Mr. Fusion

Ask yourself -- how is it that the only country in the world that was on the receiving end of two intentional nuclear detonations would today derive a third of its electric energy from nuclear? Probably because Japan knows how utterly screwed they are without it, what with their feeble global energy allotment. Just like South Korea that imports 98% of their energy, nuclear is an increasingly growing segment of electric production in those two nations.

Japan's electric demand approaches 170,000 megawatts, or 170 gigawatts. To provide scale, California, last I recall, was ~60,000 MW. California derives 20% of its total electric energy from nuclear. It is wholly relevant to the discussion -- without it, this blog wouldn't exist...at least not in its present form. Without nuclear today, we'd never be able to power our iPhones or our high-definition colorized television sets to the extent we do. Sorry, but if we want these things we need to power them.

I mentioned this earlier, but the moment even the most stalwart anti-nuclear, anti-coal, anti-oil environmental activist has to endure one snowy New England evening without power for light, but more importantly to charge her batterized vehicle, nuclear and coal will cease to be such bete noirs. In my mind, for the foreseeable future nuclear is the only scalable base loaded electric energy resource for 1) a western pacific rim nation tethered to their personal electronica 24/7, and 2) an eastern pacific rim nation tethered to their personal electronica 24/7.

I argue that we as a species will crack every last hydrocarbon chain for its stored energy, regardless. Regardless. It's perhaps only an issue for how long. There is no doubt in my mind that we will extract every last shovelful of West Virginian coal over the next 400 years; every last drop of Angolan crude; every last wisp of Indonesian natural gas; every last grain of sand in Alberta.

I again got into a lively discussion about 400 years out with my co-workers. Each one felt that because 400 years ago, in 1600, as the same issues of energy weren't in play, it's ridiculous to suppose anything about 400 years from now. In their eyes, Mr. Fusion is on that horizon -- banana peels and coffee grounds will power Mr. Fusion and personal, mobile power will be at hand. Yes, perhaps. But what about the more immediate future, say, 30-60 years?

I asked them to consider the past 30 years, to look at the range of all of our technological achievements. Thirty years is forever. In 1981 you actually had to get off the couch to adjust the vertical hold on the back of that gargantuan tele-box. But then I asked them to realize that the same thing powering TVs then is the same thing powering iPods today -- coal, natural gas, hydro and nuclear. They are smart guys; they know this. The energy sources haven't changed, and over the next thirty years they still won't change...not appreciably. We'll perhaps have higher penetrations of wind and solar, yes, but no Mr. Fusion.

I want to forward the notion, again, that technology is not energy. In 2041 our technological advancements will still be powered off 74.2 million year old coal, just as they were thirty years ago. Coking coal will be needed to smelt the iron ore to build the wind turbine pedestals and solar array frames, and natural gas-powered generation stations will be needed to provide for the 75% reserve requirement for intermittent wind and solar, and diesel will be needed to power the large Bolivian vehicles needed to mine the earth's surface for lithium for car batteries or to dig the holes for hundreds of acres of diesel producing algae pools or nano-biologics.

The Japanese are on the leading edge of technology yet they still need 7 billion year old uranium to power it.