© Charles Moir 2011
So What? What’s the big deal?
Consider for a moment a world, perhaps a few years from now, where cars require no
petrol, produce no pollution and can run for 6 months from a few dollars worth of
fuel.
It sounds great, and it would be a revolution. But consider what it means for some of
the largest, some of the most dangerous, economies of the world to find their main
source of income has vanished. That would probably lead to a revolution of a very
different, and potentially a very dangerous kind.
It’s not just the Middle East I’m thinking about but countries such as Russia, where
half the government’s income is from oil. A country with the second largest stockpile
of nuclear weapons.
On the bright side, consider that many of the poorest countries are held back by the
high cost of energy. Cheap, clean energy means the ability to water the deserts, to
transform landscapes. Land that is uneconomic to grow food, would now become
economic.
What is economic or uneconomic depends largely on the cost of energy. When energy
costs ten time less, everything changes.
Some people believe that the great advances of mankind have paralleled the great
advances in energy and power. The steam engine drove the industrial revolution of the
18th and 19th century. The availability of global cheap electricity, mostly powered by
coal, oil, and nuclear energy has powered us through the 20th Century. But recently
the costs of energy, both Oil and Nuclear are becoming a real drag on economic
growth around the world. Worse than that, oil and coal power are responsible for
most of the estimated 27 billion tons of carbon dioxide being pumped into the
atmosphere each year.
So if this is for real, the deal is BIG, with the biggest capital letters.
Will this new Cold Fusion revolution bring a New Fusion World?