Tuumaenergia läbimurre ja järgmised 10 aastat

Kas ma olen ainus, kes mäletab nõukogude ajast sellist animafilmi, kus peategelaseks keegi Aatomik? Mulle on miskipärast tuumaenergia meelde jäänud pigem potentsiaalse energiaallikana kui hirmuäratava katastroofina. Tundub, et tänu hiinlaste nutikusele ja energia janule võib see veel tõeks saada "pebble-bed" tehnoloogia abil nagu kirjutab Wired:

In that way, China's nuclear renaissance could feed the hydrogen revolution, enabling the country to leapfrog the fossil-fueled West into a new age of clean energy. Why worry about foreign fuel supplies when you can have safe nukes rolling off your own assembly lines? Why invoke costly international antipollution protocols when you can have motor vehicles that spout only water vapor from their tail pipes? Why debate least-bad alternatives when you have the political and economic muscle to engineer the dream?

The scale is vast, but so are China's ambitions. Gentlemen, start your reactors.

Kui poolgi selles artiklis kirjutatust vastab tõele, siis on minu entusiasm igati õigustatud, sest me liigume helgema tuleviku poole ja seda võimaldab turumajandus, progress. Kuid nagu traditsioonilisest tuumaenergiast vähe oleks, siis tasub meelde tuletada, et varsti alustatakse esimese termotuumareaktori ehitamist, kui selle asukohas kunagi kokku suudetakse leppida:

Talks at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna ended on Tuesday (9 November) without agreement on which location to choose for the world’s first nuclear fusion reactor.

Both Japan and France continue to fight to host the plant.

The EU together with Russia and China want the 12 billion dollar (9.3 bn euro) plant in Cadarache, near Marseille in France. But the US, South Korea and Tokyo support the northern fishing village of Rokkasho-mura in Japan.

Kel huvi ka poliitiliste mängude vastu, mida osalejad omavahel mängivad soovitan lugeda, ka EU Referendumi postitust Losing it the French Way:

Needless to say, this will not be achieved without large sums of money changing hands. According to Japanese sources, the matter is likely to be settled once the winner offers the loser a substantial consolation prize for the loss of the project. "The host will have to make a generous proposal to the non-host," said Satoru Ohtake, the director of nuclear fusion at Japan's science and technology ministry.

And from where is this "sweetener" to come? Enter "Brussels", where an EU official has conceded that the European Union had offered the requisite amount of dosh, but then refused to say how much, other than it was "a reasonable offer".

Omalt poolt viskan mängu ka veidi paranoilise mõtte, et hiinlased külvavad ühisprojektides segadust samal ajal oma ideede kallal nokitsedes. Tundub, et Hiina roll saab globaliseeruvas maailmas ainult kasvada ja seda vaikselt, peaaegu märkamatult, sest enamus maailma jälgib USA't kullipilguga.