How to overcome our energy problems

Sir,
I read with interest Gwynne Dyers’ article about nuclear power (‘Time to Support Nuclear Energy?’). There is no doubting his assertion that nuclear power will give power without carbon-dioxide proliferation but there is another way. If you had read Dr K O’Neill’s book The High Frontier written in the 70s during the first oil crisis you would have heard of Solar Power Satellites. These would give us not only unlimited power but without the environmental damage of any other form of energy production. The Space Studies Institute (www.ssi.org) has the files on the process. Gaia is only concerned with a closed system, by opening the system and using the only efficient fusion reactor in the solar system (the sun) we can overcome our problems. We can have continued development without poisoning the earth. If we had acted in the 1970s very little of the subsequent damage would have occurred, we can and must act now if we have a chance to stop the end of our civilisation and the death of most of the world’s population through “Malthusian” disasters. We cannot go back we must go forward.

Capt Richard N Taylor
ex-British Airways B747

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