In 2007 the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted vast changes in the climate caused by carbon dioxide emitted by our fossil fuels energy system.  Today’s energy system is indispensable; yet, it appears hazardous to life on space ship earth.  Despite the hazard Chinese and Indian economies are consuming fossil fuels and the emission of carbon dioxide at increasing rates.  Their growth will lead to fierce competition for oil.  Fierce competition can lead to war.  Small nations with large supplies oil will exert undue influence on world affairs. 

 

The book “Global Warming Can Be Conquered” introduces the Renewable-Fusion-Hydrogen (RFH) system. The RFH energy system will produce no carbon dioxide.  If implemented, the RFH system will simply replace the current system because it will better serve humanity’s needs. 

 

In the book Chapter 1 reviews the contemporary energy infrastructure.  In Chapter 2 alternative energy sources are examined. Chapter 3 describes this author’s selection of the optimum energy sources.  Chapter 4 shows that a portable and storable fuel is required.  Chapter 5 describes the optimum portable fuel.  In Chapter 6 the energy generation and fuel are combined to show how the RFH energy system can provide a robust distribution technology.  Chapter 7 describes zero carbon dioxide transportation. Chapter 8 shows how a by-product of the RFH energy system will help eliminate pollution not derived from fossil fuels.  In Chapter 9 a path for implementation is sketched. 

 

Critics will argue that implementation of the RFH energy system will cause the decline of current energy industries, modify financial structures, influence worldwide society, and the change the balance of power among nations.  The critics will say that the costs will be large.  The critics will be correct.

 

The alternative to these voluntary disruptions will be disagreeable and possibly devastating.  They will involve the same or greater levels of disruption and cost.  These disruptions will be forced on us by environment degradation, escalating energy prices and international conflict over dwindling fossil fuel reserves.  These forced disruptions will come when the when the world’s ability to respond will be enfeeble by shrinking energy reserves and escalating prices.  However, if we accept the disruption and costs associated with implementation of The RFH system it will be accompanied by certain knowledge that we will have plentiful energy from a system that will not harm space ship earth.

 

The critics will say that the existing "political/economic system" cannot accommodate this level of change.  This criticism is only an excuse for inaction because we are the "system".  We will adopt something similar to the RFH energy system on our own volition or be forced to do so by nature.  If we volunteer the results will be pretty; if nature forces us, the results will be ugly.  

 

In the book “The World is Flat” Tom Friedman asks for a vigorous plan to counter global warming.  He suggests the Apollo moon landing program as the model for an energy development program.

 

This note is to alert you to the publication of my book “Global Warming Can Be Conquered” (ISBN 07 414 426 8 X). This book answers Mr. Friedman’s request. 

 

In the book I justify the need for, and outline an ambitious plan for a new energy infrastructure called the Renewable- Fusion-Hydrogen (RFH) Energy System.  This system offers TOTAL elimination of the emission of fossil carbon by 2050. It is NOT the 80% reduction by 2050, currently under discussion.  The 80% reduction in carbon dioxide may slow warming but is inadequate to protect the biosphere for more than a few decades.  RFH Energy System has the potential to push critical warming off for several centuries and in the interim provides all nations with energy independence.   

 

My goal is to develop world wide interest in implementing the RFH Energy System.  If you think the RFH Energy System makes sense please help me promote it by encouraging everyone you know to support its implementation. You can help by simply forward this note to everyone on your contact list, or if you buy the book lend it to others. 

 

We must commence dramatic reduction in the emission of carbon dioxide within the next few years.  If you have an alternate plan, promote it and if it is better than RFH energy I will help promote your system.  We need to act! 

 

You can review a brief outline of the system on my web site at:

 

www.endtoglobalwarming.com

 

You can send me a note at my e-mail address lowilliams@msn.com  

 

or place one on my blog at:

 

http://energyindependence.home.services.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

 

You can buy the book “Global Warming Can Be Conquered” (ISBN 07 414 426 8 X) from the publisher for $19.95 at: www.bbotw.com  

 

The pictures maps I added show the land lost to the rising sea some time in the future.  Yah, sure, I know that it may take a century of two for all the ice to melt, but if we do not act soon to terminate the combustion of fossil fuel the ice may melt very soon. 

 

I think that our carbon dioxide is a terrible burden to place on our descendants. We must develop an entirely new energy infrastructure.   

The conquest of global warming is clearly a morality issue. The question is, “How much are we willing to damage the earth for our descendants?  Many think that it would be unthinkably immoral to continue on our current course and threaten life on earth even if the harm is millenniums in the future.

 

Many pundits show complete ignorance of the technological potential for countering global warming.  They speak of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2050.  This is a disastrous approach.  Reduction by 80% will only push the time of melting of all the ice out a short time.  To save the earth from our excess we must completely stop emitting carbon dioxide.  The path to total elimination of carbon dioxide is straight forward: encourage conservation, harvest all renewable energy possible, using the Apollo program as a model, develop nuclear fusion in a timely manner, and finally develop a hydrogen based energy distribution system.  The barriers to this approach are the reluctance of all to sacrifice, resistance from current energy suppliers, and puny leadership from politicians.

 

There is a clear example of the proper method of curing this type of challenge.  An instructive example is found in the logistics of supplying goods in New York City.  In 1900 large cities depended on horses for transport of both people and goods.  The horses, of course, created massive amounts of waste (a proxy for carbon dioxide). By 1900, New York had 1,250 tons of horse manure and 60,000 gallons of urine dumped on its streets every day.  Each year 15,000 horses were killed in accidents and were removed.  This situation was limiting the continued grow of large cities.  Control was achieved, not by passing laws concerning the use and/or behavior of horses, but by replacing that horse based transportation with a new technology that was better than the old.  The new transportation technology was the fossil fuel powered vehicle.  Cars and trucks were built.  Governments at all levels subsidized building of roads for the vehicles.  Within about 10 years, the problem of horse waste was dwindling and in 30 years it was eliminated.

 

Large cities had to eliminate horse waste and the planet earth must eliminate the waste from the combustion of fossil fuels.  Renewable energy sources are useful and should be harvested, but are unlikely to provide the quantity of energy needed.  Sir David King, the chief science advisor for the United Kingdom, recommends that fusion (not uranium fission) is the answer to future energy needs (King, David, ‘Fast Forward to Fusion’ New Scientist, Issue 2442, 10 April 2004).  Fusion reactors use hydrogen isotopes and/or boron as fuels and cannot be used to make bombs.  A fusion reactor produced positive energy in 1992 prompting an international program titled the “International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor” (ITER) program (http://www.iter.org or, http://www.efda.org)

 

The deniers will proclaim that we have been examining fusion for 50 years and still do not have a reactor. This is true, but fake, there has never been an Apollo type push for success; the past projects have been treated as class rooms for training future physics PhDs and not, as Sir David King suggests, humanity’s hope for abundant clean energy.

 

In support of success within a decade, see the 1976 report, FUSION POWER BY MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT, ERDA-76/110/1, UC-20, Page 8.  (ERDA is the United States Energy Research and Development Administration, a precursor to the current DOE).  This 1976 ERDA report states that building a pilot fusion reactor would take 10 to 13 years with a Maximum Effective Effort (using 1976 computers and technology).  Using what we have learned in the last 31 years combined with the improvements in computer aided design hardware and software we should be able to start the production of utility fusion reactors within a decade.

 

The notion that developing fusion is expensive is very exasperating.  Currently the world consumes approximately 80 billion barrels of oil per year.  At $70.00 per barrel, 5.6 trillion ($ 5,600,000,000,000.) is spent on oil.  A similar, possibly somewhat smaller, amount is spent to purchase coal, nuclear and other forms of energy, for a total of $8 to $10 trillion for energy.  Spending 1/2% of $8 trillion, ($40 billion) to develop an energy sources that would protect us from the near term damage of the atmosphere would seem a bargain.  This would be an expenditure of $40 billion per year for about ten years.  At this level, an Apollo type effort could easily achieve a facility fusion reactor within a decade.  The facility reactors can be sold worldwide and the initial development investment quickly recovered.  I think we can make a sound case that saving humanity’s energy dependent civilization and the earth from debilitating climate degradation is worth far more than $40 billion per year.  To help earth we must look deeply into how to determine the very long range value of a stable environment, and total recycle of resources.

 

Whether one likes it or not, the earth is a space craft and for at least the next century we will be limited to the use of matter currently on the earth.  With 6.5 billion people to care for we need the most advanced and efficient technology possible.

Homo Technologist

 

Geologists tell us they detect life’s presence in rocks that are 3 billion years old.  From 3 billion years ago until now, evidence shows life evolved new forms of increasing complexity and capability.  The progress toward complexity was generated by random mutation. Life with beneficial mutations survival and procreation; life detrimental mutations died out.  For billions of years slow biological processes were the only available path for advancement.  This path of evolving complexity and capability ultimately led to the human brain.  First the human brain evolved the ability to exploit matter to serve human needs.

 

Near the birth of humanity, some ancient genius learned to control fire: technology was born.  Fire kept the family warm and cooked food.  Cooking made the nutrients in food more available to the body and reduced the amount of time needed to collect food.  Coeval with mastery of fire, language was created.  Language allowed the communication between humans.  The communication of thoughts made astounding changes in humanities capability to survive.  Cooperating minds produced history, legends, myths and poetry; language produced art.  Twenty to thirty centuries ago humans decorated cave walls with pictures of the animals that shared the world with humanity. 

 

Humanity continually enhanced its capability to take physical things from the environment and shape them into objects that served human purposes.  With language, these skills were passed on to the next generation.  With the ability to convey knowledge, we created and improved stone tools, clothing, and clay pottery.  Further creativity gave us copper, bronze and then iron.  By domestication, food crops and animal husbandry were invented and developed.  With enhanced food production came cities.  Mathematics was developed to keep track of the growing civilizations. 

 

Humanity discovered it could exploit energy from animals, wind and falling water and use it to amplify humanity’s energy.  Recruiting non-human energy allowed a few to accomplish tasks that had previously taken many to complete.  Up to this point in time, most could live off the land and could prosper by modifying and shaping things found in nature: technology continued its advance.  

 

Today, by applying intelligence to develop new things, humanity is no longer just Homo Sapiens, but new form, Homo Technologist.  The objective of technology is to improve the quality of life.  Technologies grew and expanded to greater capability.  Today, Homo Technologist creates things that are unknown in nature and bends them to our will.  Synthetic fibers, plastics, airplanes, automobiles and computers are the result of this creativity.  To achieve these ends Homo Technologist enlisted the aid of new energy sources.  

 

Early inhabitants of Wales heated with coal, a fossil fuel.  Later, Roman soldiers used coal to heat their baths.  These uses of fossil fuels were insignificant compared to current use; there were few people; their activity had little influence on the environment.  Before 1800, most energy came from human labor, animal labor, wind, falling water or combustion of wood.  Some energy and lamplight was obtained by burning fats and oils extracted from plants and animals.  Natural processes renewed all of these sources with energy from the sun. 

 

After 1800, things began to change.  Advancing technology demanded increasing amounts energy and new energy forms.  The distillation of coal produced oil (coal oil) suitable for lamps.  The new railroad industry used coal to fuel its engines.  Coal and coke were essential for the burgeoning iron and steel industry.  Fossil fuel energy became a potent amplifier of human capacity to work.  Energy from fossil fuels enabled the advance of technology.

 

Hamilton McClintock collected oil that seeped from the ground in Eastern Pennsylvania.  He used it for lighting, as a lubricant and even as a medicine.  In 1859, Colonel Edwin Drake sank the first well on Oil Creek in Pennsylvania near McClintock’s seep.  [1]  This rock oil (petroleum) became the basis for the oil-powered sector of the energy system.  The energy technology that exploited fossil fuels proliferated.  The growing use of coal and oil inaugurated the dawn of the age of fossil fuels.  Now much of humanity’s amplifying energy comes from the combustion of fossil fuels.  Unlike the energy sources used before 1800, the fossil fuels are not renewable but are a finite resource.

 

The fossil fuel industry just happened; no planning or study preceded its implementation.  No one pondered its long-term effects.  Compared to today, the nineteenth century population was small.  At the beginning, no one could envision that fossil fuel combustion could affect the environment of the entire planet.  Fossil fuel energy use per person was modest.  Slow geological and biological processes repaired some of the environmental damage but damage accumulated.  The industrial waste products were spewed into the air, flushed into the rivers or carted out to unexploited land and dumped.  The carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion was vented into the atmosphere.  The world seemed huge and much of it was empty of humanity. 

 

The use of fossil fuels greatly amplified human capability to do work that produced things.  More production with fewer human hours improved the standard of living of all and fostered a growth in population.  Today, in Homo Technologist’s world of developed nations, the use of non-human energy allows the average citizen to live better than medieval kings.  Kings lacked indoor plumbing, automatic heating-and-cooling, and refrigerators to store food.  Kings did not have comfortable methods to travel to the next town in a few hours or to the other side of the world in a day.  Kings could not entertain themselves or their guests with radio, sound recording, television or movies.  Even from their thrones, medieval kings could only talk to those who shared the throne room.  Today, from many locations, cell phones, largely powered by fossil fuels, allow instant contact with most of the world.   

 

Today individual homo technologists cannot live off the land.  We lack the knowledge and the tools.  Advanced agricultural technology made it possible for a few percent of the population to feed the remainder.  Medical technology has dramatically reduced the anguish of disease and doubled the average life span.  Technology has permitted humanity to multiply to over 6.5 billion individuals.  The enormous population growth was wrought by the productivity engendered by non-human energy.  Humanity has become utterly dependent on the benefits of technology driven by non-human energy; technology is now mandatory for earth to sustain these billions.  In the future an even greater application of technology is required for progress.  Unfortunately, the ability and the capacity to create also include a risk.  As the result of unanticipated effects, life on the earth and technology are no longer harmonious.  It has become possible for technology to interfere in earth’s ability to sustain life.  At the beginning of the twentieth-century, a few people began to notice the threat and ponder the long-term consequences of fossil fuel use. 

 

In 1908, a Swedish chemist, Svante Arrhenius, observed that if humanity continued to burn fossil fuels the carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere would eventually increase the temperature of the earth.  Arrhenius’ reasoning was simple.  Carbon dioxide is opaque to radiation at the wavelengths where earth eliminates heat.  Carbon dioxide acts as a sweater for the earth.  When you put on a sweater initially you feel no difference, but in time, you will feel warmer.  For you, with a sweater, the time to warm is only minutes.  The time necessary for the carbon dioxide sweater to warm the earth is uncertain.  No one disputed Dr. Arrhenius’ calculations.  In his time, the population of the world was less than a billion.  The carbon dioxide generated from burgeoning electric power plants, automobiles and airplanes was in the future.  Arrhenius and his contemporaries assumed that a consequential rise in temperature would take many thousands of years. 

 

In the nineteen fifties, in an effort to probe the significance of Dr. Arrhenius’ speculations, Dr. Charles D. Keeling started measuring the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.  He picked Hawaii for his measurements because it was far from any industry, concentration of people or vegetation.  In the summer, the concentration of carbon dioxide decreases as distant vegetation consumed carbon dioxide during photosynthesis.  The carbon dioxide concentration reaches a high point in the winter when decay is completed.  Dr. Keeling followed the average carbon dioxide concentration level day by day; it was increasing.  In 1958 the average carbon dioxide level was 315 parts per million.  In 2006 it had increased to 385 parts per million.  The meaning of Dr. Keeling’s data is clear; the carbon dioxide concentration has increase 22% between 1957 and 2006.  Analysis of Antarctic and Greenland ice cores revealed that, before 1800, prior to the start of the fossil fuel age, the carbon dioxide concentration was about 275 parts per million.  Humanity’s use of fossil fuels has apparently increased the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere by 40% since 1800.  Forty percent is a large change in a significant component of the atmosphere.  This increase in the carbon dioxide level will produce an increase in the temperature of the earth.  [2]  The temperature increase, caused by the buildup of carbon dioxide from the combustion of oil and coal, is global warming.    

 

To evaluate the long-range potential for continued oil production Shell oil geologist M. King Hubbert developed a technique for analyzing oil reserves.  He found that oil fields were being depleted.  He predicted that production in the lower 48 states would peak about 1970 and then decline.  In the fifties, when he published his work, they laughed at him, but he was correct.  United States oil production in the 48 states peaked in 1971 and has declined ever since.  Today, using methods similar to those used by Dr. Hubbert, others have calculated that world wide oil production will peak some time between 2005 and 2015.  [3]  After the peak in oil production, the world may be tempted to use lower grade fuels, such as coal, shale-oil and tar sands.  Per unit of energy, these low-grade fossil fuels will cause more extraction damage and produce more carbon dioxide than does the use of oil. 

 

In the twenty first century, China and India will aggressively expand their industries and raise their living standards.  They will burn coal to generate electricity, and soon they will operate as many automobiles as American and Europeans.  This will increase the growth in carbon dioxide emissions.  The carbon dioxide will drive an inexorable increase in the temperature.  The resulting global warming will melt glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.  As the glaciers melt, the sea levels will rise.  Rising seas will destroy all coastal cities and inundate indispensable farmland.  Billions of people will be forced to relocate.  Much of humanities effort will be preempted to ameliorate the problems from increasing temperatures and changing climate.  In the last fifty years, it has become clear, proliferating humanity burning fossil fuels has damaged the world environment.  [4]

 

The burning is also exhausting the supply of chemicals found in fossil fuels.  These chemicals have great future value as feedstock for plastics, rubber, drugs, synthetic fibers and pharmaceuticals.  The projected growth in population and continued fossil energy use will exhaust earth's regenerative capability with dire effects for all life.  If we continue on the current path, the only point worth a debate is when these problems will overwhelm our ability to cope.  The huge advantages in the use of energy have blinded humanity to possible harm from fossil fuel use.  Today our dependence on fossil fuel energy technology poses a threat; yet, energy is crucial to achieve a high standard of living. 

 

With the birth of Homo Technologist, the twentieth century passes into history as the century that changed the earth.  In the twenty first century, humanity will choose whether these changes will preserve or destroy.  We must inspire humanity to embark on a course that will preserve the planet for all life.  It is immoral to say, “These effects will not occur for hundreds of years”.  One hundred more years of growing fossil fuel consumption will imperil life, possibly by making earth uninhabitable for many current species, conceivably including humanity. 

 

Governments, at all levels, observe that air pollution from fossil fuels is an international problem.  All nations must cooperate in seeking solutions.  The barrier to change is with the precedent established by the historical selection of methods and systems.  The established energy industry thinks of itself as absolutely and permanently essential.  Our governments, knowing no other solution, concur with industry. 

 

We must be to convince governments and industries that change is possible.  We must cooperate to replace our impromptu fossil fuel system with a new energy technology based on excellent science and engineering that takes full account of the needs of all life.  The new energy technology must be to serve us today and protect future generations.

 

A new energy system must have the potential to provide all of humanity with plentiful energy for hundreds of years without damage to the environment.  It must be easily used by all nations, from the least to the most developed.  It must reduce international tensions arising from competition over fossil fuel reserves.  The survival of humanity will likely depend on how soon and how boldly we act.  We need to follow the advice of Sir Crispin Tickell, former British Ambassador to the United Nations, when he said, "Scientists (and the rest of us) should be much braver.  Caution, in any case, may in reality be recklessness.  We must always look at the cost of doing nothing." [5]

 

To achieve benign energy systems humanity must work to improve the efficiency of current energy use.  Every bit of energy we save performs as if it were new, environmentally harmless energy.  However, efficiency and conservation are not enough.  Valuable they are: but these methods will not eliminate the combustion of fossil fuels.   

 

Where practical, humanity must harvest all the renewable energy possible but renewable energy has a down side.  Renewable energy is unreliable in both time and space.  Harvesting renewable energy can also damage the environment.  For example, wind is a source of renewable electric energy, but windmills kill birds and bats.  [6]  Large scale harvesting of the power of falling water by hydroelectric dams upset the environment of rivers both up and down stream from the dam.  [7]  Compared to wind or solar, hydroelectric energy is quite reliable.  Unfortunately, today the most desirable places for harvesting hydroelectric energy are already exploited. 

 

In the United States, the best places to harvest wind are in the western Great Plains.  However, this location is far from the main energy markets.  During long periods without wind, no energy can be harvested.  At best, solar energy is only available half the time.  In winter, the most heavily populated section of the northern hemisphere receives little direct sunlight.  As the result of the deficiencies of renewables, we can count on them for only a portion of our future energy needs.  Some type of base-load energy source will be required. 

 

Fission nuclear energy (uranium based) does not emit carbon dioxide and might serve as the base-load energy source.  Fission’s radioactive waste is troubling because it remains hazardous for thousands of years.  No disposal method is available that satisfies all critics.  To achieve a long system operational lifetime breeder reactors are required.  Breeder reactors require a reprocessing industry to recover the fuel from the exhausted reactor fuel rods.  With breeder reactors, a large amount of enriched uranium and plutonium must be shipped from reprocessing facilities to utility reactors.  The commercial availability of large amounts of these materials increases the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation.  Because of the waste and potential for weapons proliferation, fission energy cannot easily serve as the energy source to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.  

 

Fusion nuclear energy (Thermonuclear Energy) can produce energy little radioactive waste or carbon dioxide, but no utility reactors exist.  Critics say that for 50 years fusion reactors have been just around the corner, yet we have no utility fusion reactor.  While it is true that fusion research has been ongoing since the nineteen fifties there has never been a dedicated engineering push to build a utility reactor.  past fusion research were pure science and the programs were purposely configured not to design a utility reactor.  It appears the intent was to provide a learning environment for future Doctors of Physics. 

 

Today several nations are funding the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) program.  You can tell from the word “Experimental” in its name that it will not lead to a utility reactor.  Sir David King, the United Kingdom’s chief science advisor has strongly supported this effort as a way to aid in addressing the threat of global warming.  [8]  While ITER is a worthwhile program, we should embark on an engineering program configured to produce a utility reactor.  A program with firm purpose, similar to that applied to the Apollo Man on the Moon program, will produce a utility fusion reactor in less than 10 years. 

 

Homo Technologist must implement an energy system that utilizes no fossil fuels.  An energy system based on renewable energy and fusion reactors has been proposed.  [9]  If implemented this system would stop the use of fossil fuels and launch an entirely new energy infrastructure.  Economist Joseph Schumpeter makes convincing arguments that new products and innovation are the driving force of an expanding economy.  [10]  Thus, nations that undertake implementation of an advanced energy system will be gifted with a mammoth surge of economic activity.  This economic surge will be similar to those engendered during the 20^th century by the development of automobiles, of computers, and from the space program. 

 

The critics will argue that implementation of a fossil fuel free energy system will cause disruption of current industries.  The critics are correct.  Fifty years from the start of the implementation, the fossil fuel industry will no longer exist in its current form.  This is how a free society and capitalism work; businesses that produce obsolete products fade away.  Look at the companies that have flourished in the twenty-century but no longer exist.  Coal fired railroad steam engine manufacturers faded about 1940.  About ten years later electric streetcar and trackless trolley manufacturers faded.  In the fifties businesses that offered home delivery of milk, ice and bread disappeared.  Vacuum tube electronics started in the twenties and vanished about 1980.  Vinyl music recordings started in the twenties and went out of business in the eighties.  We are at the start of the elimination of the cathode ray tube for television and computer monitors.  Silver-based photographic film is being replaced with digital technology.  The new fossil fuel free energy system will take 20 to 30 years to complete.  The current energy businesses will have 2 to 3 decades to adjust. 

 

The critics will complain that the financial structures, worldwide society, and the balance of power among nations will be disturbed.  The critics will say that the costs will be large.  Again, the critics are correct.  The alternative to these scripted disruptions will be disagreeable and possibly devastating.  The involuntary unscripted disruptions will involve the same or greater levels of anxiety and cost.  These disruptions will be driven by environmental degradation, escalating energy prices and international conflict over dwindling reserves.  When the disruptions arrive, the world’s ability to respond will be weakened by the very deteriorating conditions we need to correct.  However, if we accept the scripted disruption and costs associated with implementation of this plan it will be accompanied by certain knowledge that we will have an energy system that will not harm the earth.

 

Professor Bjǿrn Lomborg attempts to debunk a number of the threats touted by the environmentalist communities in his book "The Skeptical Environmentalist".  [11]  Even Professor Lomborg finds global warming a threat.  He estimates that the world will spend $500 billion per year after 2020 countering the effects of warming.  These costs will include activities such as moving people from low-lying seacoast areas and reconstituting farming activities hundreds of miles further north.  There will also be problems with tropical diseases that will move further north.  Lomborg says there is little that can be done to counter the warming as long as we continue the use of fossil fuels.  To counter the worst of global warming we need to implement an environmentally benign energy system well before 2050.  If we do this the weather will be warmer and more erratic but the seas will stop rising. 

 

The critics will also say that the existing "political/economic system" cannot accommodate this level of change.  In this, the critics are wrong.  We are the "system" and this criticism is only an excuse for inaction. 

 

Homo Technologist must be press governments to implement development of a new energy system as soon as possible.  We owe all future generations action in our time so that life’s can move toward greater creativity and complexity and can continue without a hiatus. 

 

It is the first week fo August, 2007 and Congress is trying to pass an energy bill.  As is so common these days, the parties do not know how to compromise.  Once upon a time The Republicans and the Democrats worked together to generate a common plan that both sides could agree with.  It the current era Mr. Bush with his notion that GOD is advising him, he has lead the Republicans in congress to become true belivers.  The democrats come up with a plan that should satisy many of the republican desires.  WHEN THE REPUBLICANS HAVE SQUEZED A FEW COMPROMISES OUT OUT THE DEMOCRATS, THEY THEN INSIST THAT ONLY THEIR IDEA ARE PERFECT AND THEY UNWILL COMPROMISE!!  This approach to National Governance can not be good for the country. 

 

I think that we should wright our senators and representatives an plea with them to consider the country first, and not their parties. 

Last January Purdue Press' reader told them that they should publish my book.  They said that they would consider it at the April editorial board meeting.  I heard nothing further, so I assumed that the board decided not to publish.  Now, on July 25, after 3 months with no words I get a note from them asking if I am still interested?  A strange operation.   I told them that I had found a publisher but that I would like the name an e-mail address of the reader so that I could request that he write a review.  I will see what will happen. 

Thre was a lot of hot air at the G-8 meeting but apparently no one actually agreed to do anything.  This is why I  insist that we must get a citizens-of-the-world action going to convince the politicians that the inhabitants of the space craft earth want to take care of our home and keep it in good enough condition that our descendants can survive. 

 

CITIZENS OF THE WORLD!  UNITE!  FORCE THE DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW CLEAN ENERGY SYSTEM. 

 

Well I guess that that is enough yelling.  I am about to get my revised book published.  This time it will not cost $100.  The problem with the 2002 version was Elsevier thought it was a text book.  It is beatuefully done but cost far more than most people would pay.  The revised book is going to be about $20.00  If you watch this spot I will anounce the publication with as much noise as possible. 

The aerospace industry needs new programs for industrial health and growth.  Many opinion-makers endorse a program to develop a new energy system.  They envision a Maximum Effective Effort, on the scale of the Apollo program.  Because such programs are the specialty of the aerospace industry, the intent of this editorial is to encourage the evaluation of the world’s energy infrastructure in preparation for the program to develop a new energy system.

 

The non-human energy used in the United States is energetically equal to about 90 servants working for each of us each day; thus, our high standard of living.  Much of our servant’s energy comes from the combustion of fossil fuels; the carbon dioxide waste is vented; once vented it is nearly impossible to remove it from the atmosphere.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tells us that the carbon dioxide is degrading the climate and a crisis is looming.  We must stop venting carbon dioxide. 

 

All possible means of improving efficiency should be encouraged.  However, efficiency alone is not adequate.  Some think that fluorescent light bulbs, recycling, and hybrid cars are the answer.  These palliatives are useful, but will not stop the threat of climate change; they will only move the crisis point further into the future.  A systems study must avoid the illusion that these efforts alone will provide a solution.

 

Others believe that extensive harvesting of renewable energy is an answer.  Renewables are free of carbon dioxide emissions and thus, are highly desirable.  The drawback is: they are unreliable in both time and space.  Large dams, birds and bats killed (by windmills) teach us that large scale harvesting of renewable energy can cause environmental harm.  Issue: how much renewable energy can we harvest?

 

Others promote growing crops for energy.  Humanity is able to produce only slightly more food than that required to support our 6.5 billion members.  The mismatch between the energy needed and the energy available from farm crops is extreme.  Issue: is it practical to grow crops for fuel?

 

The current energy industry fails to respond to the full nature of the problem.   They suggest we continue to depend on fossil fuels and pump carbon dioxide into the ground (sequesterization); they hope it will never escape. They offer no proof of safety.  In 1984 Lake Nyos in Cameroon released sequestered carbon dioxide and suffocated 1700 people, all their livestock, wild life and destroyed most of the nearby vegetation.  Today, in Indonesia, high pressure underground gas is causing a mud volcano that is destroying thousands of acres.  Issue: does sequesterization simply defer the carbon dioxide problem for a future generation to manage?

 

The current energy industry promotes uranium based fission nuclear energy because it releases no carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, there is no acceptable solution for the transportation and storage of fission’s high level radioactive waste.  Today’s once through reactor technology will deplete the uranium supply within a century.  Breeder reactors are required to respond to uranium depletion.  Breeder reactors magnify the waste problems and add the threat of bomb grade uranium and plutonium circulating as articles of commerce. Issue: is fission nuclear energy too hazardous to use as a base load source?

 

To maintain the habitability of earth, we must terminate the venting of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.  To identify a carbon free replacement system we should examine all reasonable energy sources, methods of storage and methods of distribution.  Issue: what is the nature of a carbon free energy system?

 

Thermonuclear fusion reactors will produce no carbon dioxide, much less radioactivity than fission, and have the potential for a very long life.  They have no simple application in producing weapons. 

 

In 1992, a thermonuclear fusion reactor fueled with a mix of deuterium and tritium successfully produced energy.  Sir David King, the chief science advisor for the United Kingdom, recommends fusion for future energy needs (‘Fast Forward to Fusion’ New Scientist, Issue 2442, 10 April 2004).  To exploit the 1992 success, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) development was proposed.  In July 2005, it was reported that the ITER will be constructed at Cadarache, France.  A second fusion reaction, using protons and boron 11, offers a radiation free energy source. Issue: can we coerce the development of thermonuclear energy in the near term?

 

Transmission of energy by electricity has grave shortcomings.  Weather knocks out fragile transmission lines. Transmission line right-of-ways scar the country side.  Electricity is dangerous, cannot be effectively stored and thus has limited use in transportation.  We need a storable transportation fuel that can be easily made with energy from a variety of sources.  With electricity, hydrogen can be made from water.  Hydrogen has been demonstrated as a fuel for all forms of transportation.  Operations that require electricity can generate it locally in hydrogen-air fuel cells with hydrogen supplied from a reliable pipeline. 

 

In a system with carbon dioxide free energy sources (renewables and fusion) and piped hydrogen for energy storage and distribution, all materials are recycled.  The oxygen by-product can be used in solid waste incineration and for purifying water.  Issue: should energy distribution by electricity be replaced with distribution by pipeline supplied hydrogen?

 

To keep Space Ship Earth in good condition our current energy system must be replaced.  I request that the aerospace industry apply its expertise in science, engineering and systems analysis to determine the best replacement for the current system.  With a program, similar in scope to the Apollo program, it may be possible to solve the global warming problem and provide energy independence for most nations before 2050.

 

Critics will complain that replacing the current system will be costly.  If we wait until nature forces us to replace our carbon based system the cost will be far greater; our ability to pay and do the required work will be reduced.  To protect earth’s life forms, including humanity, the aerospace industry should lobby for, and support, a Maximum Effective Effort program to develop an energy system based on innovative science and engineering.

 

I have pestered General Motors for several years.  I want them to sell me one of their Sequel fuel cell vehicles.  So far they have not even bothered to respond.  I gave up and last week purchased a Pirus.  So far I am quite satisfied with the car.  I just wish that I could have purchased such an automobile from an American manufacturer.   

 

Gasoline is now 3.09 here in North East Ohio.  Matt Simmons (a reputed expert on oil) says oil will be aabut $180 about 2010 -11 Thsi will give us gasoline at $7 to $8 per gallon.  Not a good time for Hummer owners!    

The non-human energy used in the United States, Europe, and Japan is energetically equal to about 90 slaves working for each of us every day.  The energy for these 90 slaves comes from the combustion of fuels that contain carbon.  The carbon dioxide produced by combustion is changing the composition of the atmosphere.  This composition change will warm the world and alter the climate.  We must stop adding the waste product, carbon dioxide, to the atmosphere. We need to preserve fossil fuel chemicals for higher value uses.  To keep our standard of living and help others to improve their standard of living we need a completely new energy system.

 

Some folks deny the danger from carbon dioxide and say “take no action”; the magic of the open market will solve all problems.  They are willing to treat the world as a business in liquidation. They expect to sell all the earth’s resources at what ever price today’s market can bear.  They appear to believe we can segue from the current burning of oil/natural gas/coal to a future system based on tar sands, shale oil and liquid fuels from coal.  They appear to completely ignore the higher value of hydrocarbon reserves as feed stocks for chemicals.  These folks have little or no concern for the future of life on the earth and are immensely dangerous. 

 

Another group suggested for energy we should plan to burn the carbon compounds and sweep the carbon dioxide under the rug for future generations to manage.  They promote a puerile plan called sequesterization.  The sequesterization plan is to pump the carbon dioxide into the ground AND HOPE FOR THE BEST.  They have no clew as to the permanence of the sequestered carbon dioxide.   They cannot guarantee future safety.  The sequesterors need to look anew at Lake Nyos in Cameroon.  In 1984 the lake released sequestered carbon dioxide and suffocated 1700 people, all their live stock, wild life and destroyed most of the vegetation.  As this is being written underground gas under high pressure is causing a mud volcano that is destroying thousand of hectares of Indonesia.   Sequesterization is a very dangerous strategy.  It does not preserve the fossil fuel chemicals for higher value use.  It is appears corrupt to pass the problem to a future generation.  These folks are only slightly less dangerous that the reality deniers. 

 

A third Group promotes growing crops for energy.  We use fossil fuel to provide the energy for the 90 slaves. Humanity is able to produce only slight more food than is required to support our 6.5 billion members.  For the United States alone the farm crops would be required to provide about 90 times the current yield.  The mismatch between the fossil fuel energy supporting our 90 slaves and the energy from farm crops is so extreme that there is no hope of growing adequate crops to supply our energy needs.

 

Some think that renewable energy sources are the total answer.  Wind, solar, and the like are clearly a vast improvement over burning fossil fuels.  Unfortunately, renewables are very unreliable.  Wind is only available part of the time.  In the northern climes it is cloudy much of the time, preventing collection of solar energy.  Dams teach us that large scale harvesting of renewable energy can cause environmental harm.  We need to harvest all the renewable energy practical, but a base load source of energy is necessary.    

 

What is the answer?

 

Fission nuclear energy is unsatisfactory.  Thus far there is no acceptable solution for the transportation and storage of high level radioactive waste.  There is only enough uranium (a relatively rare element) to sustain a fission based energy system for about 75 years.  Near term use of fission leads to a scenario in which we become dependent on fission and then must segue to the use of breeder reactors.  A breeder system magnifies all the shortcomings of burner reactors and in addition adds the threat of large quantities of fissionable material as articles of commerce.  This will delight the terrorists of the world.   

 

I think the answer is: humanity should support the harvesting of all the renewable sources practical and with nuclear fusion as the base load energy supply.  Sir David King, the chief science advisor for the United Kingdom, recommends that fusion (not uranium fission) is the answer to future energy needs (King, David, ‘Fast Forward to Fusion’ New Scientist, Issue 2442, 10 April 2004).  Unfortunately, within the United States the Department Of Energy (dedicated to fission), and the fossil fuel industry have successfully discouraged the development of fusion for 50 years. 

 

In 1992, a fusion reactor produced energy for a short time; a scheme to build a full size reactor was proposed;  It is called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). In July 2005, the journal NATURE reported that after 13 years of procrastination and haggling the multi-nation ITER team reached an agreement.  ITER will be located at Cadarache, France; this is good news!  In other reports, Raymond L. Orbach of the United States Department Of Energy told the United States press that the ITER might lead to a power plant in the year 2040; this is bad news.  The approved design envisions an ITER reactor one-half the size desired by the technical team; this is also bad news.  The small size is reputed to save money, but it magnifies the potential for failure.

 

In rebuttal to Mr. Orbach’s schedule, see the 1976 report, FUSION POWER BY MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT, ERDA-76/110/1, UC-20, Page 8.  (ERDA is the United States Energy Research and Development Administration, a precursor to the current DOE). This 1976 ERDA report states that building a pilot fusion reactor would take 10 to 13 years with a Maximum Effective Effort (using 1976 computers and technology). 

 

Humanity should support a Maximum Effective Effort to harvest all renewable energy practical and develop of nuclear fusion for the base load energy supply.   With this we can end the threat from further global warming, and depletion of high value carbon chemicals.  Ultimately we will achieve energy independence for all nations.  

 

Contact your governmental representative and urge then to take action soon.    

Richard Branson has offered $25 million to some one to come up with a way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  Because of the low concentration of carbon dioxide in the air it will be very expensive to remove it.  He apparently is not interested in funding methods of stopping the addition of further carbon dioxide.  He and Al Gore both outline the problem, and view with alarm, but niether offers any solutions. 

 

Lomborg, "The Skeptical Environmentalist" CambridgeUniversity Press, 2001

 

Dr. Lomborg is an egregious exaggerator.  He sees the world as a politician.  Nothing exists beyond the next election.  Everything looks good at the moment; ergo, there is no problem.   He says we are not running out of resources.  Not at the moment, but wait!  Just one example, within United States oil production peaked in about 1970 and has been decreasing ever since.   The International Energy Agency says that the world oil production will peak between 2010 and 2020 and will decline thereafter.   In the United States it took about 100 years to go from no oil production to a peak. For the world it will apparently take 150 years.  Assuming a nice smooth bell shaped curve for oil production, what will the folks in 2150 use to lubricate their machines and synthesize their drugs and plastics?  Remember, petrochemicals have much higher future value as chemical feed stock than as fuels.  Unfortunately, the economist/accountants do not know how to apply future value beyond a few years.  For the good of our descendants Dr. Lomborg, his theoreticians and The Economist should develop methods to handle long-term future value to world-wide humanity. 

 

We have increased the concentration of one of the critical components of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, by 35%. This causes the earth to warm, when and how much is not clear.  Dr. Lomborg observes that global warming is probably good for some people.  As one that lives in a northern clime I could agree.  The potential for melting ice and increasing sea levels will only bother people near the ocean shores (probably half the world population).  If the warming shuts off the flow of the Gulf Stream and thus gives Europe a Siberian climate even Dr. Lomborg would object.  Apparently, it will not bother him in the slightest if this happens 100 years from now. 

 

Dr. Lomborg observes that trash is not a problem.  He computes that even if the United States population doubles by 2100, all the rubbish produced through the entire 21^st century will take up an area only 28 Kilometers (18 miles) on a side.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t say how high he will pile the trash.  If it is piled as high as it is wide, it certainly could become a tourist attraction.  He sees the fact that the trash will all fit in one place of this size, as a positive.  This is a little unfair; the point he is trying to make is that trash can be managed.  With a dictatorship, he is probably correct.  As it is, no one anywhere wants to give up a single parcel of land as a home for a pile of trash.  Just a few years ago a barge loaded with New York City trash spent several months at sea trying to find a place to unload.  Trash disposal for large cities is a problem today, not one for the distant future. 

 

 Dr. Lomborg’s thinking is based on the notion that we do not need to worry about what humanity will do 100 or 1000 years from now because Armageddon, or possibly Ragnarok, is near.  This type of thinking is either childish or immoral or both.  Civilization only began about 10,000 years ago; imagine what the next 10,000 years could bring.  It will glorious if we nurture the planet earth as the home of all life, the only home for life that is known.  It could be a disaster if we follow Dr. Lomborg’s lead.

Thanks for the feedback but, your title states something that the book does not cover except to say that the Apollo program offers an example of how a maximum effective effort can produce results in a relatively short time.    

 

I do not think that going to the moon has much to do with any of the topics the book covers.  If we could regenerate the kind of national mood that existed during the Apollo program we can probably do both. 

I spent the month of november and december in the hospital in 2005.  I am doing better in 2006, I was only in for 72 hours.  While this is an improvement I sure hope I can figure out how to make it 0.0 hours in 2007. 

 

I am down to the final detailed edits and reviews of the revision of my book.  I have homed in on a new title: 

 

 

   Energy Independence for all nations. 

 

How does this strike you? 

Editor

 

Reference

The ECONOMIST November 25, 2006, A white-hot elephant, Page 61

 

We know that high quality fossil fuel supplies are finite and substitute energy sources must be found within this century.  We know that continuing to burn fossil fuels, which place carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, will cause changes in the climate that may be catastrophic.  We know that the escalating price of fossil fuels will raise the price of everything else.  We know that the location of the remaining reserves is the source of much of today’s international disorder. 

 

Most investigators doubt that renewables will be able supply all the energy needs of the 21^st century; a back up base load supply will be needed.  What backup energy sources are available?  Apparently the only carbon free sources, beyond renewables, are nuclear fission and fusion.  Nuclear fission produces dangerous radioactive waste; we do not know a good method of protecting the future from the waste.  Use of nuclear fission facilitates the development of nuclear weapons.   Because of waste and weapons, nuclear fission is profoundly undesirable.

 

Sir David King, the chief science advisor for the United Kingdom, recommends that fusion (not uranium fission) is the answer to future energy needs (King, David, ‘Fast Forward to Fusion’ New Scientist, Issue 2442, 10 April 2004).  I concur with his analysis. 

 

A research fusion reactor produced positive energy in 1992.  This success prompted an international program titled the “International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor” (ITER) program.  This is very program you are denigrating in the reference article.  For current information concerning ITER, see: “ITER’s $12 billion gamble”, SCIENCE,         October 13, 2006. In July 2005, NATURE reported that ITER will be located at Cadarache, France.  This is good news!  In other reports, Raymond L. Orbach of the United States Department Of Energy (DOE) told the press that ITER might lead to a power plant in the year 2040.  This is bad news.  The agreement that approved the ITER design provides a reactor one-half the size desired by the technical team; this is also bad news.  The small size is reputed to save money; but it magnifies the potential for failure, see: http://www.iter.org/ 

 

In rebuttal to Mr. Orbach’s schedule, see the 1976 report, FUSION POWER BY MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT, ERDA-76/110/1, UC-20, Page 8.  (ERDA is the United States Energy Research and Development Administration, a precursor to the current DOE).  This 1976 ERDA report states that building a pilot fusion reactor would take 10 to 13 years with a Maximum Effective Effort (using 1976 computers and technology). 

 

People comment that little meaningful has happened with fusion even though research has been conducted since the fifties.  Veiled political resistance generated by the energy industries and bureaucratic torpor has inhibited progress.  Fusion projects have been extremely fragmented and managed as if they were merely a sand box projects for training future physics PhDs and not, as Sir David King suggests, humanity’s hope for abundant clean energy.   

 

Regarding high powered voices predicting the future consider the following.  According to New Scientist (November 18 – 24, 2006) in 1957, the Astronomer Royal, Sir Harold Spencer Jones said, “I am of the opinion that generations will pass before man ever lands on the moon and that, should he eventually succeed in doing so, there would be little hope of succeeding in returning to the earth and telling us of his experiences.”  With the Apollo Maximum Effective Effort program men landed on the moon and retuned in 1969, less than half a generation after Sir Jones declared moon landings and returns were nearly impossible.    

 

Today you denigrate the ITER effort and whine about spending $12 billion over a number of years.  The world spends $6 to $8 trillion per year on energy, much of this to purchase fossil fuels.  I would ask The Economist to become the energy entelechy and demand world governments place a 1% tax on all energy use, save that from truly renewable sources.  This would raise about $60 billion per year.  With this level of funding several types of fusion reactors could be developed and multiple facilities for large scale production of utility reactors could be established. This can be accomplished within the next decade.  This effort would lead to a carbon free energy system by 2050. 

 

Three actions are needed for success in developing fusion energy sources:

 

One, make it clear, to the ITER team that the ITER schedule of 30+ years is extraordinarily unsatisfactory.  Modify the ITER engineering plans to build a reactor of optimum size for success, not a size that saves money.  If the Europe Union’s Green constituency is serious, it should be happy to fund a Maximum Effective Effort for ITER. 

 

Two, across the world, encourage the termination the oxymoronic clean coal initiatives and hazardous fission programs.  Use the funds recovered to support efficiency improvements, development of energy supplies based on renewable and fusion energy sources. 

 

Three, recruit a Pacific Rim group, (Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States) to support and fund a Maximum Effective Effort for alternate fusion reactors and/or alternate fuels such as boron 11, in competition with ITER.  Strong support for boron 11 fusion is important because this fusion reaction has the potential to provide carbon-free energy without significant radioactive waste.  The Pacific Rim program will serve as a competitive goad for the ITER effort and both will be driven to success in a timely manner.  For information concerning boron fusion, see: http://fusion.ps.uci.edu/beam/introb.html

 

If you do not think a program of this magnitude is needed look at the map in the back of the book “An End To Global Warming”.  The map shows the United Kingdom as a group of small islands after warming melts all the ice. 

 

Laurence Williams

Chief Scientist, Lockheed Martin Ordnance Systems (retired)

1059 Oakwood Drive

Alliance Ohio 44601

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