ENERGY

MARS & BEYOND

Mahaffey is a supporter of nuclear energy and its potential for earth’s energy needs. He argues fission can be made a useful source of energy while fusion research holds the best opportunity for humanity’s future.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Atomic Adventures (Secret Islands, Forgotten N-Rays, and Isotopic Murder-A Journey into the Wild World of Nuclear Science.)

By: James Mahaffey

Narrated By: Keith Sellon-Wright

James Mahaffey (Author, Research scientist at Georgia Tech Research Institute)

“Atomic Adventures” is a reminder of the race for the atomic bomb, its wide pursuit by nations of the world, and research for the holy grail of atomic fusion. Mahaffey’s science explanations are tedious for non-scientists, but his history of the secrets and use of atomic energy are interesting and surprising.

The United States, with the help of the UK, may have been first to acquire the atom bomb in 1945, but eight more nations acquired it by 2006.

United States: Acquired in 1945.

Russia (formerly the Soviet Union): Acquired in 1949.

United Kingdom: Acquired in 1952.

France: Acquired in 1960.

China: Acquired in 1964.

India: Acquired in 1974.

Israel: Believed to have acquired in the late 1960s, though it maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity.

Pakistan: Acquired in 1998.

North Korea: Acquired in 2006

It is somewhat ironic that Pakistan did not acquire the atom bomb until 1998 when Pakistan’s “father of the bomb”, Abdul Qadeer Khan, became a rich man by selling technological know-how of the bomb to nations like North Korea, Libya, and Iran.

Abdul Qadeer Khan (1936-2021, father of Pakistan’s atomic weapons program, died at age 85.)

As a singular discovery, Einstein’s E = mc² offered a dual opportunity for the world, i.e., destruction and/or survival of the human race. The bomb suggests destruction while nuclear fusion offers an inexhaustible energy source that could reverse global warming and rocket human beings to other worlds.

ALBERT EINSTEIN (1879-1955, died at age 76.)

Mahaffey explains the immense potential of nuclear power as a principal source of energy. History shows nation-state and political conflicts may spin nuclear power out of control to kill millions and devastate the environment. On the other hand, nuclear research and power offer avenues for humanity’s survival and longevity.

Mahaffey notes there were Japanese, as well as better known German scientists, who were working on the creation of a nuclear bomb that could destroy Allied armaments and combatants. The rush to weaponize radiation during WWII surprisingly includes research being done by Japan as well as Germany during WWII. America won the research race because of superior human and financial resources that could be marshalled to complete the scientific research and experimentation needed to perfect a nuclear weapon.

Mahaffey explores the creation and destructive history of the atom bomb.

Surprising to some listeners, Mahaffey explains Argentina’s significant effort to increase its research and development of nuclear power after WWII. Argentina created the National Atomic Energy Commision in 1950. The chief researcher, hired by President Juan Perón, was Ronald Richter (1909-1991), an Austrian-born scientist who headed their plan to create a fusion power facility. Richter fails but nuclear energy remains an important part of Argentina’s history. In the 1960s they built their own research reactors and by 1974 built their first fission nuclear power reactor, Atucha I. By 1984, they had two heavy-water reactors with Atucha I and Atucha II.

Ronald Richter (1909-1991, Austrian-born German who became an Argentine citizen who headed up the Argentine Huemul Project to create a nuclear fusion power plant. He failed, despite the millions of dollars spent to build and rebuild fusion power plants.

Yoshio Nishina (the father of modern physics research), Bunsaku Arakatsu, and Masatoshi Okochi created the so-called Ni-Go and F-Go projects to develop an atom bomb. They did not get beyond the laboratory stage because of a lack of resources, the exigency of war, and the complexity of nuclear technology. The energy of nuclear power, as shown by history, is two edged.

Yoshio Nishina (1890-1945, the father of modern physics research during WWII.)

On the one hand it can be used to purposely or accidently destroy humanity.

Image result for medical use of nuclear energy

On the other nuclear radiation can heal the sick

and potentially provide a clean renewable energy source.

Mahaffey explains how research in fusion can go awry. In a news article, two chemists reported in 1989 that fusion was created in their experiment by involving heavy water (deuterium oxide) and palladium electrodes. They reported excess heat production that they believed was nuclear fusion. As with all scientific experiment, their results had to be confirmed by other scientists testing of their results in the same experiment. Mahaffey, in his role at the Georgia Research Institute, was asked to replicate the experiment. Using the same tabletop experiment, Mahaffey initially confirmed Fleishmann’s and Pons’ findings. However, no other table-top experiments found the same results. What Mahaffey finally found was that the neutron counting device that was recording increased heat was the actual source of the heat increase, not the chemical interaction between heavy water and palladium electrodes. Further research is being conducted but the U.S. Department of Energy concluded in 2004 there is no convincing evidence to support cold fusion. Tests are still being done but Mahaffey infers that research is a scientific dead end. Mahaffey and a colleague tried again in a basement of his colleague’s house to try a similar experiment and failed.

NASA's Mars rover Perseverance landing: Everything you need to know | Space

Nuclear power has the potential to revolutionize interplanetary travel. The higher efficiency and power, particularly with the perfection of fusion, will shorten travel times and make trips to Mars and beyond more feasible.

Mahaffey explains how communication will be a challenge when interplanetary travel becomes common. The distance to other planets or galaxies will impede communication because of the limits of the “speed of light”. However, the solution may lie in quantum entanglement’s experimental proof found by Clauser, Aspect, and Zellinger. The complexity of entanglement makes the theory unprovable at the time of Mahaffey’s book.

In theory, quantum entanglement suggests information (communication) may be instantaneously transmitted across galaxies without the limitations of the speed of light.

Mahaffey goes on to explain the risk of radiation in a chapter about a “dirty bomb”. Security measures used to protect the public from radiation leaks make thieves believe something valuable is being secured by government laboratories. Thieves will steal these secure containers only to find they are risking death by opening their booty. Additionally, Mahaffey notes radioactive material is often disposed of illegally and irradiates innocent people who own dump sites that received inadequately contained radioactive material.

Wysession explains coal and gasoline production costs will continue to rise making them too costly for most consumers. He believes energy production of wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power will become more viable and less costly as science advances. From his lectures to our ears, listeners hope he is right.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Science of Energy (Resources and Power Explained

By: The Great Courses

Narrated By: Michael E. Wysession

Michael E. Wysession (Brown University and Northwestern University PhD graduate in 1991, chair of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Professor Wysession offers an overview of the world’s energy crises with a detailed history of “The Science of Energy”. It is a daunting series of lectures about the chemical nature and origin of energy with its evolving role in world economies. From a chemical perspective, energy is the capacity to do work or produce change. Wysession identifies the many forms of energy ranging from coal to oil to thermal to biological sources of fossil fuels. He reinforces the belief that global warming is largely the result of growth in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exacerbated by the continued use of fossil fuels.

Wysession explains energy can be stored, transferred, and transformed by chemical reactions and processes. It is the bonding and breaking of atoms in molecules that create energy. He explains there are exothermic and endothermic reactions with combustion that create energy to move machinery and photosynthesis for plant growth.

To some, it is a surprise to hear of Wysession’s optimism about the future. He argues the world’s effort to sequester carbon dioxide and reduce dependency on fossil fuels will abate global warming, maintain, and sustain human life.

His optimism is based on a clear-eyed and educated understanding of how carbon dioxide increasingly damages the environment while fossil fuel use continues to pollute the air we breathe.

Wysession explains carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.

That trapped heat is melting the ice caps, raising sea levels, and causing severe weather events like hurricanes, floods, and ironically, droughts. Higher carbon dioxide levels exacerbate respiratory and cardiovascular disease because of increased particulate matter in the air that causes heart attacks and strokes. Rising carbon dioxide levels increase ocean acidification that reduce biodiversity and threaten coral reefs and shellfish. Extreme weather events destroy farm crops and affect the food and water security of millions of people. Wysession notes the world economy suffers because of damaged infrastructure, increased health care costs, and loss of productivity from fossil fuel accidents and health consequences.

Greenhouse gases released by fossil fuels trap heat that causes the earth’s temperatures to rise.

The direct impacts of fossil fuel use and extraction are well known. Fossil fuels create air and water pollution that causes habitat destruction, and ocean acidification. Wysession notes both extraction and use of fossil fuels causes environmental damage from pollution’ accidents and methods of extraction from the earth.

Wysession notes some progress by world leaders in reducing the use of fossil fuels.

Wysession notes advances in renewable energy technology with solar, wind, and battery storage. He comments on the international cooperation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and public awareness of the consequence of failure to address fossil fuel pollution. There are also economic benefits from the jobs created with solar, wind, and carbon capture manufacture. (One hopes but doubts our new President understands and acts on those job creation opportunities.)

Wysession believes it is important to keep in mind the potential of nuclear energy in the world’s future.

He revies the history of nuclear fission and fusion. As is widely known, our sun provides energy to the world with fusion that feeds photosynthesis which fuels plant growth by converting carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen, both of which are critical needs for life on earth.

Fusion is a process where two nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus which releases energy. The energy comes from the kinetic interaction of the nuclei. Though science has not successfully achieved the high temperatures of a sun-like process to make fusion a viable source of energy on earth, it has been done on a small scale. It has not achieved a sustained and economically viable form of energy but its potential as a clean energy source is limitless. In the meantime, fission has worked to destroy people and things while showing it can be harnessed to provide energy to the world. As of May 2024, there are 440 nuclear reactors in operation, with the U.S. having the most at 94.

Wysession acknowledges rising population demands more and more energy but he argues the average energy use of people in the United States has fallen to 10 KW per person and believes it will continue to drop in the future.

Wysession’s drop in energy use per person (whatever that means) may be correct, but the reality is that American population increases show energy use has risen in the 21st century to 94 quadrillion Btu. (Whatever a quadrillion Btu means.)

In the late 20th century, our consumption was 75-80 quadrillion Btus annually. American consumption has risen by 14 quadrillion Btu, i.e., a 17.5 percent increase in 23 years. Though the numbers are incomprehensible, energy consumption in America is rising, not falling.

He notes there are over 70 percent more people on earth than when he was born. The rising cost of gasoline will compel more transition to electric automobiles. He believes coal and gasoline use will continue to decrease for both environmental reasons and consumer costs. Wysession explains coal and gasoline production costs will continue to rise making them too costly for most consumers. He believes energy production of wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power will become more viable and less costly as science advances. From his lectures to our ears, listeners hope he is right.

TIKTOK ENERGY

America and every nation must believe in themselves until, like all changes in society, the proof of an energy’s value becomes self-evident

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

“Energy” (A Human History)

By: Richard Rhodes

Narrated by: Jacques Roy

Richard Rhodes (American journalist, historian, and author.)

Richard Rhodes explains the many forms of “Energy” that have changed the course of history. The one constant is human ingenuity. The source of energy evolves over centuries of civilization. The source of energy has changed from human hands to fuel burning machines to atomic fission to fusion to information. The back and forth of human thought and action have used sources of energy to remake the world. Rhodes’ history shows progress is not always forward. Change is often resisted until results outweigh failures.

Having just gone through the first chapters of Rhode’s excellent history of energy, this review was prematurely completed because of the TikTok controversy noted in the news.

It is important to complete Rhodes’ history to have some understanding of why information is the energy of modern times. Citizens of the world are facing many of the same obstacles Rhodes wrote about in his book. That energy is information may seem incongruous to some but, Rhodes’ history about wood, coal, oil, electricity, nuclear power, and the current state of renewables is like the energy crises of information today. Rhodes does not consider what some argue is tomorrow’s energy source. Tomorrow’s energy source is information. The many trials, the fits and starts, of the energy sources Rhodes explains are the same trials facing today’s world with information as the most current iteration of “Energy”.

Energy is fuel for doing work. Its early forms are those noted in Rhodes’ history. Earlier forms of energy are still relevant, but their utility is being challenged by the immense growth of information and how information drives the future.

There are lessons to be learned about the challenges of information as energy from the experiences noted in Rhodes’ history. This is a bumpy time that shares the trials and tribulations of wood, coal, oil, electricity, nuclear power, and renewable energy of the past. Each energy source has improved the lives of its users but not without trial and error. The world is in the midst of a transition from the industrial age just as the industrial age transitioned from the agricultural age. The world is entering the information age.

The energy change today is information, most recently multiplied by artificial intelligence.

The paranoia of today is that foreign governments will use information to disrupt the progress of nations that have their own forms of government. The controversy of TikTok is a case in point. On the one hand TikTok is being used by small entrepreneurs in America to conduct their businesses. On the other, TikTok’ popularity is spreading the equivalent of porn to the public, distorting the perception and education of children. There is the added threat of influencing the public to overthrow governments. The question is would TikTok be any less a threat if it were owned and restricted to one country or another? Facebook offers the same potential as TikTok. Facebook, Google, and Amazon are energy sources for distorting truth and influencing the public in the same way as TikTok. Domestic ownership does not cure the negative potential of information distortion or abhorrent political influence.

Is TikTok going to change democratic capitalism or is it going to change Chinese communism? One suspects, it will change both. The information highway cannot be blocked. Information energy, like water, will find its own way through cracks in its environment.

The fundamental point made in the last two chapters of Rhode’s excellent history is that the world, and America, need to increase the number of nuclear energy plants based on the need to curb environmental pollution. His argument is based on learning from the nuclear accidents that have occurred, and designing nuclear power plants to mitigate the consequence of failure. He notes no energy source in the world has succeeded without learning from producer’s mistakes. Our mistakes at Chernobyl, 3-Mile Island, and Fukushima are correctable. Environmental degradation is the crises of the 21st century that threatens human existence.

America and every nation must believe in themselves until, like all changes in society, the proof of an energy’s value becomes self-evident.

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