Been a while since I spent much time on it so I can't recall the
specific references. I will see what I can find in my library as time
permits. All are in the general class of hard science fiction
essayists (i.e. they right fiction, but also right non-fiction on the
underpinnings of their fictional works).
I can give you some examples from memory though.
Fission - expensive now, but the theoretical knowledge is already out
there for more efficient designs that are safer still. The worry
about waste products is a stalking horse for anti nuclear scare
groups. We don't have to keep it around for 10,000 years. We have to
keep it around for 100 year, 200 year max, maybe much less. Why?
Because by that time we will have the technology to at a minimum toss
it into the sun. More likely to recycle it for some productive use.
Any prediction that assumes no material advance in capabilities that
are only in degree, not in kind is belied by the history of the human
race.
Solar Power collection - expensive now, but it will get much, much,
cheaper. It will get cheaper still in orbit which solves the current
problem of waste heat - space is the great heat sync (ok, technically
it is not, but you can radiate waste heat there all you want). Power
can be beamed down to receptors in suitable places with little impact.
Hydrogen fuel - we have no shortage of sea water. Using focused solar
or nuclear power we can crack sea water and get what we need for
portable power generation. Right now it is not cheap enough, but it
will become so.
None of these have notable heat producing effects on a global
climactic scale.
The real challenge is consumption efficiency - can we avoid waste heat
from all this plentiful energy. I am not up on the current science in
that regard, but what I understand is that if it becomes a problem we
will have to be producing a lot more power than we project for the
next 50 years.
Matthew
On Feb 14, 2009, at 5:10 PM, Elaine Zablocki wrote:
At 07:57 AM 2/14/2009, Matthew Taylor wrote:
>Right - eventually, if most non-dystopian futurists are correct,
energy will be something we hardly think of at all due to its
plentiful on demand nature. How we get there is the issue.
Could you please give names, references, something I could read? I
haven't read anyone who says "energy will be something we hardly
think of at all due to its plentiful on demand nature."
If there are intelligent people who think that could be a
possibility, that would sure cheer me up.
(Plentiful energy that doesn't increase global warming??)
Recently I've been remembering an early Robert Heinlein story ... I
bet lots of folks on this list know it... the one where they
discover a way to capture energy from the sun at no or very little
cost... (and fight big companies that don't want this information
made public) ... the usual Heinlein interplay between a smart
scientist guy and an equally smart wise-cracking woman... I can't
recall the name of the story, or find it on my shelves.
But I find myself remembering it these days, and thinking "if that
is ever going to become a reality, now would be a real good time."
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