Hydrocarbon "fuels" are 'way to valuable to burn. Most should be horded even now, as raw material for the chemical industry.
Fusion energy is now spoken of as "20 years" off instead of 30.
This fits in well with the peak oil problem, which will probably make goat turds and Stirling engines more practical than petroleum-powered V-8s by then. But at least the CO2 "problem" will start to go away, whether it IS a problem or not.
I foresee (Oh, Swami...) massive crop failures by the early 20s due to a coming Dalton Minimum and near Little Ice Age conditions. Solar cycle 25 is almost universally expected to be a humdinger, very few sun spots.
If we are lucky, when AGW returns as a fear in about 2040, we will have something like 4,500,000 survivors and an energy technology that can then take care of them properly.
In the mean-time, the Western and Great Eastern powers need to enforce the use of the thorium cycle to eliminate nuclear (weapon)proliferation. As I have noted, small, modular Pebble-Bed reactors can provide some safe and practical advantages (before fusion) as heat sources and local energy plants.
Only part of this is testable. |
