GLOBAL WARMING PART IV -- Solutions. Much of the denier anguish comes from fear of destructive solutions. I believe the solutions can be mostly constructive taking us to a higher standard of living and many good things, and I hope to bring my readers to agree with this belief. Loosely paraphrasing Margaret Thatcher: We should disincentivize that which we wish not to happen and incentivize those things we want to happen. Power demand is exploding. China now, India and South America soon, and then Africa and the rest of Asia are all looking for electric power. No way present day solar, water, and wind technologies can meet the coming demand, let alone reduce oil demand in the USA and in Europe. I have no doubt that we will eventually achieve high efficiency solar conversion, much improved power storage, and better wind and water energy capture. We may even achieve fusion (converting 4 Hydrogens to 1 Helium, thus getting some valuable helium and much energy). But now we need a stop-gap and we have two excellent candidates. Behind door #1 we have LENR, Low Energy, Nuclear, Reaction, also called Cold Fusion. It is ready for commercial trial but needs some funding and some approvals. Here is a link for more on cold fusion: coldfusion3/category/lenr Behind door 2 we have the Molten Salt Fission reactor. It is compact, can be placed underground, operates UNpressurized, can use the waste from our current reactors, can be gravity damped (turned true off), can operate from 30 to 60 years on a single charge, It is safer (no pressurization required, and it has a true off switch), more efficient (operates hotter), cheaper to build (about 50%), and can use up all that damn waste we have. Here is a link for more on Molten Salt Reactors: technologyreview/news/512321/safer-nuclear-power-at-half-the-price/ We should incentivize work in these two stop-gap technologies. Efficiency is its own reward in the form of lower operating costs, but the carbon footprint reduction must cover any footprint increase in the production of the higher efficiency unit. Taxation can provide +/- incentive. e.g. $1 or even $2 added tax per incandescent bulbs-- proceeds used to subsidize CFLs. Minimize transportation fuel by taxing vehicles per mile based on efficiency and type of service (people moving, personal goods moving, product moving, bulk transport), proceeds to subsidize anything which lowers need to transport. Real universal recycling, municipal and private. Five bins: paper, glass, plastic, metal, all else, with serious tax per pound or per cube for non recycled trash, proceeds to defray conversion expenses. Reverse manufacturing for products which are broken, worn out, or obsolescent, completing the manufacturing cycle by returning constituents to manufacturing material.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 07:49:53 +0000
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