Towards an Apollo program for energy - Part 1

This post was inspired by this article at alternet, ominously entitled 'Behold the Rise of Energy-Based Fascism'.  Read it, seriously.

The future of the worlds energy is something I've been thinking about a lot and what this post really rammed home for me was that energy is not something that is going to solve itself. I don't things are quite as scary as Michael Klare believes though, primarily because I think there exist a set of emerging technologies that CAN provide a genuine and reasonable solution. These aren't easy technologies however. They require tens of billions of dollars and capital and a certain amount of will and dedication to actually get running. What I'm going to try to layout here then, is the following

1. Why action is needed. I think a lot of people here will already be with me on this, but I still think its useful to underline just how serious a threat to civilization/the human race this actually is.
2. Why existing options aren't going to get the job done (or in other words, why Kyoto isn't going to work even IF the US somehow got on board)
3. What an energy Apollo Program/Manhattan project might look like and what the technologies are that I feel can really change things.

1. Why we need to act now
First of all what happens if we do nothing.
1. Potential ecological catastrophe (global warming)
2. Potential economic catastrophe (its running out people)
3. A political nightmare (going to link to Michael Klare's article again since you really ought to read it.)  Since it lays out this scenario much better than I can, I'm going to leave it at that.

Responses:
-But global warming isn't proven: I'm not going to dismiss this statement out of hand. In fact I'm a bit upset at the hyper-polarized nature of the global warming
debate with greens trying to silence the opposition and anti-warmers claiming its all some big fabrication. I don't think censorship is ever a solution and its only inflaming an issue that desperately calls for calm considered rationality. Consider this though: if someone pointed a revolver at you and threatened to shoot would you ask how many bullets are in the gun? Would you feel safe if there was only a 2/6 or 1/6 chance of you getting your head blown off? So does it really, truly matter THAT much what the statistics are? Furthermore even you for some reason feel you can rule out 1, what about 2 and 3? I think Michael Klares article, though written by someone on the left should prove equally chilling to most conservatives.

-There's plenty of coal/uranium. Well, not really. But even assuming we can stretch things out that way, coal is seriously dirty in both local and global ways (there are ways to perhaps deal with this, but I'm going to save that for a later post). Nuclear is more interesting but
uranium is finite as well, while fast breeder reactors are an incredibly dangerous toy to play around with.

2. Kyoto isn't going to work
What I am arguing is NOT that Kyoto is wrong per se. Rather that it is an ineffectual devising of incompetent bureaucrats seeking to fix a gunshot wound with a band aid. How exactly do modest reductions in the rate of emissions growth actually change things (what sea levels rise by only 10 meters instead of 11?).  And without China, which will overtake the USA as the worlds #1 polluter in a matter of years, how will it even result in modest reductions. China has large coal reserves and they're currently building vast numbers of coal plants. Its not looking good.  Even Britain, one of the countries most committed to Kyoto is in danger of failing to meet its targets due to rising air travel

I have another question.  Its proven immensely hard, even in Europe/Japan to convince citizens to make economic sacrifices to deal with the highly abstract threat of global warming/energy depletion.  America has just refused straight up (and lets avoid political name calling here, before Kyoto was even brought up in the Senate it got shot down 95-0... the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, yes, THAT Robert Byrd :( )  Does it seem remotely credible, that  countries like China and India, are going to sign up?  Countries which are finally beginning to see some level of development and prosperity after centuries of oppression.   Does it seem credible that people in these countries would be willing to put all that on hold, that individuals would say... "I don't need decent housing/basic transport today, I can wait a bit more."  Its not going to happen.  And unless something changes China, India, etc are going to build vast numbers of coal plants to fuel their rapid industrialization.  Destroying any hope for global emissions reductions. (Though lifting tens if not hundreds of millions of poverty, lets not forget or ignore this fact.)

Ok, that's a pretty grim picture.  But we haven't got to the distributed batteries for wind and solar, superconducting helium based supergrids, carbon sequestration, increasing efficiency, algae biofuels, etc yet.  Sound a little bit to science fictionesque for your taste?  Have you looked around lately?  The world we live in IS science fiction.