Would free energy save or destroy the world?

[toadspittle]

Say we discover a cheap, endless, nonpolluting energy source tomorrow. Something the size and cost of a coffeemaker that could power the average American house, and could easily be scaled up or down to power land, sea, and air vehicles. No bottleneck of exotic materials (so we don't now face a critical shortage of palladium, or beryllium, or whatever). No special fuel. No wastes.

What happens to the world? I often read about people pursuing zero-point-energy technology who claim that it would end all problems--reduce pollution, make things that are too energy-intensive at present (some kinds of recycling, say; distillation/desalinization for dry and poor areas of the world; mechanical agriculture techniques for subsistence farmers who can't afford petroleum-fueled machinery) possible, and make needless the sort of oil imperialism many say the US has long been engaged in. Heck, we might even be able to power spacecraft at an economical lift cost.

But would this be the case? Sure, we wouldn't need to fight for oil (limitless energy would even make plant-derived plastics and lubricants economical, so even that need would be gone). But there are always going to be other resources to fight for (like arable land ... although limitless energy might make less-arable places more fertile)--not to mention that people seem to like to fight just for the hell of it. Plus, limitless energy would now make it possible to fuel militaries and military economies much more easily--never again could we starve an Imperial Japan or a Nazi Germany with an oil embargo. (And, of course, there's always the possibility that the new infinite energy source will be capable of creating brand-new, infinitely destructive weapons.)

So, free energy: Salvation or Doom?

[The Tim]

I think the sheer unreality of the situation makes it hard to estimate what would happen. People are notoriously bad at guessing about the impact of things they have in front of them, let alone hypothetical technology that may be impossible.

What I do think is that who ever controls the technology, if they can keep control of it, will be very wealthy and have a frightening amount of influence. After all a number of people are going to be falling over themselves to get to use what is probably more bang for the buck.

Also greater energy generally means higher vehicle speeds available to individuals at less cost. It may well push on space travel but it will definitely shrink the world further.

I don't think that better energy sources will save or damn humanity, just like no other technology has saved us or damned us. Social developments, ethical theories and the spread of rational thought are what can save humanity not new toys.

[Walton Firm]

Global warming might still be a problem, even with no human-emitted greenhouse gasses and a perfectly clean energy source. Whenever you turn stored energy into something useful (i.e. moving a car), some of it is going to escape into the atmosphere in the form of heat, and not all of that heat is going to immediately radiate off into space.

So, if we had an unlimited supply of energy an used it frivoluosly without caring about efficiency (after all, it's unlimited and non-polluting, so why worry about that?), we could end up with a serious global warning problem even without greenhouse gasses.

Then again, I'm an optimist, so I say: neither salvation nor doom, and the advantages would probably outweigh the problems.

[hansel]

Free energy = a new generation of incredibly destructive weapons. While we're busy installing our Perpetua (TM) devices in our homes, someone else would be figuring out how to make a bigger boom.

I think the biggest threat would the risk of a post-nuclear holocaust. Imagine the world where every country has nukes, and then try to imagine global stability.

[Master Wang-Ka]

Would it destroy society? Depends on who you ask. Outsourcing millions of jobs to India hasn't destroyed us; it's freed lots of Americans to seek greater opportunities, now that they've been freed of their careers.

I suspect oil company executives would not see it that way, though, if it were THEIR industry suddenly going down the toilet. They'd fight it tooth and nail. Unless we let them own the technology, of course.

Assuming it came to pass, though, I doubt it would bring about world peace or anything. India, Pakistan and Ireland have taught me that there is always something you can fight about.... no matter what.

So long as one human feels any great need to shove his will down someone else's throat, there will never really be world peace.

[Padeye]

As Scott Adams pointed out in a rather good boot, the future will not be like Star Trek. People are mean, stupid and greedy and free energy won't change that. You also might draw a distinction between free energy in a thermodynamic sense and the economic sense. Poor people won't get the benefit of free energy unless there is an incentive for the rich to give it to them. Perhaps it won't be all that gloomy but I'm not predicting it will be like Star Trek: First Contact.

[Darkhold]

As for fueling military machines and some type of uber-nuke you forget the main thrust of wars is to get ahold of more resources.

Endless power reduces the need for most of these resources. The reason most terrorists are mad at various countries is their perception of them meddling with their policies (if that's true or not is for another thread) most countries wouldn't waste their time with meddling with other countries if they didn't have anything they wanted.

There no doubt still would be wars over territory and over religious/ethnic divides but overall the world tension would ease considerably.

The real question would be how our economy would realign itself. The initial result of this new tech would crush many pillars of our economy.......it'd have to be introduced very slowly to avoid a major upset.