Having wondered why such a hothouse had not yet been created, I was pleasantly chuffed to hear Prof Brian Cox on Any Questions (rad 4, 17 oct) propose a manhattan type project to address climate change. He suggested it might look at finally solving nuclear fusion, the process of creating nuclear energy where all the materials emerge as energy leaving no dangerous byproduct to be shipped to some poverty stricken country.
He suggests of budget of 140 billion would be necessary and considering the numbers that have been bandied around in the past couple of weeks, this seems like small change to most governments and could probably be found down the back of Gordon Brown’s sofa. We seem able to find the money when necessary with suprisingly little fuss from the public, possibly keen to do anything to shore up their personal investments, savings and homes.
At the end of the WW2 when the original Manhattan Project was pulled into existence by allied forces to race the Germans to creating a nuclear bomb, the greatest physicists were taken to the dessert, and essentially told to stay there til they come up with the solution.
The impetus of war clearly focuses the mind, in the same way that the threat of immeninet economic collapse stokes political will.
But why is there little political appetite to fund such a project to address climate change and provide clean, cheap fuel? Why couldn’t such research be funded by the G7, the UN, the IMF or, as in CERN, funding from various governments.
The time span of Einstein’s paper proving e=mc2 to splitting the atom to creating the atomic bomb – the unfortunate culmination of that research – was a 40 years. And that was with the carrot and stick of WW2 to drive it forward. Unfortunately, rather than lead us to the conclusion of unlocking the secret to endless energy, we ended up in the cul de sac of the cold war. however, if we wait another 40 years, we in London may be swimming to work. Unfortunately, the creeping quality of climate change means we don’t see the threat so vividly, hence to lack of response. No one wants to commit to reducing carbon emissions because of the supposed strangulation on the economy. However investing in fusion, or frankly any type of clean energy does require a well funded hothouse of research which should enable us to cut emissions without going back to the dark ages in terms of quality of life.
Is the oil lobby so strong and bursting at the seams with the indiscretions of so many politicians they dare not do anything to rattle it?
As we’ve seen lately, where there’s a will there’s a way. However, in this instance, the will seems to be mere hot air, which can only hasten global warming.