population from getting product rich and ecosystem poor by preventing growth in energy supplies of any kind thus initiating a HUMAN dieoff
OR
b. Simplify and degrade the world's ecosystems and cause mass animal death but at the same time, sustain a large human population while putting more and more of the world's natural systems under our control.

fifthcolumn wrote: sustain a large human population while putting more and more of the world's natural systems under our control.

You need a shrink, mate, if you seriously believe that!

kenneal wrote: You need a shrink, mate, if you seriously believe that!

So you've chosen the first choice.
No surprise there.