“Luck favours the prepared”
At this stage, it is reasonable for a citizen of The Earth to be concerned about global warming.
We have been studying the potential impact of adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere since the late 1800s, media warnings first appeared in the 1910s, detailed scientific measurements began in the 1950s, open public policy discussions were held in the 1980s, global coordination initiatives started in the 1990s, and mainstream awareness expanded in the 2000s.
But, not much has been done about it, because we’re like that. And today, it is increasingly difficult for climate change deniers to do the denying, despite the comfort it offers.
So, what can we do now to prepare a better future?
“There is no fate but what we make for ourselves”
(That’s originally an Irish proverb, not just a quote from a James Cameron movie.)
It is important to remember that despite our obvious fumblings, humanity has great agency: we can rush to war and then rebuild with solidarity, be impulsive or calculating, opportunists and discounters by nature but occasionally a champion of selfless deeds. It may be argued that the span of these contradictory behaviours is our defining feature as a species.
And thus, there is no reason to believe that this flirtation with rapid climate change is the only path available to us.
That said, we’ve allowed the problem to fester, and reducing carbon emissions is currently opposed by free market forces, so getting on top of the situation requires maximum effort — prepare for a sustained and measured push (also here).
Cheap energy
The Industrial Revolution dramatically improved the lives of ordinary people, where examples include mother and child mortality, general health, life expectancy, not being murdered by bandits, clean water, abundant and nutritious food, not sleeping with your farm animals for warmth, sanitation, education, career options, home appliances, travel, choice, The Internet, social media (maybe), and the list goes on and on.
A pillar of this meteoric rise has been low-cost fossil fuels, which still provide about 80% of our energy supply.
As a result, coal, oil, and natural gas are awesome, by definition, but… there are notable downsides such as pollution being hazardous to health and the environment, uneven planetary distribution, running out one day, and the chance of overuse triggering biosphere chaos that leads to rampant biodiversity loss and the broad collapse of civil society — acknowledging soberly that there are significant scientific uncertainties related to that last, overtly melodramatic point.
It follows that we should reduce our dependency where possible. However:
- We currently extract almost 100 million barrels of oil from the Earth each day, which is, you know, a lot, and similar amounts of coal and natural gas. Aside from energy, these resources are key to producing our steel, concrete, plastic, fertilizer and fresh water, and a supply chain of this size, which took over a century to create, will be challenging to reproduce.
- In the near-term, using less fossil fuels is a paradox since replacing them takes energy, which requires more fossil fuels, and the associated carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years.
Thus, a central element of any progressive and sensible energy transition has to be efficiency, where we focus on reducing waste and doing more with less.
Nuclear power
Statistically, nuclear power has been the safest form of energy. There can be a large disconnect between feelings of dread and the actual risk of harm.
Regarding efficiency, nuclear has been scaled-up quickly and offers the highest return-on-investment with respect to raw materials, carbon and land footprints, and the amount of fuel required, and it is better than everything else by a large margin (also here).
Fusion
Nuclear fusion is related to but different than what is happening in today’s nuclear power plants. It makes the sun and stars shine, energizing most of The Known Universe.
Unfortunately, it is the only source of energy that does not occur naturally on Earth, which is a bad sign when considering our options for powering civilization.
Fortunately, the sun’s method of doing fusion is terrible since the human body produces more heat than a person-sized volume of the solar core. This impotence is great because it means the sun takes billions of years to burn up its fuel.
It also raises a question: If we use a less horrible approach here at home, could fusion be a practical energy source? The answer after almost a century of scientific research is a definite maybe.
Like curing cancer, implementing an informed and multinational response to global warming, or rationalizing politics, developing fusion technology is a wicked and thorny problem, and so everyone is asked to maintain their patience. There is no guarantee that it can be commercialized, although achieving this sustainably would bring enormous benefits for the planet.
Failure can be forgiven, but failing to properly try should not be, especially during this dissonant age of historic wealth and profound need.
Project Elpis
The central mission is rapid exploration of a new technology pathway to fusion energy.
Project Elpis is a non-profit Focused Research Organization (FRO), which is open science, only exists for a set amount of time, and endeavors to combine the best elements of startup, public institution, and corporate cultures. The structure was proposed in 2020 as an efficient strategy for filling gaps in research activity, with administration, bureaucracy (and here), misaligned academic incentives, and near-term market pressure taking a backseat to fast-paced knowledge creation.
The concept being developed has an appealing head start since it is simply a new way of combining two mature technologies from well-established fields of study (here and here). Performance improvement strategies from mainstream fusion research will also be leveraged.
It is compact, modular like wind and solar for economic deployment, and has the lofty stretch goal of nuclear power with minimal radioactive waste, which only fusion can do — extremely difficult to achieve, but proper Star Trek and highly competitive in the energy landscape.