Reply To: Fusion Oil

[HermannH]

Proposing to install more than 10 times the current capacity every year makes us look a bit out of touch.

I can see myself using three times as much electricity by getting an electric car and using electric heating instead of gas. I could double that again by installing a bunch of gadgets like a 100 inch plasma TV (and a second air conditioner). But I can’t see myself using 100 times as much 10 years down the road.

I agree that water desalination could possibly be scaled up to a level that dwarfs all other uses of electricity. If global warming does turn out to be as dangerous as we think it is we also may end up deploying a huge grid of CO2 scrubbers powered by FF.

If FF does work it will usher in a ‘golden’ area for mankind. Having a source of unlimited clean energy is a major advance in human development. Many problems can be solved if you have cheap energy. There will be years, perhaps decades, of substantial economic growth worldwide. But don’t be fooled! Unlimited cheap and clean energy alone is not enough for sustainable development. There are other resources that already are in short supply and that will be depleted even faster when the world enters a prolonged period of substantial economic growth.

Henry Ford helped set in motion a century of almost uninterrupted exponential growth. However, this may end up being a Faustian bargain. Our economic system is such that we depend on continued GDP growth. We are addicted to it! If that growth comes to a halt for a few years our economies and societies will collapse. However, anybody who deals with real physical systems (i.e. non-economists) will tell you that exponential growth cannot continue forever. If nothing else stops it, eventually you will run out of atoms in the universe. If you learned the lesson of the chessboard and the rice grains you will realize that this ‘eventually’ is often sooner than one thinks.

Don’t get me wrong, I want FF to succeed. But FF may simply trigger the mother of all bubbles if we don’t mange to direct its benefits towards a more sustainable and just world economy.