WHAT WILL WE KNOW, AND WHEN WILL WE KNOW IT?
Wednesday, December 28, 2022
Should we go electric or not?
Every citizen of the world is paying for every problem.
Except for those who deny it, and while deniers of climate change (or anything else) can deny it all day long, they are paying a dear price for it too. It costs them what it costs all of us, plus they endure what I describe as self-inflicting injury of ridicule, and they deserve that too!
Mostly though, I question different things. I don’t question global warming or climate change, but I have questions about how, how much, and at what cost we can make any change that matters.
We pay for it in time lots to petty distractions of politics and showbiz, if you can tell them apart.
Everyone pays for harm to the climate, not because we want to but because we are all in this together. I saw news reports in recent days about scientific breakthroughs, game-changing perhaps, to replicate on earth the science that makes the sunburn.
Great.
Maybe.
Is it a flash that doesn’t pan out (remembering the hype of cold fusion a few decades ago)?
If we could make energy the way the sun does in a laboratory, what would we build it with, and more importantly, what could we store it in that could contain the heat?
While I realize this is a possible life-altering miracle for earthlings, we should be patient, set our expectations on the lower end of the scale and hope the new energy source can be contained, controlled and weaponized.
How soon will we know?
If the sun’s surface is 5,504C, is there anything that could contain something that hot without being incinerated?
I don’t think so, so I’ll watch the news in the coming years to see if fusion created in a lab can replace the fuel in my tank.
We should be excited about the science without expecting an instant or even speedy cure for the world’s energy needs. What we will benefit from, I expect and hope for, is lots of other developments as the fusion field is explored and we learn more about this branch of science.
I watched something the other day, a YouTube talk comparing vehicle types – and while I’ve driven gas-powered vehicles, I came away thinking I don’t want electric but convinced I need to know more about hybrids.
Until we have a fusion-charging station on every corner, we need the comfort of making a ‘better than before’ decision and choosing from vehicles that won’t likely leave us stranded without power or a place to plug in.
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