Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (37 page)

This conundrum was explored in an episode in
Star Trek: The Next Generation,
in which a capsule from the twentieth century is found floating in outer space. Inside the capsule are the frozen bodies of people who suffered from incurable diseases of that primitive time period, hoping to be revived in the future. The doctors of the starship
Enterprise
quickly cure these individuals of their diseases and revive them. These fortunate individuals are surprised that their gamble paid off, but one of them is a shrewd capitalist. The first thing he asks is: What time period is this? When he finds out that he is now alive in the twenty-fourth century, he quickly realizes that his investments must today be worth a fortune. He immediately demands to contact his banker back on earth. But the crew of the
Enterprise
is bewildered. Money? Investments? These do not exist in the future. In the twenty-fourth century, you simply ask for something, and it is given to you.

This also calls into question the search for the perfect society, or utopia, a word coined in the novel written by Sir Thomas More in 1516 titled
Utopia.
Appalled by the suffering and squalor he saw around him, he envisioned a paradise on a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. In the nineteenth century, there were many social movements in Europe that searched for various forms of utopia, and many of them eventually found sanctuary by escaping to the United States, where we see evidence of their settlements even today.

On one hand, a replicator could give us the utopia that was once envisioned by nineteenth-century visionaries. Previous experiments in utopia failed because of scarcity, which led to inequalities, then bickering, and ultimately collapse. But if replicators solve the problem of scarcity, then perhaps utopia is within reach. Art, music, and poetry will flourish, and people will be free to explore their fondest dreams and wishes.

On the other hand, without the motivating factor of scarcity and money, it could lead to a self-indulgent, degenerate society that sinks to the lowest level. Only a tiny handful, the most artistically motivated, will strive to write poetry. The rest of us, the critics claim, will become good-for-nothing loafers and slackers.

Even the definitions used by the utopians are called into question. The mantra for socialism, for example, is: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution.” The mantra for communism, the highest stage of socialism, is: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

But if replicators are possible, then the mantra simply becomes: “To each according to his desire.”

There is, however, a third way of looking at this question. According to the Cave Man Principle, people’s basic personalities have not changed much in the past 100,000 years. Back then, there was no such thing as a job. Anthropologists say that primitive societies were largely communal, sharing goods and hardships equally. Daily rhythms were not governed by a job and pay, since neither of them existed.

Yet people back then did not become loafers, for several reasons. First, they would starve to death. People who did not do their share of the work were simply thrown out of the tribe, and they soon perished. Second, people became proud of their work, and even found meaning in their tasks. Third, there was enormous social pressure to remain a productive member of society. Productive individuals could marry to pass their genes onto the next generation, while the genes of loafers usually died with them.

So why will people live productive lives when replicators are invented and everyone can have anything they want? First of all, replicators would guarantee that no one starves. But second, most people will probably still continue to work because they are proud of their skills and find meaning in their labor. But the third reason, social pressure, is harder to maintain without infringing on personal liberties. Instead of social pressure there would probably have to be a major shift in education to change people’s attitudes toward work and reward, so that the replicator is not abused.

Fortunately, since progress will be slow and the replicator is a century or so away, society will have plenty of time to debate the merits and implications of this technology and adjust to this new reality so that society does not disintegrate.

More than likely, the first replicators will be expensive. As MIT robotics expert Rodney Brooks says, “Nanotechnology will thrive, much as photolithography thrives—in very expensive, controlled situations rather than as a freestanding mass-market technology.” The problem of unlimited free goods will not be so much a problem. Given the sophistication of these machines, it may take many decades after they are first created to bring down the cost.

I once had an interesting conversation with Jamais Cascio, a leading futurist with a long career of thoughtfully contemplating the outlines of tomorrow. First, he told me that he doubted the singularity theory mentioned in
Chapter 2
, observing that human nature and social dynamics are much too messy, complicated, and unpredictable to be fit into a simple neat theory. But he also admitted that remarkable advances in nanotechnology might eventually create a society in which there was an overabundance of goods, especially with replicators and robots. So I asked him: How will society behave when goods are nearly for free, when society is finally so rich that there is no necessity to work?

Two things would happen, he said. First, he thought there would be enough wealth to guarantee a decent, minimum income for everyone, even if they did not work. So there probably would be a fraction of the population who become permanent slackers. He foresaw a permanent safety net for society. This might be undesirable, but it is unavoidable, especially if replicators and robots meet all our material needs. Second, this would be compensated for, he thought, by unleashing a revolution in the entrepreneurial spirit. Freed from the fear of plunging into poverty and ruin, the more industrious individuals would have more initiative and take on additional risks to create new industries and new opportunities for others. He foresaw a new renaissance of society, as the creative spirit was unleashed from the fear of bankruptcy.

In my own field, physics, I see that most of us engage in physics not for the money but for the sheer joy of discovery and innovation. Often, we passed up lucrative jobs in other fields because we wanted to pursue a dream, not the dollar. The artists and intellectuals I know also feel the same way—that their goal is not to amass as big a bank account as possible but to be creative and ennoble the human spirit.

Personally, if by 2100 society becomes so rich that we are surrounded by material wealth, I feel that society may react in a similar way. A fraction of the population will form a permanent class of people who simply refuse to work. Others may be liberated from the constraints of poverty and pursue creative scientific and artistic achievement. For them, the sheer joy of being creative, innovative, and artistic will outweigh the lure of a materialistic world. But the majority will continue to work and be useful simply because it is part of our genetic heritage, the Cave Man Principle within us.

But there is one problem that even replicators cannot solve. And this is the problem of energy. All these miraculous technologies need vast amounts of energy to drive them. Where will this energy come from?

The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone. And the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.
—JAMES CANTON

In my mind, (fusion) ranks with the original gift of fire, back in the mists of prehistory.
—BEN BOVA

The stars were the energy source of the gods. When Apollo rode across the sky in a chariot drawn by fire-breathing horses, he illuminated the heavens and the earth with the infinite power of the sun. His power was rivaled only by that of Zeus himself. Once, when Semele, one of Zeus’s numerous mortal lovers, begged to see him in his true form, he reluctantly obliged. The resulting burst of blinding, cosmic energy burned her to a crisp.

In this century, we will harness the power of the stars, the energy source of the gods. In the short term, this means ushering in an era of solar/hydrogen power to replace fossil fuels. But in the long term, it means harnessing the power of fusion and even solar energy from outer space. Further advances in physics could usher in the age of magnetism, whereby cars, trains, and even skateboards will float through the air on a cushion of magnetism. Our energy consumption could be drastically reduced, since almost all the energy used in cars and trains is simply to overcome the friction of the road.

END OF OIL?

Today our planet is thoroughly wedded to fossil fuels in the form of oil, natural gas, and coal. Altogether, the world consumes about 14 trillion watts of power, of which 33 percent comes from oil, 25 percent from coal, 20 percent from gas, 7 percent from nuclear, 15 percent from biomass and hydroelectric, and a paltry .5 percent from solar and renewables.

Without fossil fuels, the world economy would come to a grinding halt.

One man who clearly saw the end of the age of oil was M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil petroleum engineer. In 1956, Hubbert presented a far-reaching talk to the American Petroleum Institute, making a disturbing prediction that was universally derided by his colleagues at the time. He predicted that U.S. oil reserves were being depleted so rapidly that soon 50 percent of the oil would be taken out of the ground, triggering an irreversible era of decline that would set in between 1965 and 1971. He saw that the total amount of oil in the United States could be plotted as a bell-shaped curve, and that we were then near the top of that curve. From then on, things could only go downhill, he predicted. This meant that oil would become increasingly difficult to extract, hence the unthinkable would happen: the United States would begin importing oil.

His prediction seemed rash, even outlandish and irresponsible, since the United States was still pumping an enormous amount of oil from Texas and elsewhere in this country. But oil engineers are not laughing anymore. Hubbert’s prediction was right on the button. By 1970, U.S. oil production peaked at 10.2 million barrels a day and then fell. It has never recovered. Today, the United States imports 59 percent of its oil. In fact, if you compare a graph of Hubbert’s estimates made decades ago with a graph of actual U.S. oil production through 2005, the two curves are almost identical.

Now the fundamental question facing oil engineers is: Are we at the top of Hubbert’s peak in world oil reserves? Back in 1956, Hubbert also predicted that global oil production would peak in about fifty years. He could be right again. When our children look back at this era, will they view fossil fuels the same way we view whale oil today, as an unfortunate relic of the distant past?

I have lectured many times in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Middle East, speaking about science, energy, and the future. On one hand, Saudi Arabia has 267 billion barrels of oil, so this country seems to be floating on a huge underground lake of crude oil. Traveling throughout Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, I could see an exorbitant waste of energy, with huge fountains gushing in the middle of the desert, creating mammoth artificial ponds and lakes. In Dubai, there is even an indoor ski slope with thousands of tons of artificial snow, in utter defiance of the sweltering heat outside.

But now the oil ministers are worried. Behind all the rhetoric of “proven oil reserves,” which are supposed to reassure us that we will have plenty of oil for decades to come, there is the realization that many of these authoritative oil figures are a deceptive form of make-believe. “Proven oil reserves” sounds soothingly authoritative and definitive, until you realize that the reserves are often the creation of a local oil minister’s wishful thinking and political pressure.

Speaking to the experts in energy, I could see that a rough consensus is emerging: we are either at the top of Hubbert’s peak for world oil production, or are perhaps a decade away from that fateful point. This means that in the near future, we may be entering a period of irreversible decline.

Of course, we will never totally run out of oil. New pockets are being found all the time. But the cost of extracting and refining these will gradually skyrocket. For example, Canada has huge tar sands deposits, enough to supply the world’s oil for decades to come, but it is not cost-effective to extract and refine it. The United States probably has enough coal reserves to last 300 years, but there are legal restrictions, and the cost of extracting all the particulate and gaseous pollutants is onerous.

Furthermore, oil continues to be found in politically volatile regions of the world, contributing to foreign instability. Oil prices, when graphed over the decades, are like a roller-coaster ride, peaking at an astonishing $140 per barrel in 2008 (and more than $4 per gallon at the gas pump) and then plunging due to the great recession. Although there are wild swings, due to political unrest, speculation, rumors, etc., one thing is clear: the average price of oil will continue to rise over the long term.