In this free preview, we have summarized the high tech green energy ideas covered in Bonus Chapter 1, ordered from most plausible (small technological hurdles yet to be overcome) to least plausible (insurmountable technological problems that have no plausible solution). In fact, the two most plausible technologies have zero technical hurdles because they have already been implemented in the real world, and of all the cutting edge ideas covered, only one faces technological hurdles with no plausible solutions.
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Issue 2: Green energy & electric cars
Intro: Why does green energy produce so much toxic waste?
Chapter 1: Comparing wind, solar, nuclear & geothermal energy; mining waste
Chapter 2: The human and environmental costs of green energy mining
Chapter 3: Phasing out cars (even electric ones) to save the planet
Chapter 4: Your life would be way better if we phased out cars
Extra: Hydroelectric is not green energy
Bonus 1: Planet-saving green energy technology we foolishly never developed
Bonus 2: How did Congo (the world’s leading cobalt producer) get the way it is?
Bonus 3: The Congo Wars (1996-2003) and its millions of victims
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Issue 2 is available in written and podcast format
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Chapter 1 identified the many problems with existing green energy technology, from intermittent availability necessitating massive rechargeable batteries to avoid blackouts; to large space and resource requirements; to massive mining requirements that wipe out ecosystems and livelihoods; and billions of tons of deadly mining waste. As we will see in Bonus Chapter 1, there are so many high tech ideas that could greatly reduce or even eliminate these problems. Why should we continue to struggle to phase out fossil fuels with imperfect technologies when better ideas are under development?
Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel
Spent nuclear fuel can be ‘reprocessed’: nuclear engineers remove unused uranium from nuclear waste and re-run it through a nuclear reactor. This allows 22% more electricity to be generated from the fuel and eliminates the plutonium found in nuclear waste (a thorny issue because plutonium is the main component of nuclear bombs). Russia and France reprocess their nuclear fuel. The US does not.
Thorium fission
A traditional nuclear power plant can use thorium in place of uranium. Thorium has several substantial advantages. Whereas there is only enough uranium to meet our energy needs for about 20 years, there is enough thorium to power humanity for more than 1000 years. Thorium eliminates the problem of nuclear waste and requires about 250 times less mining compared to uranium. But thorium mining is not even necessary: thorium is a byproduct of rare earth mining, and as discussed in Chapter 2, we need rare earths by the ton to replace fossil fuels. Instead of struggling to safely store radioactive thorium as mining waste for ten thousand years, we could consume it to generate zero-carbon, low-waste energy.
A pilot project used thorium fission to produce 2.1 terawatt-hours of electricity for consumers in the Pittsburgh area in the 1970s.
Closed loop geothermal
One of the biggest challenges of green energy is the need for utility battery storage: wind and solar can only produce electricity when the sun is shining, or wind is blowing, and nuclear and geothermal cannot be turned up during the day (when demand for electricity is high) and down at night (when demand is low). Thus, all of our green energy candidates must produce extra electricity and store it in massive utility batteries for use when demand cannot be met. This requires an immense amount of additional resources.
Closed loop would be a nearly perfect source of green energy: like any form of geothermal, it is low resource, low waste, and fully renewable, with a small footprint. Whereas traditional geothermal can only be situated where geological conditions are exactly right, closed loop could be situated anywhere on Earth and is thus capable of meeting all of humanity’s energy needs.
But closed loop geothermal has the potential to solve one of the most vexing problems of the green energy transition: the need for battery storage. Closed loop geothermal could be turned down at night when demand is low and up during the day when demand is high, nearly eliminating the need for utility batteries.
The major drawback of closed loop is that it would draw heat out of the ground faster than Earth could replace it. Thus, each well could only produce energy for about 20-30 years, then would have to be temporarily decommissioned for about 100 years to allow the ground to heat back up before being reopened.
Pilot projects are currently underway in the US and Germany. The technological hurdles to be overcome before energy can be produced at a large scale are low and are mostly related to drilling.
Enhanced geothermal
Like closed loop, enhanced geothermal could be situated anywhere and could meet all of our energy needs. Pilot projects are currently underway and have shown promising results. Like closed loop, enhanced geothermal wells would only be able to produce energy for 20-30 years, then would require 100 years to heat back up. The technological hurdles to be overcome before energy can be produced at a large scale are low and mostly related to drilling.
Superhot geothermal
The idea behind superhot geothermal is to dig so deep into the earth to reach such hot temperatures that water reaches a supercritical state – one that is neither a liquid nor a gas, but is similar to both. Being able to use supercritical water would approximately double the electricity that could be generated by a geothermal power plant. Because deeper depths and higher temperatures are involved, the technological hurdles that need to be overcome are much higher than for closed loop and enhanced geothermal, and significant research and development is necessary before a superhot geothermal pilot project can be attempted.
Nuclear fusion
Traditional nuclear power relies on nuclear fission – the splitting of an atom’s nucleus – to generate energy. Nuclear fusion would generate energy by combining the nuclei of two atoms together. Unlike traditional nuclear power, nuclear fusion would generate zero nuclear waste and be fully renewable. Were it successfully developed, nuclear fusion would require very little space and could meet all of humanity’s energy needs.
The technological hurdles to be overcome are very high and, indeed, generating electricity via nuclear fusion may not be possible. While nuclear fusion power plants are (at best) many years away, nuclear engineers have so far not encountered any problems without a plausible solution.
Fast fission
As discussed in Chapter 1, only uranium-235 can be used as nuclear fuel. But uranium-235 only accounts for 0.7% of Earth’s uranium; the rest is uranium-238. Were fast fission to work, humanity could use uranium-238 as fuel, unlocking at least 1000 years of clean, carbon-free energy. Fast fission would also eliminate the problem of nuclear waste.
Of all the green energy technology discussed in Bonus Chapter 1, only nuclear fusion is impossible. Decades of efforts to build fast fission power plants have run aground on problems that have no plausible solution.