The Choreographers of Nature: Michio Kaku on Nuclear Energy

Michio Kaku, co-founder of string field theory and professor of theoretical physics at City University in New York City, makes some interesting points in a short interview with The India Times' Narayani Ganesh:

We're moving from being passive observers of nature to its active choreographers. This historic transition in science is enabled by discoveries in three fundamental areas: The DNA theory of life, the atomic theory of matter and computer technology that demonstrates that the workings of the mind are based on logic and electrical circuits.

I actually don't think computer technology demonstrates anything of the sort - it took aliens from Jupiter, after all, to cause the HAL 9000 to jump from human simulacra to human - but Kaku can likely run rings around my paltry doubts.

He's not too fond of nuclear energy:

Going for nuclear energy is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Fusion (based on hydrogen) is clean. But fission (based on uranium) generates tremendous waste. Nature uses fusion; for example, allowing the stars to recycle themselves cleanly. But nature does not use uranium, which is filthy. Nature only uses fusion, the power of the stars.

There appears to be some Gaia thinking in his formulation, but it's worth noting that nature doesn't actually "use" any energy source to generate electricity that man has harnessed for his own use, certainly not wind, solar, gas, coal, hydro or the rest. Using an energy source to generate heat has been understood as man's domain since Prometheus stole fire from the gods and man really did become the choreographer of nature. (Well, if he can do Gaia...)

Instead, he suggests:

Beyond 30 years, the goal of the ITER project in France is to find a way to control fusion. Within 40 years, commercial fusion power, which uses ordinary sea water as fuel, may become a reality.

He allows for this much wishful thinking because, he says, the polar ice sheets will have melted away by 2050 anyway. Kaku is a fascinating man and his current book Physics of the Impossible is well worth reading. His tendency is to think big - really big - and in the very long term. But practically, he reveals some of the pitfalls of an ivory tower genius brought low by the necessities of keeping society puttering along - at least until fusion gets itself together - maybe - someday.