Navigating the Future of Energy
Published October 10, 2022 • 3 min read
“Please don’t be shy, try to change the world”
Earth is losing its oceans to acidification and its atmosphere to heat and chaos. In a passionate call to action, Carl Page, a serial Entrepreneur, co-founder of eGroups, and president & co-founder of the Anthropocene Institute, a non-profit organization advocating to make Earth-abundant for all and sustainable for decades to come, has shared insights and experiences with VALUENEX to couple his wisdom with data-driven knowledge. At the VALUENEX Palo Alto office on August 31, 2022, Carl Page, Google founder Larry Page’s older brother, presented blueprints for a path forward to save the planet as we know it.
Step 1: Reduce the cost of energy production
Step 2: Use reduced cost/impact energy sources to power climate stability initiatives, including desalinization and carbon capture efforts, and use nuclear power to reach climate goals.
Step 3: Focus engineering efforts on nuclear adaptation to carbon capture and climate stability initiatives and technologies.
It is critical to find a solution for energy production that reduces environmental impact at a low cost, and Carl Page claims that we already have the technology needed to save the world. In the midst of the sustainability debate, a survey of power sources worldwide reveals a solution many people fear. Solar and wind energy are sustainable and great for residential and rural energy sources but require an investment of carbon emissions in their creation and don’t generate enough energy for mass production. Dam power is limited to water supply, which is a dwindling and unpredictable resource given climate change. For urban and industrial production, a much stronger energy source is needed; Carl emphasizes that embracing nuclear power is the path forward. Even on Earth, uranium stores are replenishable, and current efforts are even being used to ‘fish’ for uranium. Since deep-sea vents replenish uranium to a stable ratio of dissolved uranium within the oceans, casting nets to capture uranium can be a more viable and sustainable energy mining endeavor than drilling for oil. Nuclear power can be the future; it’s merely an umbrella encompassing multiple types of energy production that can be tailored for specific use cases. As the universe’s most abundant element, hydrogen is a very appealing energy source. This is not new technology, but, as a path forward, this technology is often dismissed simply because it is “too good to be true.”
These endeavors were supported by VALUENEX’s findings about utilizing “nuclear and fusion energy” in its analysis of news articles (Fig.1). While many people oppose nuclear energy because they envision weapons, many people are also supportive of nuclear fusion, which is one of the nuclear reactions that power the sun and stars as hydrogen atoms fuse together to form helium, converting matter into energy.
Nuclear fusion reactors are still in development but pushing the narrative for nuclear energy — especially for the future of nuclear fusion — might be possible by adopting the understanding that a nuclear power reactor is just a “fancy way of boiling water”. Nuclear power, supported by the current fission-type reactors, can also be managed safely and more reliably than any other major energy production technology, meaning that nuclear power is the most sustainable and potent energy source humans can access with modern technology.
Considering the known options, fossil fuels are the least accessible energy source. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is universally accessible; it powers the sun and the stars. (Please don’t be shy, try to change the world!)