Experience has proved that to talk about weather is not dangerous. To do something about the weather will be more risky. Shall the weather become a ward of the government? Shall we have Republican Rainstorms and Democratic Droughts? In this way we shall certainly lose the last safe topic of conversation.
In the narrower confines of Europe where sovereign nation is a few hours from sovereign nation (as the wind blows) the situation will be much more serious. But even the whole planet may prove too small for fiercely conflicting interests when more knowing fingers are placed on more sensitive triggers.
To govern the weather can be most useful. It could give ample livelihood to all the people of the earth and to many more billions. Such endeavor is surely good and it would appear peaceful. But in this case as in many other cases knowledge will lead to power and power will lead to disaster if it is not tempered by wisdom.
Yet this knowledge or some similarly dangerous knowledge will come to us in our lifetimes. Nuclear explosions do not stand alone as a potential source of mischief.
CHAPTER XVII
Safety of Nuclear Reactors
At the beginning of the scientific and industrial revolution two old ambitions were found to be impossible dreams. One was the transmutation of elements, the other the machine of perpetual motion.
Modern nuclear physicists had to retract one of these statements: elements can be transmuted. But the product is expensive, for the time being much more expensive than gold.
The perpetual motion machine remains impossible in principle but the problem may be considered solved in practice. It can be proved, of course, that a machine can do useful work only if it burns up some fuel. But the price of fuel is quite often less than the cost to operate and maintain the machine.
Nuclear fuel even today is no more expensive than conventional fuel in many parts of the United States. Nuclear fuel is neither heavy nor bulky and can be therefore transported easily. In those parts of the world where ordinary fuel is expensive, nuclear energy will soon become of great importance. Furthermore, we shall learn to use most of the energy in uranium rather than just the part contained in its rare and valuable isotope, U²³⁵.
One only has to add a neutron to common U²³⁸ to get radioactive U²³⁹. In the course of time this decays into plutonium. This element can be used like U²³⁵: It produces fission, a great amount of energy and enough neutrons to keep the process going. We shall also learn to extract energy from other nuclear fuels. Thorium acts like uranium, while deuterium can give energy by building up bigger nuclei rather than breaking them into smaller pieces. Therefore the source of energy will be universally available and quite inexpensive. This really means that we are as well off as though we had a machine of perpetual motion.