New President Cannot Fear Physics
Comfort with science, technology now mandatory for world leaders
Oct 27, 2008
In the dispute over what does and doesn’t constitute the qualifications to be President, Richard A. Muller raises a question largely absent from the campaigns and debates:
“Are you intimidated by physics? Are you mystified by global warming? Are you baffled, bewildered and befuddled by physics and high technology? If so, then you are not ready to be a world leader.”
Somewhere in that next national budget, someone needs to install an earmark of $26.95 for a copy of Muller’s “Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines” (W.W. Norton and Co., 2008). A professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, Muller has crafted a politically-timely book from a highly popular course he teaches for non-science students at Berkeley.
Energy Policy a Challenge
Muller leads the future President (and any interested citizens) on a plain-language tour through issues of “Terrorism,” “Energy,” “Nukes,” “Space” and “Global Warming.” With energy policy a make-or-break factor in the next Administration, Muller contends that no field of physics suffers from more misunderstanding than energy. His scientific insights can challenge both conventional and non-conventional wisdom.
An example with direct consequences for coal-rich states such as Illinois: Coal is 20 times cheaper than gasoline, for the same energy yield. Gasoline can actually be made from coal by a series of chemical processes that combine the carbon from coal with the hydrogen from water to form hydrocarbons – the basic chemical component of oil. But plants using this “Fischer-Tropsch” technique are expensive to build, and any use of coal raises an unavoidable (and inconvenient) truth: “Not only is coal dirt-cheap,” says Muller, “it is also dirty.”
Made in China: Dust and Soot
How dirty? Muller cites a 2007 study suggesting that dust and soot from coal plants in China might be affecting climate changes in Alaska, where the permafrost is melting. Muller also points out that burning coal – which is virtually all carbon – produces more carbon dioxide than does either oil or natural gas, for the same energy yield. Carbon dioxide is a prime culprit in global warming.
Can so-called “clean coal” cure this double threat to the environment? Muller holds out promise for an elaborate and expensive process called “carbon capture and storage (CCS).” The offending carbon dioxide is
pumped deep into the ground, into oil and gas fields and coal beds, for long-term storage — good perhaps for a thousand years.
FutureGen in Limbo
Illinois had been selected for a pilot project in FutureGen, a national public-private program running more than $1 billion. An extremely hot, ultra-efficient coal-burning plant would be combined with CCS (also called sequestration). But this year, the U.S. Department of Energy cut FutureGen funding, leaving the Illinois project in limbo.
Decisions like FutureGen’s future in Illinois are waiting on all sides for the next President. He is not likely to receive advice that is any better (or more challenging) than this offering from Muller: “To make wise policy decisions, you must not only understand the science but also be familiar with the evidence.” The stakes couldn’t be higher, for this election and beyond.
