The Not So Cool Next New Thing
Global Talk 21 has an entertaining and insightful take on Thomas L. Friedman and his op-ed column The Next Really Cool Thing.
Friedman has visited the National Ignition Facility, or N.I.F., at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 50 miles east of San Francisco, and explains how the government-funded N.I.F. consists of 192 giant lasers — which can deliver 50 times more energy than any previous fusion laser system. The key here is hydrogen, and by using lasers, "we can unleash tremendous amounts of energy from tiny amounts of mass."
Global Talk 21 comments:
I agree with Jun that we probably aren't really doomed, but I strongly believe our current energy consumption* will have to change a lot.
Friedman is right to realize that the world is facing an energy crisis, and since 2006, he has been talking about how we are addicted to oil. But he also thinks America can suddenly regain its international stature by taking the lead in alternative energy and environmentalism. Woah.
The one country that consumes the most oil is the United States, and that is the country where the people will have to change their daily habits the most. Instead of talking about how great it would be if Americans could invent new and amazing ways to fuel their insane amount of wasteful consumption, why not start telling people that it is not going to happen. If you don't start by reducing consumption, you will never solve the problem by inventing new ways to add to the supply.
That is the real reason that I think Friedman's enthusiasm for a new, quick fix is rather outrageous.
*)As noted in a comment here previously, the US of A didn't get into this position overnight and since they have built their infrastructure based upon the automobile, it will take a long time to change things and reach a sensible transportation mix. Unfortunately, time is not on their side. Pandabonium also shared this graph, that shows how the United States alone consumes more gasoline than the next 20 largest gasoline consuming countries. Note Japan is No. 2 - but these figures were from 2007.
Click image (from The Economist) to enlarge.
Friedman has visited the National Ignition Facility, or N.I.F., at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 50 miles east of San Francisco, and explains how the government-funded N.I.F. consists of 192 giant lasers — which can deliver 50 times more energy than any previous fusion laser system. The key here is hydrogen, and by using lasers, "we can unleash tremendous amounts of energy from tiny amounts of mass."
Global Talk 21 comments:
...that meaningful amounts of energy can be extracted for use is going to take technological advances that can only be imagined, and only in terms of many decades, not years, if ever. (Or so I remember from my work on climate change in the 1990s.) It’s a long shot, and it’s a long ways off.
I agree with Jun that we probably aren't really doomed, but I strongly believe our current energy consumption* will have to change a lot.
Friedman is right to realize that the world is facing an energy crisis, and since 2006, he has been talking about how we are addicted to oil. But he also thinks America can suddenly regain its international stature by taking the lead in alternative energy and environmentalism. Woah.
The one country that consumes the most oil is the United States, and that is the country where the people will have to change their daily habits the most. Instead of talking about how great it would be if Americans could invent new and amazing ways to fuel their insane amount of wasteful consumption, why not start telling people that it is not going to happen. If you don't start by reducing consumption, you will never solve the problem by inventing new ways to add to the supply.
That is the real reason that I think Friedman's enthusiasm for a new, quick fix is rather outrageous.
*)As noted in a comment here previously, the US of A didn't get into this position overnight and since they have built their infrastructure based upon the automobile, it will take a long time to change things and reach a sensible transportation mix. Unfortunately, time is not on their side. Pandabonium also shared this graph, that shows how the United States alone consumes more gasoline than the next 20 largest gasoline consuming countries. Note Japan is No. 2 - but these figures were from 2007. Click image (from The Economist) to enlarge.
Comments