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Climate Change - how to curb it?
by Thomas Oestereich
Every day man-made circumstances make the earth lose 100 different species of plants and animals, 100,000 acres of arable land, millions of tons of fertile soil (by erosion). Still we continue to blow hundred million metric tons of greenhouse gas into the earth's atmosphere - every day.
The greenhouse gases are but a fraction of the entire spectrum of chemicals we release into our own environment. We cannot help to take up some of them into our very bodies. We are what we eat.
But most of the damage we do to the earth is somehow related to our need for energy. The heating up of our planet is probably the most dangerous consequence of what we are doing.
So what? Is there a solution?
Let's go to the good news now: Yes, there is a solution. Actually a bundle of solutions. Let's concentrate on the two most promising ways out of desaster we have, both related to energy production without pollution:
Already now, mankind starts to use solar energy. There are wind wheels in many countries today, and wind energy is just a form of solar energy because the sun is what drives the weather. All renewable energy is solar energy in a way. When we talk about solar energy, we refer to what the sun sends us in our time. The fossil energy (coal, oil) we use is solar energy, too, but from millions and millions of years ago.
But aside from wind generators and renewable fuels like bio-diesel and bio-ethanol, there are as well more and more solar electric plants which convert sunrays to electricity, and others which rather collect heat and replace fossil fuels for heating.
The other solution is little talked about. It is nuclear fusion energy which contrary to contemporary nuclear power plants, rather than splitting big atoms into smaller ones, fuses small atoms to yield bigger ones. It is the very same physical process which makes the sun produce its energy for the next 4.5 billion years.
What we need is quite obvious, and sad to say, we will need the governments to step in. We cannot rely on private initiative and spread of reason to build careers in renewable fuels. We need (more) programs to help solar energy, and we need a bigger effort to finance fusion energy. With the latter, the scientists have now reached a very important breakeven point: The process produces more energy than it consumes. But at the present day level of finance, the scientists say, they will need another fifty (50!!) years before we can expect the economic breakeven, that is before we can expect the first fusion power plants to go active. Way too long.
Regards Thomas Oestereich
http://physics.global-momentum.net
After 20 years of being a physicist, Dr. Thomas Oestereich turned from scientific research to a life as an author and editor of his home school curriculum. He now seeks to help his readers gain access to the insights of physics. Bringing the achievements of science to a larger public, he hopes to finally contribute to a better knowledge of the options and constraints of decision making in our democratic society.
http://www.physics.global-momentum.net
Contact the author, Thomas Oestereich
, at speed-up@gmx.net
.