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This is the common dogma but I'm not so sure. Assume it takes 50 years to figure out how to get infinite solar power in space. In the meantime, would you pref

This is the common dogma but I'm not so sure. Assume it takes 50 years to figure out how to get infinite solar power in space. In the meantime, would you prefer higher temperatures and more fires, or a lot more nuclear waste? C02 levels and global temperatures will be easily reversible once we have infinite energy. However even in a world with infinite energy, nuclear waste will still be extremely dangerous, for basically an indefinite amount of time.

FreakyT 8y ago
Nuclear waste can be buried away (relatively) harmlessly, while higher global temperatures and the extreme weather + fire they cause represent a large-scale potentially irreversible environmental alteration. I know which I'd pick.
- melling 8y ago
  Does Bill Gates’ TerraPower use nuclear waste? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
  - justin66 8y ago
    Depleted uranium is waste or otherwise a byproduct of production of enriched uranium, yes.
- ascar 8y ago
  I'm no expert on the issue, but the decades lasting and still ongoing discussions about a atomic waste location in Germany seem to contradict your statement. Burring something for a few years is easy, but what about hundreds, thousands, ten thousands? The earth moves and this stuff is way more concentrated than anything found naturally. What if it hits ground water?
- chmod775 8y ago
  Except that Germany has exactly zero suitable locations to bury nuclear waste safely for a few thousand years. Many would have a danger of contaminating ground water or have some other issue. They have been trying to find something for decades and come up empty.
InclinedPlane 8y ago
More nuclear waste please! Nuclear waste is comparatively easy to handle. A single country is capable of handling its own nuclear waste and keeping it safe (as France does, for example). The same is not true of CO2 emissions and global climate, which require transnational concerted effort to manage.
yayana 8y ago
I think unlimited energy means a pretty immediate heat death for a society that has such an unhealthy relationship with dumping externalities.
- nicodjimenez 8y ago
  People confuse heat with energy but they are not the same. With enough energy we could cool off earth, like a refrigerator (same concept, different implementation).
- nicodjimenez 8y ago
  What people forget is how useful energy is, because we all take it for granted. There is 0 downside to infinite clean energy, as long as it's not weaponized, obviously. Don't let the climate change alarmists trick you into thinking human technological progress needs to be constrained.
pizza 8y ago
I think you are being overly optimistic about the (both technological and practical) capacity we would have to recapture CO2 from the air, and overly pessimistic about the dangers of nuclear energy. The dangers of CO2 are killing our habitat, and we are going to have to expend much more energy removing it than it took to put it there in the first place, among other things. Plus you can store nuclear waste compactly, and more people are harmed by the radiation emitted in coal plants than are harmed by nuclear power, anyway.
ams6110 8y ago
Umm, all energy consumption eventually ends up as heat in the environment. If you are bringing "infinite energy" in from space, you will be dumping infinite heat into the environment. Not exactly good for cooling the planet.
- nicodjimenez 8y ago
  Heat and energy are not the same. Heat generated from human activities does not significantly impact atmospheric heat compared to the heat generated by the sun and absorbed right inside the atmosphere. Also, if you have infinite energy, there are many things you can do to cool off. Everyone will be able to set their own preferred temperature.
  - aerodude 8y ago
    > Also, if you have infinite energy, there are many things you can do to cool off. Everyone will be able to set their own preferred temperature. Jesus. Someone failed thermodynamics.
    - nicodjimenez 8y ago
      I have a BS in Physics from Johns Hopkins and dropped out of PhD in Applied Math from Stanford. Where did you get your degrees from smarty pants? The problem isn't heat in the general sense of the word, it's heat trapped in the atmosphere. Heat trapped in the core of the earth isn't a problem at all, for example. Most human generated heat can be absorbed by matter on the surface and has a negligible impact on atmospheric heat. And if you had enough energy and low cost launch to space you could do things like cheaply send solar reflectors into space.
aerodude 8y ago
Ummm... if you have infinite power to pull carbon from the atmosphere, don't you also have infinite power to launch radioactive nuclear waste at the sun using mass-drivers? Sounds like that would be a lot more efficient than what you're proposing, too, since it's all fairly concentrated. The whole infinite power from space argument seems problematic. Even assuming you just meant "a large, globally significant amount of power", I'm guessing that the inverse-square law and heat buildup would sink the idea. I can only imagine the dead zone surrounding the location where we beam petawatts of radiation down from orbit. It would make our worst ecological disasters look like a joke in comparison.
- nicodjimenez 8y ago
  I don't know about you, but sending nuclear waste into space sounds hard! Much harder than sending a large number of satellites to collect space solar power and beam it down to earth. You'd need really large rockets. Heat buildup in general isn't the problem, it's heat buildup in the atmosphere that's the problem, and infinite clean energy would allow us to reduce carbon emissions to 0, as well as do lots of crazy geo-engineering that today isn't feasible because the cost of electricity is too high.

FreakyT 8y ago

Nuclear waste can be buried away (relatively) harmlessly, while higher global temperatures and the extreme weather + fire they cause represent a large-scale potentially irreversible environmental alteration. I know which I'd pick.

melling 8y ago
Does Bill Gates’ TerraPower use nuclear waste? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TerraPower
- justin66 8y ago
  Depleted uranium is waste or otherwise a byproduct of production of enriched uranium, yes.
ascar 8y ago
I'm no expert on the issue, but the decades lasting and still ongoing discussions about a atomic waste location in Germany seem to contradict your statement. Burring something for a few years is easy, but what about hundreds, thousands, ten thousands? The earth moves and this stuff is way more concentrated than anything found naturally. What if it hits ground water?
chmod775 8y ago
Except that Germany has exactly zero suitable locations to bury nuclear waste safely for a few thousand years. Many would have a danger of contaminating ground water or have some other issue. They have been trying to find something for decades and come up empty.

InclinedPlane 8y ago

More nuclear waste please! Nuclear waste is comparatively easy to handle. A single country is capable of handling its own nuclear waste and keeping it safe (as France does, for example). The same is not true of CO2 emissions and global climate, which require transnational concerted effort to manage.

yayana 8y ago

I think unlimited energy means a pretty immediate heat death for a society that has such an unhealthy relationship with dumping externalities.

nicodjimenez 8y ago
People confuse heat with energy but they are not the same. With enough energy we could cool off earth, like a refrigerator (same concept, different implementation).
nicodjimenez 8y ago
What people forget is how useful energy is, because we all take it for granted. There is 0 downside to infinite clean energy, as long as it's not weaponized, obviously. Don't let the climate change alarmists trick you into thinking human technological progress needs to be constrained.

pizza 8y ago

I think you are being overly optimistic about the (both technological and practical) capacity we would have to recapture CO2 from the air, and overly pessimistic about the dangers of nuclear energy. The dangers of CO2 are killing our habitat, and we are going to have to expend much more energy removing it than it took to put it there in the first place, among other things. Plus you can store nuclear waste compactly, and more people are harmed by the radiation emitted in coal plants than are harmed by nuclear power, anyway.

ams6110 8y ago

Umm, all energy consumption eventually ends up as heat in the environment. If you are bringing "infinite energy" in from space, you will be dumping infinite heat into the environment. Not exactly good for cooling the planet.

nicodjimenez 8y ago
Heat and energy are not the same. Heat generated from human activities does not significantly impact atmospheric heat compared to the heat generated by the sun and absorbed right inside the atmosphere. Also, if you have infinite energy, there are many things you can do to cool off. Everyone will be able to set their own preferred temperature.
- aerodude 8y ago
  > Also, if you have infinite energy, there are many things you can do to cool off. Everyone will be able to set their own preferred temperature. Jesus. Someone failed thermodynamics.
  - nicodjimenez 8y ago
    I have a BS in Physics from Johns Hopkins and dropped out of PhD in Applied Math from Stanford. Where did you get your degrees from smarty pants? The problem isn't heat in the general sense of the word, it's heat trapped in the atmosphere. Heat trapped in the core of the earth isn't a problem at all, for example. Most human generated heat can be absorbed by matter on the surface and has a negligible impact on atmospheric heat. And if you had enough energy and low cost launch to space you could do things like cheaply send solar reflectors into space.

aerodude 8y ago

Ummm... if you have infinite power to pull carbon from the atmosphere, don't you also have infinite power to launch radioactive nuclear waste at the sun using mass-drivers? Sounds like that would be a lot more efficient than what you're proposing, too, since it's all fairly concentrated. The whole infinite power from space argument seems problematic. Even assuming you just meant "a large, globally significant amount of power", I'm guessing that the inverse-square law and heat buildup would sink the idea. I can only imagine the dead zone surrounding the location where we beam petawatts of radiation down from orbit. It would make our worst ecological disasters look like a joke in comparison.

nicodjimenez 8y ago
I don't know about you, but sending nuclear waste into space sounds hard! Much harder than sending a large number of satellites to collect space solar power and beam it down to earth. You'd need really large rockets. Heat buildup in general isn't the problem, it's heat buildup in the atmosphere that's the problem, and infinite clean energy would allow us to reduce carbon emissions to 0, as well as do lots of crazy geo-engineering that today isn't feasible because the cost of electricity is too high.