What Will the Post Fusion World Look Like?
Fusion energy technology may happen very soon now — possibly a decade or two. The advantages are an abundant fuel source that will last a million years, no CO2 emissions, very efficient (4 million times that of burning coal), no long term radiation risk, and no chance of a meltdown. We would hope it is cheaper. That will be determined by how much the plants cost and their lifespan and maintenance.
Let’s assume the promise of cheap energy is true, and it is equably distributed. What will it mean to our society? Let’s look back at the last occurrence of cheap energy available to the world in abundance. This was when oil was being discovered all over the world. It gushed from the ground in such quantity, it was arbitrarily assigned an initial value of $2 per barrel. It spurred the development of the internal combustion engine to power cars, trains, ships, and planes. That, in turn, created our modern world and advanced our standard of living by leaps and bounds. It also accelerated the process of what we now know to be climate change. So far, there don’t seem to be any similar catches to nuclear fusion.
So, would cheap electrical energy simply replace all combustion engine power with electric motors? No. It would not. For cars and planes and ships, there would have to be batteries involved. We are already seeing rare earth elements and other…
