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From: ethan@ut-emx.UUCP (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac)
Newsgroups: sci.research,sci.space,sci.environment,misc.headlines,sci.misc
Subject: Re: Success with cold fusion reported
Summary: why enviromentalism gets a bad name
Message-ID: <11597@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 30 Mar 89 23:18:40 GMT
References: <18213@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> <3451@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu> <1113@gvgpsa.GVG.TEK.COM>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 41

In article <1113@gvgpsa.GVG.TEK.COM>, johna@gvgpsa.GVG.TEK.COM (John Abt) writes:
> 
> With unlimited cheap and pollution-free energy available, we won't be
> talking about the greenhouse effect, it will be the furnace effect.

The greenhouse effect is not due to the release of energy from burning
fossil fuels.  It is due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide (and other
gases) in the atmosphere which affects the retention of solar radiation.
Heating the planet as direct effect of power generation would take
an enormously greater per capita consumption of energy for the whole
planet than the present per capita use in the USA.  In other words,
the use of fusion power as a source of energy is less of a problem
from the point of view of the greenhouse effect than any other
energy generation scheme, with the exception of fission power.
I include solar energy here because solar collectors tend to locally
decrease the albedo of the Earth.

An example of a real problem with cold fusion (as reported in the press,
I make no claims for its reality) would be its tendency to irradiate
its container vessel with neutrons (producing some quantity of
low level radioactive waste) and release tritium (a nasty isotope
of hydrogen with a tendency to get absorbed into body tissues and
a half life short enough to give a healthy dose of radiation per unit
time).  The first may less of an issue with cold fusion than hot if
the claim of a low neutron yield holds up.  The second requires
some care (although the short half life might make waste disposal
a manageable problem).  I have no idea, in practical terms, how
much it will cost to deal with these issues, but if you want to
speculate about problems with cold fusion they make a good starting
point.  Thermonuclear fusion has lots of problems as previously
discussed here and elsewhere.

I note that given sufficiently cheap energy it is possible to overcome
most pollution problems associated with modern industry. 
-- 
 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,ut-emx,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
    - Woody Allen            (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

These must be my opinions.  Who else would bother?