You sound like a Popular Science article from 1952.
You sound like a Popular Science article from 1952.
.............
Well its true that part of the excitement of the 1950’s and 60’s was that space travel was right around the corner and too cheap to meter electric energy byo nuclear power would soon be a reality. (Less well known was the water world’s ambition to make very cheap water desalination to turn the deserts green.)
All that died in the 1970’s for many reasons. The great breakthrough actually happened from 1966-70 in nuclear research with lftr thorium reactors that promised to collapse the cost of electricity. But the prototype nuclear power plants were shelved because they weren’t dual use. The problems involved with going into space proved to be non trivial and funding for major ventures dried up after the 1973 OPEC oil strike began the long 40 year decapitalization of America. The US government actually understood that the big dams built during the 1930-60’s would not solve American water problems indefinitely. There was a robust US membrane research program that developed the first iterations of reverse osmosis membranes for water desalination. These programs were scaled back to nothing in the 1970’s and much of the benefit for these programs went overseas.
But in recent years the excitement has begun to return. The lftr thorium reactors were rediscovered. There’s now about three companies in the USA, and one in each of canada france, japan and china to develop these reactors. Likely the competition to be the first to prototype these reactors will turn very public in a year or two. The consequence of the fracking revolution is that the decapitalization of the USA which began in the 70’s is in the beginning years of a reversal. There’s real world consequences here. One of them is that tax revenues to the federal government are going up big time. In another five years the new oil money will make it seem like somebody just turned the lights on. That will release money for all kinds of expansive programs like space ventures. Currently the biggest expense for getting into space is 200 mile jump into low earth orbit. If you have seen prototype reusable rockets developed by Elon Musk’s company—these promise to reduce costs considerably. (For heaven sake I have a nephew working on ion engines for for space travel away from earth.) Finally on water there’s likely to be some big breakthroughs in the next couple year in either graphene or carbon nanotubes which will drop the price of membranes considerably. When the lftr thorium reactors are developed—together with the new membranes, they’ll make desalination cheap enough for agriculture and thereby turn the deserts green and double the size of the habitable earth.
In short, the worm is turning again! If we’re just talking about technology —all kinds of amazing things will break out.
This is not a big stretch. I could not imagine the technologies I now use routinely when I was in college preparing for the future. Neither could you.
If the technological change over the next 30 years is anything like the last 30...well you get the idea.