Futuring without extrapolating
Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:51 am
I decided to drastically edit my post, which was unforgivably rambling.
However, I will say:
1. The impact of fusion electricity is dependent on cost. Whether fusion electricity will be cheap, even if possible, is (needless to say) very speculative. However, there is a chance fusion electricity will be:
A. very cheap (especially with p-b11 if it yields electrons without requiring heat-->steam-->turbines).
B. very easy to implement quickly (years, not decades).
C. uniquely democratic -- unlike historic energy and resource revolutions, that benefited people in particular regions, fusion power could be built equally cheaply everywhere.
2. Cheap electricity is no substitute for fossil fuels, which are also chemical feedstocks (natural gas and oil are used for chemicals, fertilizer, plastics, drugs -- practically every modern product at some stage of its manufacture, including food). But cheap electricity from fusion will temporarily free up fossil fuels for use as chemicals that otherwise would be burned. Ironically, cheap electricity will help perpetuate fossil fuel powered automobiles (running on natural gas if not gasoline).
3. Cheap electricity would be very disruptive . Among other industries, the following industries would be crushed:
-- coal mining
-- uranium mining
-- turbine building
-- dam building (if fusion is cheaper than hydro)
Other industries would have booms --
-- energy storage (batteries, flywheels, ammonia fuel made by cracking water)
-- possibly other things depending on the fusion method (beryllium for electrodes for dense plasma focus)
-- electricity now use to smelt aluminum might become cheap enough to smelt other metals (my chemistry is lousy, and don't know the details of which metal ores are candidates).
-- and what about Polywell for space travel!
Ahem, I'm rambling again. Energy affects EVERY important issue:
--- national prosperity, income disparity
--- global warming, acid rain (both from coal used to make electricity)
--- war (wars for resources, and the fossil fuels needed to wage war. WWII could not have occurred if not for cheap abundant fossil fuels)
What effects cheap fusion energy will have, and what the secondary and further effects will be, are probably impossible to predict. I think speculating is worthwhile tho....
And I won't *really* be impressed until Polywell is scaled DOWN for automobiles; or down to chip-level fusion for computers.
However, I will say:
1. The impact of fusion electricity is dependent on cost. Whether fusion electricity will be cheap, even if possible, is (needless to say) very speculative. However, there is a chance fusion electricity will be:
A. very cheap (especially with p-b11 if it yields electrons without requiring heat-->steam-->turbines).
B. very easy to implement quickly (years, not decades).
C. uniquely democratic -- unlike historic energy and resource revolutions, that benefited people in particular regions, fusion power could be built equally cheaply everywhere.
2. Cheap electricity is no substitute for fossil fuels, which are also chemical feedstocks (natural gas and oil are used for chemicals, fertilizer, plastics, drugs -- practically every modern product at some stage of its manufacture, including food). But cheap electricity from fusion will temporarily free up fossil fuels for use as chemicals that otherwise would be burned. Ironically, cheap electricity will help perpetuate fossil fuel powered automobiles (running on natural gas if not gasoline).
3. Cheap electricity would be very disruptive . Among other industries, the following industries would be crushed:
-- coal mining
-- uranium mining
-- turbine building
-- dam building (if fusion is cheaper than hydro)
Other industries would have booms --
-- energy storage (batteries, flywheels, ammonia fuel made by cracking water)
-- possibly other things depending on the fusion method (beryllium for electrodes for dense plasma focus)
-- electricity now use to smelt aluminum might become cheap enough to smelt other metals (my chemistry is lousy, and don't know the details of which metal ores are candidates).
-- and what about Polywell for space travel!
Ahem, I'm rambling again. Energy affects EVERY important issue:
--- national prosperity, income disparity
--- global warming, acid rain (both from coal used to make electricity)
--- war (wars for resources, and the fossil fuels needed to wage war. WWII could not have occurred if not for cheap abundant fossil fuels)
What effects cheap fusion energy will have, and what the secondary and further effects will be, are probably impossible to predict. I think speculating is worthwhile tho....
And I won't *really* be impressed until Polywell is scaled DOWN for automobiles; or down to chip-level fusion for computers.