Highway to Dystopia is now available on Amazon

Earlier this year I started writing about some serious issues that kept clouding my mind. I was concerned about Anthropogenic Climate Change and how it all tied together with our consumption patterns, politics, religion, and technology. So I embarked on a quest for knowledge and understanding. This is not the book of an expect claiming to have all the knowledge, no... This is a book contrived by a concerned higher primate, living on that pale blue dot we call Earth.

People will accuse me of fear-mongering, or painting the future using an apocalyptic brush, that's ok. I don't mind being a whistle blower. I suspect that my tiny whistle may not even reach the pitch of those environmentalists who have the big bucks and push an ideology that more often than not contradicts itself.

This book addresses "taboos" from Religion to Nuclear Energy, expect to be surprised. Nothing is sacrosanct. Everything will be discussed, how offensive or scary it might be. The truth can only be found by overstepping the invisible lines of social Pravda mechanics.

An inquest into a variety of topics has led me to insights that helped me form conclusions that are unpopular, to hell with it... Things have to change. "Nothing in life is to be feared, only understood" as the wise and extremely intelligent Madame Curie shared with us.

Highway to Dystopia is available on Amazon.com

Paperback : http://amzn.com/1516899369
Kindle : http://amzn.com/B014WNAVJK

I've put together an appendix of listening, viewing and reading recommendations, which by itself is a treasure of information and leads to renewed insights.

Chasms, rifts, divides - the ideological dichotomies that need to be broken

Climate Change is a fact, even though there are still forces that try to convince people that it is in dispute, it's not!

Why am I writing this article? I am an Atheist, Anti-Theist, Social Democrat, ACC-accepting, Avid Tree hugger, Anti Renewable, Pro Nuclear, pro space exploration activist. This literally means that a lot of people hate my guts. Or misunderstand the choices that I make.

Let's have a look at the oppositions in my worldview :

• Nuclear advocates are very often concentrated in the conservative/republican camp
• As a social democrat I seem to get in the political camp of people like Bernie Sanders
• As an ACC-Accepting person I almost always land in the liberal/central/left camp
• My great scepticism about renewable energy draws the ire of conservationists in particular
• Being an Atheist and Anti-Theist doesn't sit well with most of the right
• Being a liberal/progressive/socialist almost always gets me into debates, where I have to account for my support for a central-left worldview, while in that area there aren't a lot of nuclear supporters, as a matter of fact there are a lot of anti-nukes in this ballpark

This is the world of strange dichotomies. I feel like I'm constantly juggling eggs and none of them may fall, otherwise they will break. What I want to break is the narrative! Why? Because this polarisation isn't going to help us forward, as a matter of fact it is deepening chasms and rifts, it is postponing consensus and keeping us from do what is right. Political and ideological idiosyncrasies are really unfathomable to me. Let's look at my ideological worldview, I adhere to the narrative of Bernie Sanders, he's a frontrunner for a Democratic Socialism model, he is also working actively for the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee, a nuclear reactor. Now here's the contradiction, I love the guy for his message, but I have a hard time accepting his views completely because it looks like he is against nuclear energy.

Let's look at the antagonistic nature of the narrative : An article on Powerline
I came across this article because a prominent writer and person for the Molten Salt Reactor sector shared it on his Facebook-wall. Now let's break it down...

"The article went on to describe in some detail what a serious low- or no-carbon energy transformation would require, and it makes for sobering reading for all the folks who believe energy unicorns are behind every tree wind farm and solar panel."

I have no difficulty with this statement except for it being rather strident and there is no substantiation for his own claim. We'll continue and read this :

"By the way, doesn’t anyone else notice that the “Apollo Project” analogy is really stupid? After all, sending people to the moon hasn’t turned out to be a very “sustainable” proposition.

More evidence that the liberal learning curve, like Tom Friedman’s prose, is flat.

P.S. There is one very abundant and scalable energy source that is cheaper than coal right now in the U.S.: Natural gas. Environmentalists used to be for it before they were against it."

The sentence indicated in red is precisely what nerves me to the bone. This kind of "us versus them" speak is exactly what we have to defeat. Now I will be frank, I write polemics about energy matters. I am used to be strident, but I don't do it from an ideological or political viewpoint. I address the issue from a pragmatic standpoint. What needs to be done, regardless of your background, whether you are Republican, Democrat, Independent, Liberal, Left, Communist, Marxist, Right Wing, Nazi, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist... We have to do what is necessary, regardless of color, creed, sexual orientation or whatever.

Let's talk necessity...

Anthropogenic Climate Change precipitates a couple of troublesome / unambiguous events :

• Increased droughts
• Less but more intense precipitation
• Rising sea-levels
• More "Sandy-like" Hurricanes and subsequent floodings

Let's ignore potential exterminations. Here are a couple of things that will be happening if we do not stop the burning of fossil fuels.

• Diminishing water supplies i.e. Water scarcity
• Crop Famine i.e. Wheat, Soy, Rice, Vegetables, Fruit
• Deteriorating meat production

We've  seen this happen in Russia, The US, and Asia already. We may expect these events to become more frequent. Each time the supply of a commodity like wheat diminishes, because of a great drought or other circumstances, we see instability grow in the World. We, the wealthy countries, will experience some lag in this regard because we have the money and can get the commodity because we can pay for it. Other less fortunate communities in poorer countries aren't as fortunate, hunger starts to spread.

Eventually the diminishing availability of wheat and other food commodities is going to destabilize the world. We will see more discontent, upheaval and eventually civil wars. It is quite simple, people who are thirsty and hungry have to take care of themselves. We have to take into consideration that this is going to happen more frequently in the future.

What else are we going to see? Hundreds of thousands of deaths due to heat waves, simply because people die from dehydration, strokes, cardiac arrests, etc.

There are two significant drivers in Anthropogenic Climate Change :

• The burning of fossil fuels
• Deforestation

What do we need to do?

The first thing is rather easy, stop deforestation and start a massive scaled reforestation. Something which could easily be done from a democratic socialist viewpoint. This is clearly a service that the government can provide : Clean air, habitat for animals, natural carbon capture and a lot of jobs with decent wages. This will help many people secure a meaningful job and a good way to contribute to the future of humanity.

Secondly I wonder if it Is really worth it to squabble over petty ideological differences, while world stability is at risk, while we face possible wars or even extinction. I don't give a rats ass which side you're on. We have to break the current narrative, we have to do the right things. This means that we have to kill the rat race, change the paradigms. Acknowledge that energy demand is going to grow extremely. Acknowledge that a great burden will shift, the burden on fossil fuels will shift to electrical generation eventually.

Add to this the increased demand for water desalination, these are things that aren't factored in when you're addressing energy from a pure conservationist viewpoint. Now this is not meant as an antagonising remark, this is meant as an eye opener. Out energy problems are HUGE, we are so far gone, we have to start a return to a sustainable future. No one is going to turn of the lights, no one is going to shut down the water. But for this to continue, Quadrillions of BTu's worth of energy are required. Renewables are not capable of delivering these.

Accepting this truth is going to force us look at more ways of electricity generation, other than the traditional renewables for instance. A perfect energy mix would look like this : Nuclear fusion, Nuclear Fission, Hydro power, Geo thermal, Wind, and Solar.

Dispense with the nonsense such as energy storage, hydrogen and especially biomass. Biomass is actually accelerating deforestation and should be stopped immediately.

The left will argue that nuclear energy is too expensive, unsafe and has waste issues. All of these issues will be addressed by the new MSR movement. Renewables on the other hand aren't popular on the right. But I wonder whether this is being fuelled by the fossil fuel corporations or simply because it's antagonistic in nature, in opposition to the left.

I don't care... We are in dire need of nuclear, simply because of it's capacity for kicking fossil fuel out of the picture. I don't take any ideological view on energy, a pragmatic view is what we should employ. I simply want to see the fastest and most effective means to kick fossil fuels out of the picture being implemented. We have to... Whether you are right-wing, centrist or left-wing. We do not have the luxury to make this an ideological issue.

WE HAVE TO STOP CUTTING DOWN TREES AND BURNING FOSSIL FUELS .

Eclectic writing - a daily dose of prose

Let's see if I can tap into a healthy dose of prose, why do you think the OP is "eclectic writing"? It's because I have a wide variety of subjects that dwell inside my cranium. That thick skull of mine seems to be filled with a thick swirling soup of thoughts, a diabolic machine, gears a-turning...

Anthropogenic Climate Change as depressing as it might be, the outlook of a cataclysmic yet anti-climactic ending of a lot of species spurs me on a quest to find solutions. Really Mathijs, are you telling me that you, an un-acclaimed an uncertified nobody, thinks about worldly solutions? Yes I do... Why? Because they occupy my mind, because I care about my family, especially my children. I love nature and the idea that we are destroying it, while we ourselves are dependent on it, makes me very angry. I also think a lot about worldly solutions because I think that humanity should be doing cool stuff right now. You know conducting experiments at the LHC, building ITER, trying to make sense of nature, helping one and other, having a good time, performing in the arts, engage in sports, go into space... We make up or own meaning, this is very important, because other than being, life has no meaning.

The fight against "ACC" is a fight of life and death. Basically I don't like the notion that we are precipitating extinctions, cataclysms and Armageddon. The Arctic Death Spiral, a phrase coined by several climate experts, is the single most dangerous threat to life existing on Earth. Once this spiral reaches zero, we're bound to set off the most potent bomb ever to be seen on Earth, the bomb of in permafrost sequestered methane. Now I'm quite clear about our chances to avert this catastrophe, I avidly advocate the most efficient solution, we need heavy hitters and plenty of them. Just try to imagine the stupefying amount of energy we use on a daily basis, this amount is going to grow... No matter how much energy conservation we would apply.

Think about the transition from combustible transportation to battery electric vehicles, think about massive desalination efforts, about implementing a state of the art nuclear innovation industry, seriously mitigating the use of single use containers, learning how to capture heat from computing, try to become more provident with meat, massive reforestation, you name it...

Parallel to building the "heavy hitting" energy fail safe we have to acknowledge the harm we do to nature, the vast nullification of forests and other types of land. We have to start reversing these destructive processes. Axes, saws and chainsaws have to be laid aside, decommissioned if you will. Trees keep our air breathable, trees are an important part of the carbon- and hydrological cycle. Deforestation has to be reversed and reversed significantly. I think it is a very worth-while practice, it is far more valuable than many of us care to admit. We desperately need more trees, not less.

While we worry about "ACC" there is a multitude of different issues that have to be addressed as well. Let's have a look at the "humanistic" arm of the galactic thought-swirls in my head. I am not really a humanist, I don't think we're really that special amongst all the other wonderful species that inhabit the Earth but there are some elements which are. I think we are developing a lifestyle that is not good for humans in general. I would like to build a civilization in which we maximize human prosperity, happiness and fulfilment. A completely secular society with no bounds in expression, a society in which there's ample opportunity for everyone, there's great [religion free] education for everyone and top-notch medical care for everyone. Most importantly to implement the Jean-Luc Picard future, The star trek future, this future :

"The economics of the future are somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force of our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity. Actually, we're all like yourself and Dr. Cochrane."

Think about it, we're all here on this beautiful blue sphere suspended somewhere in the Orion Spur of the Milky Way, an utterly insignificant yet beautiful planet, ours, the Earth. While we are here we work arduously to do what? Earn money? Have a great time? I'm afraid this is the reality for the most of us... We are captured in the mundane earthly squabbles of existence, of geopolitics, of capitalism, money drudgery, wage slavery and insignificance... You're caught in a rat race.

What would you really like to do? I know what I want to do, I want to make a profound difference! Think about it...

Have a nice day!

The challenge of a life time : kicking coal...

Let's break down the necessity for the human species to change its "energy habits".

It begins with the premise that all resources in the world are finite, yes even the sun. And secondly, our survival depends on it. Now many people are still under the impression that Anthropogenic Climate Change isn't happening, NEWSFLASH it really is happening!!!

What are the implications in middle-term and long-term? (in escalating order)

• Increased heat waves
• Changes in precipitation from more gradual large volume to less volume torrential rains
• This precipitates an unbalance in fresh water source replenishment and leads to depletion (see California, Texas, Nevada)
• Increased water poverty
• Crop famine
• plant and tree life dying due to water scarcity or insect plagues
• All this dying flora will release methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
• Ocean temperature is rising, this causes changes in the pyramid of marine life.
• Eventually plankton fails to adapt to these rising temperatures and start dying
  
  OR
• Plankton will die because of the increasing acidity levels in the oceans
• An extinction of plankton would mean an extinction of almost the entire marine life pyramid
  
  And
• An extinction of plankton would very severely harm the biosphere's capacity to capture carbon and redistribute it as biomass, coupled with the die-off of land based fauna this will mean an uncontrolled rise in global temperatures, vastly exceeding the 4 degrees as predicted by several fossil fuel companies.
  
  And now for the grand finale!!!
• The is quite certain that the arctic region holds somewhere between 100 and a 1000 GIGAtons of sequestered Methane. The current amount of methane in the atmosphere is roughly 5 gigatons. This means that if by some "accident" the methane from the Arctic gets released, we're probably "in for it". If this "methane-bomb" explodes all the aforementioned effects will speed up exponentially and 90+% of all life on Earth will cease to exist. This is a certainty...

It is that "simple" we are facing dire consequences if we do not mitigate our carbon emissions and start trying to reverse the collapse, which is already happening...

Now one the things that have a great influence on the climate are anthropogenic energy consumption patterns, mainly the consumption of fossil fuels, we burn them to create heat and motion. That's basically it! But the scale in which we do it is so vast that we're already seeing the cliff, we know there's an end to this route. We're going to reach the end of Coal around 2121 sounds quite specific doesn't it? This estimation can be found here. The end of oil is expected to be somewhere between 2050 and 2060, this estimation can be found here. And if this all isn't depressing enough, we will run out of Natural Gas as well, if current consumption rates continue we will run out somewhere between 2070 and 2080.

Let's face it, we are running out... If the world doesn't evict us before we have run out, we will run out there is no question about it. We have 100 years worth of coal burning left, 60 years of gas and 40 years of oil. This is no fable, this is the truth, any wingnut, any moron that is yelling that we need to be burning fossil fuels like crazy is out of his mind. But that was already clearly implied with the titles I used to describe them.

The demand for energy is going to increase, we have all sorts of drivers in this respect. Let's have a look at the growing economies and the developing countries. We [the west] are already energy hogs, we produce and consume energy at an alarmingly high rate and the "upcommers" want to do the same. They also want a life of plenty, prosperity, wealth. The demand for energy is still low in this regard, and yet the end of our energy sources in terms of fossil fuels are already in sight...

Let's have a look at the prime suspect, the culprit that is arguably one of the worst contributors to Anthropogenic Climate Change : Coal-burned power plants. There are about 2300 Coal-fired power plants in the world, an estimated 7000 individual "units". I guess that by "unit" they mean a furnace tied to a generator. Source : https://www.worldcoal.org/resources/frequently-asked-questions/

Now let's have a look at something from which I could find a complete record, the total energy generation in the world in 2012 : 22.668 TWh. Source : http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2014.pdf

The fun bit is that 40.4% of this energy generation came from coal : 9158 TWh Let's assume this previously dictated number of 7000 generators was quite accurate in 2012 (give or take 500) : 1,308TWh (1308000 MWh) per Coal-fired generator. Now divide this number by 8766 hours gives a figure of 148MW per Coal-fired generator. They run 60% of the time which means that the total capacity of each of these generators on average is 250MW. This is roughly 750MW per Coal-fired energy plant, seems legit...

In total this would mean that there would be about 1.75 million MW/1750GW worth of coal-fired energy capacity in the world in the year 2012.

Why would I do this rather arduous math, I hate math!!! Well it's quite simple, I try to get a grasp of the scope of the problems we are facing here.

We want to supplant coal-fired energy, it's one of the most essential steps in aggressively mitigating our negative influence on the biosphere.

So I am going to look at two technologies in particular because that's where the discussions are leading me, wind's up first : An average 5MW wind turbine generates about 15340 MWh (0.01534 TWh) a year at a capacity factor of 35%. In order to fill up the 9158 TWh required to supplant every Coal-fired plant you need about 597.000 windmills. Filling up the 22.668 TWh gives us the stupefying amount of 1.48 million windmills every 20 years... This is only if we wanted to maintain business as it was in 2012 and only for the electricity portion of it.

The average Nuclear power plant is worth 862MW @ 90% of the time. This translates into 6800662 MWh / 6.8 TWh. We can supplant Coal fired electricity by building 1350 nuclear power plants... And somewhere in the range of 3300~3400 for the business as it was in 2012 for all electricity generation.

Now what seems more feasible to you? Acknowledge that there ARE 2300 coal-fired plants in the world, so supplanting them with a lesser number of nuclear power plants is absolutely possible and it can be done!

The problem is that energy demand is going to grow significantly, and we need heavy punchers to wack coal out of the equation. it will be unsurprising if the amount of energy required will grow with at least 15/30% within the next couple of decades. Let's soup things up with up by electrifying transportation, let's buy Tesla Model S shall we? Don't get me wrong!!! I think the Tesla Model S is an AMAZING car, I would like to own one very very badly. The electrification of the transport sector, the end of fossil fuels is going to shift the burden from fossil fuels to electricity generation.

Think about it, electrifying our transportation is going to take a shitload of electricity... This is going to make the demand for electricity going to grow waaaaaaay out of proportions. And yes, fossil fuels are running out, so we will be forced to do it... Want to stack up even more inefficiency in an already stressed energy sector? Add Hydrogen...  Nope, the hydrogen economy doesn't work, it is a ridiculous idea that is never going to work, ever...

How about strip mining? Do we want to get rid of it? Or at least mitigate it?

 

 

Then don't go for the most strip mine intensive process of them all... The less your energy density is, the more materials you are going to need, this is an absolute no-brainer which I can easily back up with math, but it's to cumbersome... I've run out of my "math juice" for the day...

 

And the great thing about nuclear energy is that it's basic fuels are ubiquitous! Not only can we do nuclear on Uranium and Thorium, but with SEA WATER as well! Yes Fusion is going to happen eventually...

The issue is : TIME IS RUNNING OUT!!! LET'S SETTLE THE DEBATE!!!

Recapturing carbon will be one of the things we seriously have to consider, we need to balance the CO2 levels back below the 350PPM mark. It can be done naturally and mechanically. I'm not particularly fond of the latter because it takes energy to do it. So I will settle for natural carbon capture, which is quite easy to achieve actually. Reverse "deforestation" I will call it. We need to reverse deforestation... Let's start giving back some area's to nature, you know let forests grow, help them a little bit by germinating your own tree seeds and such... Not that I'm a real tree-hugger, but I love the atmosphere we live in and trees play a pretty big role in keeping the air breathable...

Honest disclaimer : I am a nobody, don't cite me, I don't have any credentials or credibility, don't take my word for it, be very sceptical about my writings, go and look for the truth yourself. If you do, I'm quite certain that it will roughly coincide with what I've presented to you in this article.

What drives me

Life is ending, there is no afterlife, life is meaningless, there is no purpose and yet here we are. What to do with our precious spark of life? I am an Atheist, an Anti-Theist and openly secular. This might give you a sense of where I am coming from. Despite being able to thank my parents for my existence, my existence in particular is incredibly fortunate, Richard Dawkins tells in "Climbing Mount Improbable" that the probability of me being here, in contrast to the stupefying amount of different individuals is incredibly small, yet here I am. Thanks mom and dad for starting this stupendous tombola at precisely the right moment!

Let's make the most out of the life we have been given.

So what brings me to writing about science, technology, ecology and human affairs [especially religion]? Looking around me, listening to the news, and reading publications on the internet have led me to accept some horrible truths about the current situation on the world. Our civilization is incredibly destructive. Lets face it, we break the earth, dig into it, explode parts of it, pump stuff up, burn stuff, destroy forests, destroy habitats, kill animals and last but certainly not least kill each other.

I think we as a human civilization can become much better, much more peaceful, much more in tune with each other and with the Earth and it's ecosystem.

What drives me?

• I am an Atheist and an Anti-Theist (yes the two are not the same)
• I am openly Secular
• I don't believe in god or gods and do not accept any religion to be true, nor be credible codes to live by
• Morality is an innate concept, we are moral by nature
• I work against religion, I want it to go extinct or at least become a very marginal activity
• I accept the science about climate change
• I am optimistic about science and reason and foster a love for it
• I love cosmology and biology
• I love space exploration
• I want to promote nuclear energy [fusion and fission] as a means to solve our energy problems and to propel humanity into a future of plenty and amazing discoveries
• To help people look at renewable energy with a sceptical mind, they are not as green as advertised
• Anyone and everyone should have access to top notch education
• Everyone should have access to the best possible medical facilities free of charge
• We work to better ourselves and our civilization
• I don't like capitalism nor communism, I want the "Star Trek" future
• We have no need for "supreme leaders"
• I am opposed to owning guns, these things are designed for a single purpose, it is no coincidence that countries where a lot of guns are owned, also have a lot of gun related deaths, something about causation - correlation...
• I am not a pacifist
• I am an avid support of reforestation and forest conservation efforts

These drivers help me find something to write every day, it helps me think about interesting things every day and helps me go out and find new knowledge every day. It's this hunger for knowledge and the lust to share it that I hope others have as well, and from a brief look around on the internet it seems that it is and that's good!

We are explorers, during explorations we make amazing discoveries. I want US [human civilization] to do cool things, no more stifling geopolitics, no more budget strains, I want us to simply do stuff because its awesome!

This is also the premise of the book that I'm currently pitching, hoping to find an agent that wants to help me sell the book.