Michel Jullian wrote: >Talking about Cold Fusion and climate, it just occurred to me that unlimited >cheap energy of non solar origin for the masses will necessarily promote >global warming . . .
I do not think so. I did some checking on this, although not exhastive. I think this is not a problem because: 1. Unimpeded waste heat is radiated into space in about a half hour, which is why the desert cools down so quickly at night. 2. There is no evidence that the heat from fossil fuel or fission reactors is contributing to global warming, although it does contribute to urban "heat islands" that affect weather. The gigantic concentrated heat releases and steam from fission and coal plants kills millions of birds and other animals -- far more than wind turbines do -- but they do not contribute to global warming. Cold fusion will eliminate most of these locally concentrated large scale releases, by dispersing generating capacity. 3. Solar heat and forest fires are orders of magnitude greater than waste heat from human sources. 4. I expect that cold fusion devices will be so much more efficient than conventional fossil fuel and fission devices, overall primary energy consumption will decline in the first 50 to 100 years. I discussed some of these issues in the book. In the Index, see: "Efficiency, continued importance with cold fusion," and chapters 14 and 15. - Jed
