What if the energy/climate crisis was solved?

The reality of Peak Oil is pretty much indisputable as far as I'm concerned. If we can't find an equivalent alternative energy source in a big hurry, there's no escaping that the world is going to change dramatically. That's the underlying premise of the Transition movement.

But what if we do come up with an alternative energy source? One which doesn't change the climate, which won't be as destructive to the landscape as coal mining, which doesn't require practically eternal waste management to avoid poisoning the biosphere, which is affordable and practical, and which can scale up fast enough to address the twin crises of Peak Oil and Global Warming?

It's an incredibly tall order. But I'm becoming increasingly hopeful about the possibility of one particular technology, which I've written about before: the thorium-fuelled molten salt fission reactor.

Environmentally-conscious people have an almost instinctive reaction against anything "nuclear", and I understand that. On the basis of long-lived radioactive waste alone I also agree with it, in respect to the current fleet of uranium-fuelled reactors. But the fact is that thorium-based reactors have been designed and even tested which don't suffer from any of the major drawbacks of uranium-based systems.

Features include:
- Abundant, stable, safe raw fuel (100% usable ore vs 0.7% usable from uranium)
- Passive reactor safety (cannot overheat, not pressurised, no complicated mechanical control system)
- Proliferation-resistant (in particular it produces no plutonium)
- Produces very small amounts of relatively short-lived waste (~300 years, certainly manageable)
- Can burn high-level waste from other reactors
- Simple enough to mass-produce in a factory and deliver on a truck
- Electricity probably cheaper than today's coal-based prices

It sounds so good, why wouldn't it have been done before? Well it actually was done before in the 60's and 70's, but the US at the time was more interested in creating plutonium for their weapons program. Hence the molten-salt reactor research program was shut down. Research has now restarted in eight or so countries, including the US, India, France and Japan. Incidentally, Australia has the world's largest reserves of thorium, followed by India.

There is a fairly real prospect of this kind of mass-produced, cheap, safe (enough) reactor technology being available within 15 or 20 years, with known fuel reserves sufficient to power humanity for several millennia.

So what if that came to pass?

Well... it would help. But it wouldn't be sufficient to solve the problems of over-population, destruction of ecosystems, resource depletion and so on. In some ways it could actually make them worse, by providing humanity with the means to continue on with its awful business as usual.

So even if we did solve the energy problem there'd still be plenty of reason to keep working on sustainability in general. That's probably the way I'll be approaching the Transition work - it's absolutely vital if we don't find a new energy source, and it's still hugely worthwhile even if we do.

Transition

I've had a link for the Transition Culture website in the sidebar over there for ages, and for the Sunshine Coast Energy Action Centre, too. In case you've never clicked on them, I ought to mention that the Transition movement is all about preparing communities for a decreasing availability of oil. It originated in the UK but has started to spread around the globe. SEAC is at its heart a Transition initiative for the Sunshine Coast... but being about an hour's drive away from me it seemed rather contrary to the point for me to try and get involved in the wonderful work I hear they're doing up there.

It's beyond me to start something like that in my own area. And it's especially challenging here because Brisbane is nothing like the kind of conglomerate town and village structure of the UK and even the Sunshine Coast. It's one enormous sprawl, with a big central city council. Not on the scale of somewhere like Los Angeles, but still big enough.

So I've been watching and waiting to see how a Transition initiative might get off the ground in Brisbane, and finally it has started to happen. I had the pleasure this morning of meeting with some of those involved in the early stages of a Brisbane transition "hub", which will play a role in fostering, supporting and connecting transition groups all around the city. (That's my paraphrase, not actually endorsed by anybody.)

Not surprisingly, this group has been brought into existence through the work of people who are already recognised for their efforts along parallel lines - people from FoodConnect (a local CSA cooperative) and the actively green communities based in some of Brisbane's inner suburbs. Links have been established with SEAC and, it seems, with a similar group based in Sydney.

At this stage there's a lot of "networking" going on, literally finding out who's doing what around the city and joining the dots. Apparently there's a very handy permaculture gardener who lives in Bald Hills but tills the soil down in Morningside. I'm hoping to make their acquaintance in the near future.

This is all very welcome as far as I'm concerned. The quiet on this blog has reflected the lull in my life with regards this kind of community engagement. Hopefully the opportunity I've been waiting for has arrived.