Jay Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>WHAT ABOUT OTHER SOURCES OF ENERGY?
[coal, fission, fusion and wind considered briefly and dismissed]
>It's hard to tell the economists that there is no Santa
>Claus -- that the world runs on energy instead of money.
>But someone has to tell them: there is no way out --
>physical laws DEMAND that Christmas must end -- and soon ...
There is ultimately only one source of energy - the self-gravitation
of stars, which catalyzes the nuclear potential of hydrogen to produce
both sunlight and the heavy nucleii which fuel fission reactors. And
this is an immeasurably immense source of energy. Unfortunately it's
not particularly local. But eventually it is where we will turn to
supply our energy needs, when we've exhausted the alternatives. Before
that, we will turn our attention to the effective exploitation of
the fraction of that energy which impacts the earth. We are
technologically capable of doing this now, but the motivation, and
consequently the infrastructure, is not yet in place. `Industry
cannot run on wind.' perhaps, but when the easy stored energy of
oil is much nearer to exhausted, and attention turns to the myriad
alternative varieties of secondary forms of gravity/sunlight energy,
ie wind, tides, solar, geothermal, etc, and the infrastructure is developed
to effectively employ them, a network of energy inputs will grid
the planet, with utility companies brokering contributions from
small local generators; and like the grameen microloans, it will be
discovered that lots of little contributions can result in a system
at least as successful as that produced by large projects.
We have become addicted to energy, and we're not going to lose our
jones just because one pusher goes belly up. We will become more
clever and efficient in our use of energy, until we gain the
skills to harvest the vast supplies latent beyond our little planet,
at which point we (well, our descendants) will see energy profligacy
at such a level as to make the excesses of this century seem parochial
and conservative.
Am I worried about the imminent end of cheap oil? Yes and no. There
will be problems to the degree that people don't plan ahead for
the inevitable (and history indicates what degree that might be),
but the challenges may engender new prospects for cooperation in
reengineering our energy systems, and I expect the solutions will
be cleaner, safer and more ecologically friendly. I also anticipate
that the period of fifty to two hundred years between the end of
cheap oil and the beginning of cheap energy from space will cause
a redistribution of the earth's population away from the heavily
transportation dependent megacities, with a resultant improvement
in social conditions. Communication technology will remain cheap,
and I expect there will emerge a high tech global village culture.
-Pete Vincent
