Reviving The Thorium Vision (green nuclear?)
“Nuclear power and in particular nuclear power produced from thorium needs as much green PR and marketing as wind and solar now.”
My recent blog post on the nuclear question seems to have sparked the interest in a couple of my friends, some of whom are for and some against. I have recently been reading a lot around the idea of using Thorium as a fuel in nuclear reactors, as Professor Al-Khalili briefly touched upon in his documentary. First proposed and designed by the late Alvin Weinberg, the idea for Thorium reactors have been around since the 50′s but were abandoned when it became strategically more desirable to build reactors fuelled by uranium-238, which produces the by product plutonium-239, the primary fissile material used in nuclear weapons. The expediencies of the Cold War won the argument then but they are completely irrelevant in today’s post cold war environment. The new expediency is climate change and in this capacity thorium can and should be allowed to bridge the gap between carbon free energy and the often negative public perception of nuclear power. Below is a quote from the Guardian:
“The idea is to create a new generation of nuclear reactors based on the element thorium, as opposed to the uranium used to produce nuclear power today. Thorium, its advocates claim, is beneficial not only because it’s far more abundant and widely distributed in the Earth’s crust than uranium; in addition, liquid-fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs) could theoretically be much smaller, much cheaper and much safer than conventional nuclear reactors. The waste they produce would remain dangerous for a far shorter period and, crucially, couldn’t be used to create nuclear weapons. As a bonus, these fourth-generation nuclear plants could even burn up the dangerous plutonium stored in existing nuclear waste stockpiles, using it as a fuel. The Weinberg team is already talking to Sellafield about this idea.”
Having briefly trudged through some of the literature and the nascent website of the Weinberg Foundation, which was formally inaugurated by parliament on 8th Sept 2011, I can see there is a lot to consider and a lot more reading to be done. The project’s green credentials do seem on a good footing though, notably after Friends of the Earth Policy and Campaigns Director, Craig Bennett, wished the Weinberg foundation the best of luck.
There seem to be a whole host of potential sources for carbon free energy sources available to us, ranging from the theoretical to the currently operational. Renewables such as wind and solar and tidal have obvious green appeal and are already in action. But without huge and unprecedented investment and subsidies they will fail to meet demand and shift fossil fuels from their dominant position in the market. Arguably they never will be able to meet the demands of a growing global population. Whilst theoretical, undeveloped or currently uneconomical technologies (such as nuclear fusion or artificial photosynthesis) could prove decisive in producing abundant sources of cheap clean energy to satisfy global demand, they require huge investments in R&D and a lot of patience on behalf of the taxpayers and businesses funding them. Typically this is an unattractive prospect for hard up governments looking for ever more tangible guarantees on their investments.
Enter the liquid fluroide thorium reactor. A different kind of nuclear fuel and one with a whole rack of advantages over its uranium cousins which rely on pressurised light water reactors that are more expensive and more dangerous to run. I will simply link to the Thorium MSR website which explains - albeit onesidedly the pros (and not the cons).
What is needed most of all though is a distinct paradigm shift in our attitude to nuclear (even though recent polls conducted after Fukishima suggest that nuclear remains popular in this country worldwide public support remain on the decline with Germany one of several European nations looking to abandon Nuclear altogether). Nuclear power and in particular nuclear power produced from thorium needs as much green PR and marketing as wind and solar now. Radioactive waste aside, these are carbon free fuels and with the threat of runaway climate change moving away from dirty fuels must surely remain the imperative, even we need to move to an interim source. With time of the essence and a new generation of efficient thorium reactors desperately needed, we surely have to hedge our bets. Intransigence is not an option.
My Top 10 Apocalypses (and who’s to blame)
10 – Gradual Population Decline
This so called ‘soft’ or ‘voluntary extinction’ is less cataclysmic armageddon and more embarrassing fiasco. The notion that at current Western demographic trends global population growth will actually start to drop off reaching zero by 3000AD is a slightly difficult concept to get your head round, given all the press and evidence stating the opposite. The maths adds up sure but it’s totally reliant on continuing and unabated globalisation, that is the proliferation of industrialisation, suburbanisation, education and social mobilisation so that the rest of the world start to behave more like western populations having fewer offspring, presumably choosing to focus more on their careers, becoming middle class and getting addicted to Starbucks coffee and their new smart phone. Current projections predict that if the global rate of reproduction were to fall to that of Germany’s overnight we wouldn’t make it beyond 2400AD. Of course this completely ignores the fact that if the whole world lived like western consumers, without abandoning fossil fuels and converting to abundant green energy sources we’d be heating the atmosphere at an even more catastrophic rate than we are now. This would mean it’d actually be climate change that got us in the end, not population decline, as explained in our next scenario. Still, I quite like the irony. Who thought the apocalypse could be so lame.
Who’s to blame: Well clearly everyone’s too busy playing Angrybirds or texting each other on their iPhones to even notice it’s even happening let alone point the finger and blame someone else. So everyone really.
9 – Runaway Climate Change
The environmentalists raison d’etre. Anthropogenic climate change, or the dumping of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere causing global climate to become inexorably hotter as well as a whole heap of other terrible shit, seems the most likely scenario on our list of potential apocalypses. But like our previous entry, this is less ‘aaaaah we’re all gonna die’ and more ‘aaaaah why haven’t we all died yet’. Like forgetting to procreate this scenario would involve a slow drawn out descent into a Mad Max style world of deserts and scavenging tribes before our eventual extinction. One possibility is that we could actually de-evolve back to a more primitive hunter gatherer life form more similar to our early stone age ancestors than modern humans, living in pockets in the far northern fringes of the planet away from the inhospitably hot temperatures of the rest of the planet. Unlike the population decline scenario (which, the more I think of it, is just bloody ridiculous) the onset of runaway climate change is going to involve lots of fighting with our fellow humans over Earth’s precious resources and an actual lack of Starbucks and iPhones. The most precious resource won’t be oil however but water, a commodity some very worried clever clogs have already dubbed ‘blue gold.’ My advice is to always listen to clever clogs. Except when they’re trying to sell you something. Localised water wars could well bring about the catalyst for a new global conflict with all the military technology and destruction that entails, wiping humans from the planet long before the onset of any Mad Max style situation. In many ways then, this scenario could be the precursor for our next apocalypse.
Who’s to blame: This is a huge list, including politicians and industry chiefs across the globe but I’m the prize surely has to go to the Americans for trying the hardest to deny it was ever even happening and continuing to pledge their undying love of oil and coal [company profits]. Although China could have stopped whining on about how it’s their turn to industrialise now. That kind of attitude just wasn’t helping anyone.
8 – World War III
Perhaps the all time classic scenario and genuine concern for the Cold War generation, World War III trumps our last two slightly drawn out extinctions in a sudden hail of gunfire and mushroom clouds. Not that a nuclear confrontation is inevitable with the onset of a third world wide war. Having at its heart the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the postwar proliferation of nuclear weaponry by nation states came to be seen by strategists as more of an insurance policy than any practical or viable means of waging war. A kind of ‘you wipe my country from the face of the earth and I’ll wipe your country from the face of the earth’ kind of approach. Luckily for us then the Soviets and the West seemed to have realised this and never pushed the button. That’s not to say we haven’t had any near misses. Nor that they wouldn’t have given a pre-emptive strike by the other. The Cuban Missile Crisis is the obvious example but there have been others. Biological or chemical warfare is also a distinct possibility. This type of warfare has already been used by dictators on their own populations as well as on advancing armies and can have extremely localised or entirely global ramifications, depending on the nature of the weapon and who’s using it. Ultimately though, the WWIII scenario can be seen as the end result of a more gradual apocalypticy looking decline, possibly as the world becomes covered in deserts due to runaway climate change, and nations fight each other over dwindling resources. Alternatively a global war could result from our next scenario. Stalwart of the science fiction genre, please give a warm welcome to… the alien invasion.
Who’s to blame: Blatantly it’ll be the Americans. Again, sorry guys, but you do seem to have the propensity for destroying things on a very large scale.
7 – Alien Invasion
Amazing. This could be one of my favourites. Firstly because it kind of puts religion and the whole ‘we’re really special because God made us’ idea on a really shaky footing (if only for the small amount of time it takes for us to be annihilated in a hail of laser beams). But secondly, because there is an outside chance that some of us could be rounded up and transported back to the invading alien species home planet as slave labour. Now although I’m sure this would be horrendous for those involved it’d be pretty cool to get a ride on an alien spaceship and actually get out and see the universe. Perhaps then, one day in the far flung future, some progressive thinking alien politician will campaign for our emancipation and our human descendants will be set free to go and live in ghettos and slums in the alien metropolises, eventually finding their own voice and sense of community and uniting to rise up and etch out a place in the alien society. So I feel there is definitely a potential silver lining to this apocalyptic scenario. Then again, this could all be a bit optimistic. More likely they’ll just slaughter all of us and turn our planet into a tacky holiday resort.
Another bonus would be the expression on the faces of the Generals. Presumably any civilisation that has the technology to travel to our world from another solar system also has the technological potential to wipe us out without even really having to recharge the batteries afterwards. Oh please let them have laser guns!
Who’s to blame: Well the belligerent aliens, obviously. Although, as a species, if we’d never gotten out of the trees and started transmitting radio signals into space they would probably never have found us. So for the first time I think science has to take a portion of the blame here. I don’t think it’ll be the last time either as our next apocalyptic spectacle demonstrates.
6 – Uncontrollable Proliferation of Nanotechnology (Grey Goo Hypothesis)
Okay so we finally get to a scenario which we can wholly blame on science and our own insatiable instinct to play god and control and colonise every physical sphere we encounter on our journey as human beings. Including that of the very small. Yes, this is nano technology, and whilst it’s benefits for medicine are truly remarkable, it’s potential destructiveness is truly terrifying. So terrifying infact that this is the first apocalyptic scenario that not only threatens life on the planet’s surface but the planet itself. It is then a true champion in our list, not bothering to stop at the earth’s crust in its quest to annihilate everything.
So let’s just go through the facts briefly shall we. You’re gonna love this. So, scientists have been playing around with the idea of nano tech for some time. Amongst its many applications, it includes the development of microscopic robots, or nanobots, that can manipulate the very molecules and atoms around them. Nanobots could be released into the human body to repair damaged tissue or fight off bacterial diseases, even weed out cancerous cells. These little critters could even alter the atomic structure of individual molecules, extracting hydrogen and oxygen from water or turning coal into diamond. This isn’t science fiction, it’s practical application in medicine could be as little as 10 years away.
The trouble is that it’s going to be very tricky to build nanobots and we’re going to need a lot of them (as in millions and millions) to make them effective. The simple solution to this problem, it seems, is to make some of them specialised in building new nanobots themselves. Nanobots could be made to manipulate the atoms and molecules of their microscopic realms and build versions of themselves, saving us the bother. But there is one potential drawback to this approach and it’s quite an important one. If just one of these nanobots were accidentally or purposefully discarded and got out into the outside environment it would continue to convert normal matter into more nanobots. And these nanobot would themselves begin assimilating more matter, turning it into yet more nanobots. And so on and so on. The theory holds that within 72 hours all life on the planet and indeed the entire planet itself would actually have been converted into nanobots, leaving a strange grey goo floating in space where our planet once was. Cool!
Now this is a pretty quick way for us all to die but there is something out there that could destroy all life in the blink of an eye and to understand that we have to travel deep beyond our own solar system.
Who’s to blame: The goddamn scientists again!!!!
5 – Gamma Ray Bursts
In 1950 the Italian American Physicist Enrico Fermi supposed why, given the vast size and age of the universe and the immeasurable number of galaxies and stars we observe it to have, we haven’t yet found evidence of intelligent life. He contended that if there were advanced space faring civilisations out there then we would have by now found evidence of their spacecraft and technology throughout our own galaxy. Indeed if we hold to the theory that the universe should regularly produce intelligent life then interstellar space should be resounding with radio broadcasts and transmissions from other species. The Drake equation set about trying to scientifically calculate the possibility of rocky earth like planets existing in the so called ‘goldilocks zones’ around their parent stars, and whether these planets are harbouring the building blocks of life and the chances of this life getting off the ground and eventually evolving into intelligence, language, civilisation, etc. The late Carl Sagan saw the possibilities in the Drake equation for a universe that is teeming with life.
But whatever your view on the universe teeming with life, it does all seem quite quiet from down here on earth. Space appears devoid of any kind of complex life. Dead. Desolate. To all extent and purposes it seems from our vantage point on the on the inner edge of the Orion–Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way, that we are alone. But what has this to do with apocalypses, I hear you ask. Well I’ll tell you.
One theory for our interstellar solitude is the existence of so called gamma ray bursts. These bursts of lethal gamma radiation, observable from Earth, are the most violent and luminous events that we know to take place in the universe. They occur when large stars die, exploding in a supernova or hypernova and shedding starstuff throughout the universe as they collapse to form a neutron star, quark star or even black hole. It has been proposed that these gamma ray bursts act like galactic ‘sterilisers’ with hypernova (a really really big supernova) throwing out particularly long bursts of radiation into the universe. These energy waves would take many millions of years to lose their energy and would surely wipe out biological life on any planets they encountered on their journey into the cosmos. But not to worry. This is a long term threat and the universe is a large place. No honestly, it really is very very big and even the nearest star is really very very far away. However, there are things out there that could destroy us all and that aren’t so far away. Infact smaller versions of them are hitting our atmosphere every single day.
Who’s to blame: Quite a deep question actually. You could blame God if you’re that way inclined but then you could blame god for almost anything. I’d just say shit happens personally.
4 – Major Impact Event
This is a scary one, because it really actually could happen. Infact scrap that, it has happened! It is happening all the time. Meteor showers (or what Disney lovers call shooting stars) are particles burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere, usually when our orbit passes through the long tail of a comet which is strewn with particles of dust and ice often no larger than a grain of sand. But larger things have hit our atmosphere and do every day. Some of them are large enough to get through this protective layer of gasses that surround us and hit the surface at incredible speeds. And just occasionally, one comes along that is large enough to really cause the things living on the surface some serious problems. Don’t believe me? Just ask the dinosaurs… oh wait, you can’t. They’re extinct having all got wiped out suddenly. I rest my case.
The thing about comets, meteorites and asteroids hitting our planet is that rather ironically they may be the reason we are even here in the first place. Some scientists believe that the large amounts of water that has ended up on our planet was brought here in the form of icy comets hitting the surface during a period known as the Great Bombardment, a geological eon on Earth so hellish it is referred to by geology clever clogs as the Hadean. As well as depositing water, there is a theory that these extra terrestrial objects could have deposited the building blocks of life throughout the planet, perhaps even bringing life itself to our world; a hypothesis known as exogenesis.
But the hand that made us can just as easily destroy us. The geological record contains several mass extinctions (and five major extinctions, the most famous being the Cretaceous saw dinosaurs disappear from the fossil record almost overnight) and there is significant evidence to suggest that some of these were caused by impact events. There is absolutely no reasons why these events should not, and will not, happen again. Human arrogance, anthropocentricism and a deep inability to understand deep time leaves us with the rather concerning delusion that we’ve been here a long time. We haven’t. And eventually we will get hit by something big. And it will kill us. A lot of us anyway. It’s good to know we’ve prepared for it though… oh no wait, sorry we haven’t. Infact we’re all in the middle of cutting funding to the scientific projects that watch our skies for these dark silent global killers. So at least now we won’t have time to piss ourselves in fear and run around screaming a lot before it gets here. Perhaps that’s for the best.
Who’s to blame: Again, shit happens and it’s a big old solar system but with a lot of stuff flying about it from the look of it.
3 – Super Volcano
Supervolcanoes, unlike your regular everyday vanilla volcano, are bloody massive. Defined by spewing out more than 1000 cubic kilometres of ejecta (ash and dust) their eruptions are bigger than anything witnessed in our short history as a species on board mother earth. Like impact events the prospect of a supervolcanic eruption is a frightening possibility not just because it is already taking place on a smaller scale as I sit here and type this but because we have geological evidence that suggests these kind of events have already taken place in the distant past, and what’s more, that that they have caused mass extinctions. A debate rages amongst geological / palaeontological clever clogs as to whether some of the planet’s major extinction events (of which there are 5: the Ordovician, the Devonian, the Permian, the Triassic and the Cretaceous) were the result of massive impact events or runaway global climate change brought on by supervolcanic eruptions throwing up hundreds and hundreds of cubic kilometres of ejecta (ash and dust), therefore blocking out the sun and triggering a ‘small ice age’. What sets supervolcanoes apart from major impact events form in the context of our apocalyptic countdown however is the fact that we have proposed methods of defending ourselves against incoming asteroids and comets (either kinetic or diversionary in nature) even if we choose not to invest in early warning systems. There are six known supervolcanoes on Earth and should one decide to erupt there really is nothing we can conceivably do about it (bar go and live on Mars).
The term supervolcano was actually first coined by the BBC’s amazing Horizon programme back in 2000 but our next scenario has been dramatised and discussed by films, books, documentaries, essays, theses, scholars and experts the world over, no doubt more than all our other apocalypses put together. What is it? Religion silly!
Who’s to blame: It’s just the way of things I guess. Like impact events, there is a strange irony at play. On the one hand tectonics are why we’re here but on the other they give rise to volcanology which may destroy us. Who said god didn’t have a sense of humour. Well clearly this next lot.
2 – End of Days (Eschatology)
Now it is my contention that religion is a very convenient way of getting people to (a) do what you want them to do, less they go to Hell, and, (b) not worry themselves silly about the prospect of dying, unless of course they fail to comply with (a). With this in mind I think the scientific amongst us should take our seventh apocalyptic scenario with a good pinch of salt, perhaps even a pillar of it. I thought I’d throw it in though because as far as actual apocalypses go God’s judgement really does take the biscuit in terms of sheer scale. You can’t beat a bit of supernatural fury and judgement you see. Eschatology is the study of these final events in history as described or espoused by various faith systems around the world. The Oxford Dictionary describes it as ‘concerned with “the four last things: death, judgement, heaven and hell.”‘ All major faith systems have notions of the apocalypse, or more accurately, the transition from one reality to another, built into their meta narrative of humanity. These can be divided into two groups, linear paths and cyclical paths. A linear path to the end days means history begins, carries on a bit, carries on a bit more, then reaches a conclusion whereby god is present and judges everyone and genuinely comes across as pretty important and omnipotent. Atheists and agnostics feel really stupid and religious people begin arguing as to exactly whose god that is in the sky. This is the narrative path followed by the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam). The second narrative path is cyclical and is the framework of many Eastern religions including Buddhism and Hinduism, both of which believe in reincarnation and hold that the we are living in a particular age and that eventually that age will end and another will begin, ad infinitum. Funnily enough as galactic allegories go these cyclical belief systems are far more in keeping with the behaviour of the universe, of which all matter, including that which comprises us, essentially originates from the centres of dying stars.
Who’s to blame: Well if there is a God(s) and he/she/they deem it necessary to show off and start judging everyone or a giant Panda called Frank who built the universe from his toe nail clippings deems it his master plan then who are we to point the finger as mere mortals. It’s all complete nonsense anyway so I’ll just blame theists the world over.
1 – The Singularity (Post Humanism)
So, at last we now come to our final apocalypse. I have saved this scenario for last for two reasons. First of all it’s actually a matter of philosophical and scientific debate whether our evolution (artificially accelerated or otherwise) into another form of life actually constitutes our extinction and therefore ranks on this list as an apocalypse at all. Secondly, some of the potentialities surrounding the premise of post humanism aren’t actually that negative at all and therefore end our, up until now, fairly bleak looking list on a comparatively exciting and mind boggling note. I don’t want to get accused of negativity here. Even apocalypses can have good points.
Let’s talk first about the singularity. The singularity is a kind of technological point of no return where human advancement in artificial intelligence advances so exponentially that we cannot predict its pace or development. This is due to the positive feedback loop put in motion once intelligent machines start designing and building even more intelligent machines than they and so on and so forth. The breakdown in our ability to predict technological trends and outcomes into the future with any degree of accuracy breaks down completely after this point, becoming analogous to a singularity (something both really really tiny and really really massive). A singularity exists at the heart of every black hole or at the moment of creation just before the big bang, and within which the laws of physics break down utterly, incapable of predicting conditions or outcomes. This can also be analogised as a kind of intellectual event horizon.
How far we are from this rapid period of technological advancement and what our relation to technology will eventually be is the stuff of much debate. The predictions tend to fall into two ways of thinking as far as I can tell. The first is that we are consumed, supplanted or simply superseded by superior artificially intelligent life (I suppose this could be referred to as the ‘Matrix scenario’ which falls into the previously mentioned apocalyptic category of ‘aaaaah we’re all gonna die’). The second premise is that we in some way merge with technology and are forever altered from our present purely biological form by it (this would constitute a ‘post human scenario’). In the eyes of the singularitarianists, this symbiosis is to transcend into something altogether better than the fleshy bodies and limited minds of our ancestors.
This scenario is perhaps then, like our first, a self imposed extinction, but unlike our first scenario, replaces what it erases with something altogether different. What something looks like and when it will happen is of course unknowable due to the very nature of the singularity, but we have already begun to augment our bodies and brains with computerised implants. Technology is advancing at an exponential rate. The internet is already connecting millions and millions of us in increasingly inventive and unprecedented ways. These are exponential times, in every sense. We now carry the net around with us on our smart phones. How long before these smart phones start to become part of us? Maybe we are already well on our way to the singularity. Amazing!
Who’s to blame: Depending on your outlook this could also read, who’s to congratulate. Whoever is responsible I don’t think it’s just the remit of science here. Technology is something that has shaped our modern civilisation and something we all take for granted. We are all partly to blame for this trend towards post humanism whether we realise it or not.
