Fusion World

Posted by Admin on Jul 14, 2006 at 09:54 PM
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The Big Picture

Consider a world with safe, cheap, clean, unlimited energy. It�s hard to imagine, because it�s so different from what we have now. Here are some preliminary thoughts:

Abundance | Decentralized Energy | Geo-political Dynamics | Global Warming & Pollution | End of Poverty | Oil for Products | Radical Recycling | Desalinization & Water | Agriculture | Space Travel | Global Restoration & More!

Abundance

Imagine a world in which every neighborhood has its own clean, cheap fusion reactor. A world in which everyone feels secure in the thought that they will have as much energy as they could ever want.

Decentralized Energy

Decentralized energy means that your local power plant will be independent and answerable only to the people in the locale that need it. No more �power shortages� that are really energy company scams designed to bilk you. No more rolling black outs.

Geo-Political Dynamics

The geo-political implications are staggering. No more war for oil.  Or at least the excuse of oil will be gone, and the wars will be openly about power, religion and identity.  Maybe that’s what they’re about now, so there may be no change on that front.  But there will be many changes in this category, yet to be determined. 

Global Warming & Pollution

With Focus Fusion, we will dramatically cut our emission of greenhouse gases. The coal plants will be out of business and it will no longer be economically feasible to destroy land and sea to harvest coal and oil shale. Forests will return to Kentucky (e.g., radical strip mining for coal will be a thing of the past and restoration work can begin). Alaskan wilderness will be spared from drilling. Vast tracts of land will be liberated from environmentally destructive hydropower plants as the dams are taken down. Future sites will be spared from dams. The transition to electrical forms of transportation will get a huge boost as the cost of charging an electric car will drop dramatically compared to using oil.

End of Poverty

Poverty will be a relic of the past as everyone will have access to clean, cheap, unlimited energy. This translates into a vastly improved quality of life through clean water, comfort, security and economic opportunity. (Please note that a lot of poverty is human made through corruption, poor government, mis-management of resources. Still, a flood of energy boosts productivity all around and will stimulate all kinds of production, economic activity and wealth. How this is distributed is an important consideration.)

Oil for Products

Oil will now be less attractive as a source of energy. This is great because oil is much more useful for the products that it can make. It�s like we�re burning a major treasure just to shuffle things from here to there. With fusion as our energy source, we can finally use oil exclusively for the production of consumer goods for everyone. It won�t just be Westerners that have a great quality of life, the middle-class dream can spread throughout the whole world.

Radical Recycling

Environmentalists worry both about over-consumption, and inequality. An underlying theme is that the American quality of life cannot exist for everyone because the environmental cost is too high. This is because of the pollution generated by producing goods, the harm caused by mining and extractive technologies and because most consumer goods end up as waste in landfills. The clean energy from fusion counters the pollution problem, both in terms of greenhouse gases released, and also because it can lead to less harmful extractive technologies in mining. Also, unlimited cheap energy means that recycling costs drop dramatically. Toxic dumps can be wiped out with plasma torches and reduced to their elements. Sanitation will become a much cleaner, more efficient enterprise.

Desalinization & Water

Another key issue today is hunger, the shortage of food and water. Unlimited energy changes this equation dramatically as well. With unlimited energy, desalinizing water becomes a viable and logical option. Any desert you want to could bloom, and you don�t have to steal anyone�s water to do it. Just pipe it in. So much of agriculture causes long term damage to land because of irrigation and the residual accumulation of salts in the farm land when the mineral laden water evaporates. Now you can pipe in pure water. You can actually control the level of salts in land. You can rinse out the extra salt and send it on downstream and to the ocean.  More »

Agriculture

Agriculture can change in other ways as well. With unlimited energy, some people might want to have farms in buildings, hydroponic climate controlled and everything. We won�t need to destroy habitat and take the best land for humans. This transition may occur for political reasons or for economic ones. It might be just as easy for the large agribusinesses to conduct their farming in buildings and leave the land for organic farming, small farmers with special plants, and wildlife. Political shifts like this will take place because more people will want more quality of life things to do, including reclaiming farming as a way of life, vastly improving the quality of food for all.

Space Travel

Space travel will also benefit. Focus fusion will be the basis for a new rocket propulsion system for traveling in outer space. Focus fusion produces a beam of ions which can be decelerated to produce electricity. But instead, if you just let these ions fly off into space you have a fusion powered ion engine. This type of engine should have a specific impulse of 100,000 seconds or more. Specific impulse is a measure of how much velocity you can get from a certain amount of fuel. Chemical rocket engines have a specific impulse of 450 or less so a fusion rocket would make it much easier to get around the solar system.

Global Restoration & More!

And now, for even more visionary thoughts. Once we take care of our current problem set, knock out poverty, pollution, global warming, we still have tons of energy left over, and all these happy affluent people looking for gainful employment. We can start tackling other projects. For example, restoring the lands that have been destroyed from all the crude extraction and mining methods of us and our forbears. Restoring forests. Global climate control. Floating islands. Space travel. Great works of art. Peace, Joy, Love and Prosperity.

Utopian? Perhaps. And no doubt the transition to a world that makes rational use of fusion will be bumpy. Nevertheless, if we can�t achieve a robust, sustainable, environmentally cool planet with biodiversity and prosperity for everyone, it won�t be for lack of resources and technology. It will be for lack of will.

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