Recently I have been corresponding on Facebook with the
disciples of St Greta of Thunburg. You don’t have to be too bright to realise
that St Greta is promoted rather assiduously by someone or some people
somewhere as it is unlikely that a 16 year old did just start a global movement
with only a piece of cardboard. But let’s
not go into that … We Don’t Have Time…
Her claim that the climate apocalypse is coming may well be
true but I always find it interesting how few people are interested in the more
pressing reality … that the oil is running out.
Here Dr Colin Campbell explains why for non-petrophysicists …
My cynicism as to the effectiveness of her campaign was not
very welcome but really one only needs to look at this graph to see that
whatever words have been produced in the past fossil fuel consumption seems to
continue to rise year on year and all the environmental lobby can claim as a
result of their protests is that maybe if they weren’t there this graph may have
gone up faster…
When this is pointed out apostles divide into several
camps. Well, at least she’s doing
something. You’re doing nothing. You’re a “triggered” misogynist. She’s a child – Well, I left school at 16 and
so I just feel “so what?” about that…
Somewhat harder to divine is how she or her followers
actually intend to cut carbon emissions.
There is a reason the graph for fossil fuel useage goes up and up and it’s
not just capitalism. The burning of
fossil fuels since the mid 19th century provided energy and
technology for an exponential world population growth…
By now you should have an idea that even leaving aside the
chances of us all dying from rising sea levels the current situation is
unsustainable. A massive cut in fossil
fuel usage is necessary purely on the grounds that there ain’t much left and
this isn’t sustainable. This will have
to happen or there will be huge resource wars or… there will be huge resource
wars and this will happen. When it does …if
we haven’t found a solution millions will die.
The idea that this can be ameliorated by us all making small actions
like riding bikes, using public transport, not flying and returning to horse
and cart is laughable. The low carbon economy costs - so if you want to reduce carbon someone has to pay and the question St Greta's followers can't answer is who pays and how much?
The only other solution that I can see that doesn’t end in a
massive extinction event or worse – mass poverty – is for someone to produce
the fusion reactor. Naturally as soon as
I suggested this some luddite started on about nuclear fission… for if anyone
were to ever solve the energy crisis then St Greta and her friends just wouldn’t
know what to do with themselves. For
those of you who aren’t physicists fusion is squashing hydrogen atoms together
to make helium which releases energy as matter is turned into energy. Whereas nuclear fission is breaking apart
Uranium and Plutonium atoms rather randomly which produces poisonous isotopes
with huge half lives…
So …given the first fusion bomb was detonated in the 50s why
hasn’t the fusion reactor ever been developed?
Well, there are prototypes but the main problem is that when you get a
fusion reaction going it’s very hot (Well, this is the same process that goes
on in the centre of the sun) – in the region of 100,000,000C so huge magnetic
containment fields are needed to hold the plasma. This is very difficult but not an impossible
dream. We’re nowhere near where PM Boris
would like to imagine/lie but … the length of time a reaction can be sustained for has
massively increased from nanoseconds to almost a second. The latest project is the ITER (costing only US$14
billion to start with) which should be online in 2035 … just about when the oil
and gas and coal runs out. So there is a tiny hope and I'm clinging to it ... don't know why as I'll probably be dead by 2035 but...
Craig Bennett from Luddites of the Earth said: “Why throw
money away on tech-fix pipe dreams, at precisely the moment that onshore and
offshore wind and solar are delivering better returns than ever before?”
Look at the above graphs Craig…
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