Environmental Issue

            The most important environmental issue that could create a need for an island civilization is the need for clean and abundant energy sources. According to the statistical research of  Hans Rosling, if the developing countries of the world that are still living in extreme poverty can be brought out of the third world and the child mortality rate drops significantly, then the world’s population growth problems will disappear. According to Hans Rosling, with economic growth, come better conditions for women and children, which in turn result in more stable populations. He projects that the world population will stabilize at nine or ten billion, meaning that the problem of population growth may be on its way to being solved. The major issue with this future is how to provide for the energy needs of a whole planet of developed nations. If the entire world produced the amount of pollution and greenhouse gasses that are produced in North America, there would be no hope for the planet. In order to meet the energy needs of the rapidly developing world, we will need major innovations in the generation, storage, and transport of energy.
            In order to create a sustainable energy future for the entire world, we may need a combination of innovations in energy generation and storage. Solar and wind power are great sources of power generation, however, in order to use them as our primary sources of power, we will need to drastically improve our storage and transport of the power. Batteries are one option, but at the moment the technology is far too expensive, and the transport of this power may require the burning of fossil fuels. This technology may not be effective everywhere, although there are many places in the United States that could benefit from it, such as California, Florida, and any other sunny or windy area of the country. It may take advancements in and the adoption of hydrogen as a major fuel source or adoption of other technologies such as compressed air or gravitational storage to make these energy sources reasonable and clean.
            One other option that could power the entire world is the use of IFR (Integral Fast Reactor) or LFTR (Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor) technology. Fourth generation nuclear power has the potential to power the entire world cleanly and is capable of burning our current nuclear waste as fuel. This could eliminate the problem of nuclear waste and provide centuries or more of power off of the current waste alone. The fourth generation nuclear reactors have the potential to be 100 to 300 times more efficient than current technologies. These advances in nuclear power are projected to be available by 2030 or earlier if support grows. The United States has the most nuclear power plants of any country, and although the current plants have entire lifetimes to play out, their waste may become useful soon enough. If the projected goal can be met and implemented quickly, there may be a clean energy future on the horizon.

            If technology such as this is implemented in the developing world, they may not need to undergo the messy industrial revolutions of the past by burning fossil fuels.  Switching the developed nations over to renewable energy and providing new technologies for the developing world are vital objective to ensure the survival of the planet and life on it.


http://ossfoundation.us/projects/energy
http://ossfoundation.us/projects/energy/nuclear
http://www.gapminder.org/