Repent, the end is near
A bearded man with a sign that says “Repent, the end is near” is a stock figure in cartoons. I ran into that guy the other day; his name is Mike. Mike told me that the world is overheating, and it’s our fault for burning fossil fuels. It’s all going to hell.
OK, end of world on deck, but it’s too soon to panic or start pillaging. We need a plan, maybe we can stall, buy time to build some spaceships and get out of Dodge. Or maybe even fix things. So here’s my plan, the elevator speech version.
I make one ironclad assumption: human energy consumption will not decrease.
People will not give up cars and air conditioning. They will not give up television or the internet. Planes will continue to fly. Becoming pre-technological peasants is not an option. Energy consumption will not decrease.
Per Mike, we have to stop burning oil and coal. Energy consumption will not decrease, so we have to replace the energy currently extracted from oil and coal.
Mike this is important, we’re adults here. Windmills and mirrors and solar cells, none of that stuff scales. We have to build reactors. We can start now or we can start later. Meanwhile it’s getting warmer. Tic toc tic toc. Nuclear power has risks, but risk is unavoidable. Managed risk is better than the certain and imminent doom you proclaim. Grow a pair dude, we have to do this. Straight ahead is the only way out.
Look on the bright side. As the US builds nuclear capacity, we decrease our reliance on imported oil. The Saudis and company need money. If they can’t get it from us, well, China needs oil. Over time China will become increasingly dependent on midde eastern oil. That dependency will be a military weakness which will keep China rational. Some flavor of Islamist terrorism will eventually spread to China. The Chinese will deal with it quickly and brutally. Win-win all around.
You heard it here first.
Posted on April 21st, 2005 by pwyll
Filed under: General
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