Oil and Gold: What will the end of fossil fuels bring?

I just came across Charles Stross's posting about the end of fossil fuels boding the end of space exploration (or at least a massive slowdown).

I have to disagree, but the topic brought up a lot more thinking about fuel and our economy than it did about space, at least for me. The man he's quoting calls the end of fossil fuels an, "unprecedented transition," but of course, it's not. Our original fuel (and building!) material of choice was wood. When wood ran out (understand that when we talk about a resource "running out," we mean that it became difficult enough to use that it was no longer the ideal source) we moved on to a combination of iron and oil. Interestingly enough, this lead to a massive explosion in both out economy and technological growth. One could argue that if wood were a much more rapidly replenished resource, we might not have had a space race, or at least it might have come much later.

So, what will the end of fossil fuels bring? We can't really know, but one thing it won't bring is the end of our desire to expand, learn and explore. Will that be in space, or will we decide to go to the bottom of the oceans or into the Earth's crust first? I don't know. We have a lot of 3-dimensional territory to explore and exploit. What I do know is that running out of oil will be a fast process when viewed in the long term, but probably slow enough that we'll transition to something new, just as we did before.

Nuclear power: why is it so terrifying?

The earthquake triggers a massive
gas explosion.
Credit: Reuters

I'm reading accounts of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and its ongoing woes after Japan's 8.9 (now the USGS is saying 9.0) earthquake on the 11th. Now, this is a tragic event, to be sure, but I'm baffled by the laser-focus that this one event is getting. Power-generation of many sorts suffer catastrophic failure under these circumstances. Gas mains ignite, fuel tankers spill, oil is dumped into oceans and rivers. And yet, for some reason we're focusing on the one event that has yet to injure anyone. Sure, it might result in a deadly release of radiation that prevents a wide area from being re-built for the foreseeable future, but I get the impression that people are somehow equating this to some fundamental instability in nuclear power.

Keep in mind that this earthquake has literally removed entire towns. They'r gone. The buildings don't exist anymore, except as rubble, swept miles away. Under these circumstances, the low death toll (5000-10000, estimated) is a tribute to Japan's excellent preparedness. There's no one sitting a block away from the power plant wondering, "oh dear, is it going to affect me?" No, everyone is either dead or evacuated. Thousands are dead. Thousands more are missing. The fact that a nuclear power plant is suffering a failure is quite simply not changing the scope of this disaster.

But still, we continue to raise alarms and demand stricter regulations as a result of our irrational fear of what is clearly our safest form of power generation. We continue to put out gas fires and clean up oil spills at an ever-increasing rate, but after a 9.0 earthquake a nuclear plant is damaged? It must be time for stricter regulation!

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for strong safety surrounding nuclear power. I think Chernobyl teaches us what happens when basic safety technology is ignored. However, you don't then ratchet up the level of regulation every time a new worst-case scenario occurs. You perform reasonable risk assessments and regulate as a result of their findings when necessary. It's actually not very hard.