Nuclear fission conundrum

Scientists have been pursuing the nuclear fission dream for many years. Those involved consider that it is their duty to make this process work.Vast amounts of energy, both intellectual and physical, have been spent in past decades in trying to devise a system that here on Earth can emulate the process that has been taking place on the Sun for millions of years. Some progress has been made with the JET (Joint European Torus) system in England producing a burst of 16 megawatts energy for seconds. This was only 70% of the energy pumped in to heat the plasma.

There are hopes in the scientific community that the bigger ITER International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) system being build in southern France will do more than give a small burst of energy in response to the vast amount that powers it. Of course, the expectation that nuclear fission will eventually power the operation of the systems of civilization is adroitly promoted by the scientists who make a good living by pursuing this dream. They continue to gain support from governments and investors because the return, if it is ever realized, will enable civilization to continue to grow through the copious supply of energy.

Of course, the scientists promoting this endeavor present their understanding of the requirement. They strive to meet the challenge of understanding the complex physical forces at play. No one can doubt the integrity of these dedicated people.That is where their responsibility lies.

Their focus is on realizing a nuclear fission system that will produce more energy than is used to drive it. That is their objective. It is not for them to address two other issues that will determine the worth of the nuclear fission concept in the future operation of the systems of civilization.

Assume that ITER leads to a production system that provides a proportion of the energy requirement in some countries. This system will have to be manufactured out of materials that may well be becoming in short supply and this process will use a lot of energy currently supplied by fossil fuels and nuclear power stations. The authorities will then have to have in place a program to maintain them during their limited lifetime and to replace them subsequently. However, meeting the demand for energy to drive the infrastructure may not have a high priority for future governments as they try to cope with such developing problems as too many aging people, unemployed youngsters, workers with skills that are no longer required, environmental toxicity, climate change, ocean acidification, loss of fertile soil and potable water combined with decay of cities and the associated infrastructure. These problems cannot be addressed by the flow of intangible money, despite what people may think. Most of them are tangible operation of natural and synthetic systems. It is ironical that even the nuclear fission scientists talk about energy as though it is some quantity when, in actual fact, it is always the property of material and what happens to the material in the energy transformation process has to be taken into account if it carried out here on Earth. Astronomers understand what happens in nuclear fission on the Sun.

The scientists who have devoted their undoubted talents to produce a system that will only exacerbate the odious outlook for future generations will be no worse off than those who have worked so hard to produce the endangered species, cars, trucks, airliners and container vessels.

Smokers' rivals

Society is slowly learning the lesson that smoking often causes lung cancer. Quit campaigns are getting the message out in many sections of the global community.

Ironically, society has yet to come to grips with some much bigger problems. Smoking only affects the smokers and those nearby. It will cause the die off of quite a few due to lung cancer and associated health problems. But smoking is an isolated, personal  addiction. Society in general, particularly in developed and developing countries, is addicted to using up vast amounts of natural bounty in an unsustainable manner. This is a holistic addition with irrevocable dire consequences for most of the global population.

How many people think for a moment as their cars exhaust fumes polluting the atmosphere that they are contributing to the destruction of a hydrocarbon fuel that it took natural forces eons to produce. There is no need for society to mount a Quit campaign on this issue as natural forces will do the job in time: the crustal stock of oil is running out and the industry is finding it hard to extract what remains.

People will find it hard to cope with that problem as they are addicted to using their cars and flying in airliners. However, a bigger problem is that there are too many people around the globe. Billions are going hungry even though there is now an abundance of food as fossil fuels foster agriculture while aiding transportation and storage of food. Water supply and sanitation are also heavily dependent on the use of some of the remaining fossil fuels. Coping with the trauma of the inevitable die off will be a trauma much harder than deal with than quitting smoking.

Climate change is now causing isolated problems taxing the skills and resources of many communities around the globe. Society at large has yet to understand that it is an irreversible disruption of natural forces caused by its addiction to cheap energy by using fossil fuels. There is no feasible quitting of this process by Homo sapiens. And climate change is only one aspect of the deleterious impact of the systems of civilization. Pollution of land, sea, air and all species is creating a host of problems worse than smoking. Nature bats last in all physical processes.

Society has an insane belief in the ability of technology to overcome developing problems when, in actual fact, it is technology that has instigated these problems by making use of some natural forces to irreversibly use up limited natural resources and irrevocably produce material wastes. Society has a problem in understanding that reality as it is besotted with the illusory temporary power of money.

Technology has provided society with a wide range goods and services that are useful for a time. For example, cars are an endangered species even though very few give a moments thought to that addition. Society will find it hard to cope with the withdrawal that monstrous substitute for the facility of legs. However, an even greater problem will be the withdrawal of the recording and communication aids provided by the wide range of electronic devices from computers to iPods that have come online in recent decades. The rapid growth in the use of these devices is unsustainable as they are made of irreplaceable materials. But users of these devices are so bemused by the facility by this information revolution that they are unable to comprehend that it cannot last more than a few decades.

If you think that these are the only problems that society will have to face up to, then you are wrong.
The infrastructure of civilization, including the cities, are addicted to using some of the remaining natural resources to enable their functioning and cope with their irrevocable aging. As society can do nothing to stop this process, all they can do is try to power down. A few smart people are already fleeing from cities in emulation of some passengers taking to lifeboats as the Titanic headed for the iceberg.