Many people are concerned that the world is wasting limited energy resources and causing climate change due to Global Warming. Personally, I
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Many people are concerned that the world is wasting limited energy resources and causing climate change due to Global Warming. Personally, I think that the tiny percentage of the worlds total production of Carbon Dioxide is not a factor in Global Warming. Many scientists agree with me. Many do not. The fact is that there is no internationally/nationally agreed upon concensus regarding the cause of Global Warming.
Although it is unclear if human caused Carbon Dioxide production has any affect on Global temperatures we can all agree that it would be a good thing if humans could reduce their production of Carbon Dioxide. This would be great if it cost nothing to reduce production of Carbon Dioxide.
The world does not have any shortage of energy. In fact, the world has enough oil, coal, natural gas, uranium, etc to meet global energy needs for thousands of years into the future. There is not even a shortage of oil in the world. There is only a shortage of oil that can be produced for $10-$25 per barrel. In fact, if world oil prices stay in the $50 range for long it will result in massive overproduction of oil as new resources are brought on line and alternative technologies such as Coal Liquifaction (chemical conversion of Coal into Oil) is implemented.
The world has enough carbon based fuels to supply 100 percent of the worlds energy needs for thousands of years. The problem is, do we want to continue to use fossil fuel as our primary energy source.
The problem with continuing to use carbon fuels is that they create carbon dioxide and we all agree it would be a good thing if we didn't produce so much CO2. Fortunately, there is a solution, Fusion Power.
All legitimate scientist are in agreement. Commercially viable Fusion Powered Electrical Generation is feasible and can be done on a massive scale. Fusion powered electrical generation will eventually be low cost and non polluting. There is no question that it is the ultimate answer to the worlds energy problems. Eventually, fusion powered electricity will provide a limitless, pollution free, very inexpensive source of energy for the world's use. Once fusion created low cost electricity is available it will displace more expensive electricity produced from coal, oil, etc and all of the worlds coal and oil powered power plants will be torn down.
The problem with Fusion Power is that current Fusion reactors require about as much energy to create energy as the reactor produces. Commercially viable Fusion power generation requires that the reactor produce much more energy than it consumes. Most scientists believe that commercially viable fusion power generation technology is 20 to 30 years into the future. However, this timeline is primarily a function of the R&D funds alloted by governments to fusion power development.
Instead of throwing precious tax dollars into pipedreams such as solar and wind powered electrical generators that can never hope to produce more than a few percent of the worlds electricity needs and will always be much more expensive than alternatives such as coal, oil, nuclear, and fusion, we need to vastly increase R&D into fusion electrical generation and move the timeline for the startup of commercial fusion power generation closer to the future.
If the world can have commercially viable fusion electrical generation in 15 to 20 years it makes no sence whatever to spend any more money pursuing extremely high cost solar and wind power that will take at least as long to put in place and will never be capable of producing enough electricity to put the coal and oil powered electrical plants out of business.
The US needs to take the lead in development of Fusion power and begin a "Manhattan Project" for implementation of this technology. Once fusion power is available it will eliminate most uses of alternative carbon based fuels (oil, gas, alcohol, etc) and this will dramatically reduce air pollution.
Wind and Solar power can never be more than a tiny, extremely expensive, supplement to the electrical generation needs of the world. If we put our R&D money into wind and solar we are guaranteing that coal and oil will be our primary fuels for decades into the futue. Fusion power holds out the promise that it will be so low cost and capable of producing such massive amounts of electricity that it will force almost all other forms of electrical generation out of business.
Once we stop using carbon fuels to produce cheap electricity it will no longer be economical to use oil or coal for home heating. Everybody will switch to electricity for cheap home and office heating. This will leave transportation as the only significant user of carbon fuels. If transportation were the only significant user of carbon fuels (oil, gas, etc) then it would not be necessary to conserve oil, it would not be necessary to create very expensive high efficiency cars, etc. We would not need to worry about global warming since we would have eliminated the vast majority of carbon dioxide production attributal to humans.
Bottom line, the US and the World are focusing efforts on the wrong technologies. Forget about wind, solar, etc. Focus on creating cheap Fusion power and create economics that will make all other forms of electricity generation(oil, coal, natural gas) more expensive. Once it is cheaper to produce non polluting electricity the world (not just the US and Europe but all of the 3rd world as well) will immediately switch to fusion and abandon carbon fuels.
There is an easy answer to Global Warming and Air Pollution that does not require the industrialized world to go bankrupt while the 3rd world replaces all of the the industrialized nations pollution reductions with 3rd world pollution. Fusion is the answer and we need to focus massive national resources on developing it.
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