Don't forget the geopolitics of unlimited fusion power
With optimism over fusion power in the news again, I may be the only Cassandra who fears this won’t lead to the low-carbon, cheap-energy utopia we hope for(17/24 December 2022, p 28).
If successors to massive intergovernmental collaborations like the ITER reactor are the future, rather than the small-scale projects being pursued in the private sector, these machines will be incredibly expensive to build, operate and maintain, so much so that possibly only three governments 鈥� those of the US, European Union and China 鈥� along with perhaps two or three very rich corporations, will be able to afford to deploy them.
The advantages of low-cost energy will then be available only to richer nations and those smaller countries willing to swear fealty to them, with poorer, smaller or non-aligned countries left to make do with dirty and expensive carbon fuels, while no doubt continuing to be chided for their polluting ways.
Unless the benefits of fusion are made available to all, regardless of political allegiances, the structural inequities of the world will become worse than they are. That is hardly the clean, cheap, climate-friendly utopia we are being promised.
High time to firm up the outer space treaties
Amid talk of greater access to outer space, we must remember that space, like much of the sea, doesn’t belong to any one country. As the number of launches soars, we need to firm up international agreements in relation to the use of space for both scientific and commercial purposes(Leader, 3 December 2022).
To take just one example, there are a finite number of locations for the geostationary orbits of communications satellites, as these must all be positioned over the equator and at the distance from Earth at which the period of their orbit is exactly one day. Who may put a satellite in such an orbit?
The experience of the way in which terrestrial empires were set up is a good example of how not to proceed beyond Earth. Without concrete agreements, rights in space may be claimed by planting a flag and settling sufficient armed personnel to defend the claim, whether it is made by a country or a hubristic billionaire.
Try this mix for a liquid telescope on the moon (1)
In your report on the return of liquid mirror telescopes, you say that mercury would be too dense a material for building such an instrument on the moon(10 December 2022, p 41).
Why not use a sodium-potassium alloy, with a melting point of -4oC? These metals are cheap, very low density, won’t tarnish in a vacuum and reflect light better than mercury.
Try this mix for a liquid telescope on the moon (2)
You mentioned that building a liquid mercury telescope was first attempted in the late 19th century, but didn’t give any more details.
I remember reading some time ago about a liquid mercury mirror telescope built in the 19th century by William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, at Birr Castle in Parsonstown, Ireland. It was reported that a horse trotting down the road a mile away could cause vibrations that negatively affected the mirror. Parsons was also responsible for building, in 1845, the 72-inch conventional reflector telescope known as the Leviathan of Parsonstown, which helped to identify the first spiral nebulae.
Consumers are as guilty in the court of climate change
Chris Lee asks us to make fossil fuel companies responsible for paying reparations to lower-income countries over the damage that has been inflicted on them by climate change(Letters, 3 December 2022).
Unless he grows all his own food, walks everywhere, doesn’t use electricity and declines to buy anything from a shop that is made in a factory or delivered by a truck, Lee will, like every other resident of a Western nation and the great majority of residents of lower-income nations, be reliant on fossil fuels for much in his life.
In that sense, we are all complicit in the so-called crime of fossil fuel consumption.
We are going about robot cars totally the wrong way
Amid pessimism that self-driving cars you can buy will ever truly come to pass, recall that today’s autonomous car development has been orientated towards making them adapt to our environment. This has hampered progress(17/24 December 2022, p 13).
How much simpler it would be to adapt the environment to self-driving transport. What we require are standards and protocols for autonomous cars to communicate electronically with each other and their surroundings. City administrations could install the infrastructure required and manufacturers would build cars to meet those requirements. What is needed is an organisation willing and able to take on this challenge.
Perhaps the European Union could do it. It is a big market that could reward vehicle-makers investing in this approach.
Sorry, there is no you, only what you do
Daniel Cossins wants to find out his true nature. Any existentialist would tell you that this is a fruitless exercise, as there is no essential you. Instead, you are free to embrace self-determination through your actions. As for letting others define who you are, I leave the response to Jean-Paul Sartre: “L’enfer, c’est les autres!” (hell is other people)(10 December 2022, p 36).
For splash-free toilets, just look to the Victorian era
Zhao Pan’s splash-free urinal reminds me of a Victorian design. My parents-in-law had an old outside loo. On the back of the bowl, just above the water line, was an image of an insect. Men, being men, aimed for this and, lo and behold, no splashing(3 December 2022, p 21).
For the record
A teenager called Alyssa was the first person to be treated with CRISPR base-editing for leukaemia (17/24 December 2022, p 8).
Juicy Marbles, which produces plant-based “prime meat”, is a Slovenian start-up (17/24 December 2022, p 55).
Beth Pike is director of the Marine Protection Atlas at the Marine Conservation Institute (17/24 December 2022, p 62).