Changes ahead

A Chinese curse reads, “May you live in times of great change.”

Evidently change creates uncertainty and fear; stability is much more reassuring. The need for energy is the number one problem in the world: its lack or non-accessibility frightens us, much more than the wars it produces. From the late nineteenth century to the present, we have relied on nonrenewable sources–especially oil–and the results are obvious. To say that climate changes re not due to overheating is no longer popular:

Dobbiamo cambiare rotta, nonostante le paure: molto si è fatto sia sul fronte del risparmio sia sul fronte delle energie pulite. Ma non basta. Si riprende a parlare del nucleare (dimenticando i lunghi tempi di attuazione). Le soluzioni si possono trovare in vari modi.

Forse con i mini reattori nucleari. Forse con la fissione nucleare utilizzando il torio e non il plutonio, che è decisamente molto più sicuro. Forse con la fusione (che è l’opposto della fissione) nucleare con la macchina Z della Gran Bretagna: nuclear fusion is the process by which two light atomic nuclei come together to form a heavier nucleus, releasing a large amount of energy. This phenomenon occurs naturally in the heart of stars, where immense pressures and temperatures allow electromagnetic forces to prevail over repulsion between the nuclei.

And why not mention the American startup Amogy that converts ammonia into electricity by producing hydrogen? The NH 3 Kraken is a tugboat originally built in 1957 on which the Amogy system was mounted: it sailed on a Hudson River tributary upstream of New York City using ammonia (one atom of nitrogen and three atoms of hydrogen).

Becoming energy independent, improving the quality of life and supporting those who are achieving the impossible should be everyone’s mission: this is how we cope with change.