Science Fiction For Dummies

By Jave Harron

Ecotech: Green Machines

Hey there, readers! Today, I'd like to talk about a topic that's especially relevant with the energy crisis. That topic is ecotechnology, or green machines. Contrary to what certain hippies, ecoterrorists, Luddites, and technophobes say, scientific advancement is the best way to counter the effects of industrial growth. Without science and advanced technology, there are no alternative fuels, economical and clean renewable energy sources, and air filters for clearing out nasty toxins. In fact, ecotechnology is hardly a recent development. While most people trace the development of ecotechnology to the Sixties, and perhaps a bit earlier to the conservationists at the dawn of the 20th century, the truth is it's a lot older than you might think.

Ecotechnology, broadly defined, has been around for thousands of years. The first arguble example of it is actually agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals for farming. Fire helped us change the environment to one we were able to find more to our liking. Ecotechnology allowed the first human settlements to grow, and these would become the first cities in time. So, in short, we have ecotech to thank for our civilization in the first place.

But what about when human numbers swell, putting more stress on the environment? Civilizations can collapse and species go extinct in places that reach the 'carrying capacity' of their environment and resources. Lack of energy available (whether in the form of farmland, fish numbers, fossil fuels, or prey animals or even sunlight) combined with a lack of raw resources (minerals, oil-based goods, nutrients in the soil, and so on) can lead directly to political instability. After all, a bad harvest means pissed off farmers. In largely agrarian countries with large numbers of annoyed farmers, this easily translates into political unrest. (Can we say 'Russian Revolution' and 'French Revolution,' anyone?) The unlucky Russian farmers hated the Czars, and replaced them with the darn Commies. The French monarchs lost their heads, and got replaced by an ad hoc “republic” followed by Napoleon's ascent to power. So, environmental concerns are far more than just saving species or preserving wilderness (though those are a part as well). Environmental concerns also include humans. We made the mess, but nature can't clean a lot of it up too fast. So, we've got to find ways of cleaning up a mess (or at least minimizing it) without making it worse than it was before.

Sounds a lot easier than it actually is. But luckily, ecotechnology is something we noticed in the past, and used for thousands of years. Here, I'm going to discuss a few technologies we find in our immediate environment, and how they were applied, how they are applied, and how they might be applied.

Water:

“When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.”

-Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"

The ancient Greeks, Romans, Indians (like Harrapa and Indus valley civilization), and Chinese developed some of the first “industries” by use of waterwheel driven mills, and even sewers. Flush toilets are a true mark of civilization, and we have the ancient Minoans and Indians to thank for that. Water is one of the simplest and most efficient and practical ways of getting energy from the environment. Streams and rivers keep on flowing (unless cut off or blocked or dried up). Water can move machines that are too big for humans or animals. Water wheels have been used to grind wheat, run blast furnaces, and even generate electrical power. Modern hydroelectric dams use giant turbines to generate enough energy to power entire cities.

More modern applications are also being considered for offshore power generation. The tides are a fairly constant and predictable source of energy. Say we could put a bunch of mechanical fins and flippers connected to generators on the ocean floor. They could use the tides to generate electrical energy. They'd be safe from storms, and they'd also have less effect on the environment than yet another dam going up. Plus they would be invisible to people on the shore, since they'd be out away from beaches used for recreational swimming and deep enough to avoid any incidents with boats. Unlike wind, tides are much more constant. Of wind and water, I like water much better for these reasons.

Wind:

“Riders of the storm,

one with the wind,

defenders of creation.

Riders of the storm,

aligned with the sun.”

-Riders of the Storm lyrics, Hammerfall

It's hard not to think of Holland and windmills when you think of wind power. Originally, the Dutch used windmills to pump water away to claim land from the sea. They made a nifty discovery and found that those windmills could also be used to grind wheat and flour. Since then, windmills have been found on places as diverse as farms (to help pump out ground water) to power stations (for new wind farms). Many new wind farms are built offshore, since plenty of breeze comes off the ocean.

Not everyone's keen on this idea, though. Even in some normally pro-environmentalist places, people sometimes have “not in my backyard syndrome” where they feel the wind farm will ruin their perfect sunsets (despite the windfarm not being where the town things it would be). A main drawback of windfarms are that they must be constructed with large numbers of windmills to generate a significant amount of power. And even then, the amount they generate is often dependent on wind. That's why places with constant, but not as strong wind velocities are preferred to places with strong but unpredictable wind velocities. They can be built offshore or on land (plains often being a preferred spot), but can be vulnerable to increased wind (which is why many have shut-off mechanisms if they go above a certain velocity). While not everyone has access to an oceanic coastline, lots of wind is something a lot of landlocked nations do have. Too bad it's fairly uneconomical. Wind won't be blowing me away any time soon.

Solar:

“Our ancestors harnessed the power of a sun, and so again shall we.”

-Commissioner Pravin Lal, "The Science of Our Fathers" , Sid Meier's “Alpha Centauri”

Simply put, the sun powers life on Earth. No sunlight means no photosynthesis from plants. No plants means no food or oxygen. No oxygen means no animal life (including us) can survive. While developing fusion power ourselves is probably a good ways off, we can take advantage of an already existing giant fusion reactor in the neighborhood: the sun. Solar panels are a very obvious way to catch some of that energy. Sadly, solar panels are rather expensive for now, but new research has created some interesting possibilities. If we can get solar panels small and efficient enough to fit on, say, the shingles of a house or roof of a boat, or the like, we could get somewhere. Imagine, perhaps a portable, solar-powered battery recharger would be a good accessory for campers, soldiers, hikers, and people who spend a lot of time out doors.

A very practical use for solar generators is in the Third World, especially rural desert and tropical regions. All you might have is lots of sun, so why not use it for something other than helping crops grow and giving you skin cancer from UV exposure? Cheaper, affordable solar energy can help the Third World and First World alike. A particularly awesome idea for solar energy is described by Freeman Dyson in his book “The Sun, The Genome, and the Internet.” Solar energy can also be used as a power source by spacecraft and colonies. Solar panels may also be used to split hydrogen ions from water at some point in the future.

Geothermal: We have a very active planet. It spits up magma at us, shakes the ground from under our feet, and moves continents slowly farther from each other. Unlike tectonically dead worlds, like the Moon or Mars, our core has lots of magma and heavy, molten metals in it. Despite that shitty but unintentionally funny movie The Core, you'll need more than a few nukes to kick-start a planet's core. However, the Earth generally does get hotter the farther you go down.

This can be used for a few things. Hot springs, geysers, and active volcanoes generally have hotter ground near them due to things like heating the ground water. The difference in temperature between the surface and underground can be significant. One use is to pump water down there, and then use the heated water and steam for heating and industry. Of course, this is limited to places you can tap into underground hot places. An alternative ecology with a Europa-like iceworld may have radiation under the ice as the main source of heat for the world. If that's the case, digging low is the main way to warmth and heat, and perhaps food and water as well. A particularly interesting use of geothermal power was in Arthur C. Clarke's The Light of Other Days, where mini-wormholes were used to transport energy from the center of stars and planets directly into engines.

Hydrocarbons:

“Fossil fuels in the last century reached their extreme prices because of their inherent utility: they pack a great deal of potential energy into an extremely efficient package. If we can but sidestep the 100 million year production process, we can corner this market once again.”

-CEO Nwabudike Morgan, “Strategy Session”, Alpha Centauri

Yes, I'm talking about carbs. As in the things that the Atkins' diet urges you to avoid (quite stupidly, too). Carbohydrates give your body energy. Everything from the bread you have with your sandwich to the cookies you sneak after dinner to the gas you fill up your car with has very similar core components: chains of carbon atoms with lots of hydrogens hanging off the sides. Despite the different uses, there's one thing that hydrocarbons have in common: They are efficient stores of energy. Oil is the most popular for the current era, but hardly burns clean. But aside from pump million year old plantlife compressed by the Earth's crust for eons it out of the ground, how can we get some nice hydrocarbon fuels? The answer is biotech.

Biotech:

“Our gray technology of machines and computers will not disappear, but green technology will be moving ahead even faster. Green technology can be cleaner, more flexible and less wasteful, than our existing chemical industries. A great variety of manufactured objects could be grown instead of made. Green technology could supply human needs with far less damage to the natural environment. And green technology could be a great equalizer, bringing wealth to the tropical areas of the world which have most of the sunshine, most of the human population, and most of the poverty. I am saying that green technology could do all these good things, bringing wealth to the tropics, bringing economic opportunity to the villages, narrowing the gap between rich and poor.” -Freeman Dyson, “The Sun, The Genome, and the Internet”

The answer just might be to brew some ourselves. Scientists have created oil in labs, and a variety of biofuels exist. Ethanol, in particular, is popular, but there are some drawbacks. To convert farmland to grow the crops to grow it would be a nightmare (and hurt the food market). While Brazil uses sugar cane, and the US was considering corn, there's a cooler option that both are missing. It requires no arable land, can be used to make protein, self-replicates by itself, and all it needs is water. It's something you might see growing in any body of water near you. There's several types, species, and nicknames for it. Pond scum. Seaweed. Algae. By setting up an “algae farm,” you get a way to get protein and fuel at once. No arable land utilized, nor any drop in food production. It can work in the middle of the desert or ocean. A few town-level generators or ones placed on the roofs of buildings may be a cost-saving alternative to “importing” electricity from an outside provider. Or at least provide a backup. See more on biotech at the end.

Fusion, Antimatter, and Others:

“It will happen, and it will happen in our lifetimes. Fusion Power isn't just the future. Fusion Power is now.”

-T. M. Morgan-Reilly, Alpha Centauri

We're probably not discovering how to make these anything other than prototypes and research projects for the foreseeable future. But that's where all of you can come in, eh? Of course, by this time, we'd probably be well off planet. But to recap, there's how they'd work: Fusion works by combining two hydrogen molecules together to make helium. So far, we haven't been too lucky getting more energy out of it than we put into it. We know it's possible (since that's how stars work). The trick is getting it to a point where we can reliably and safely control it. Antimatter is another, very efficient power source (theoretically), but he trick is SAFELY harnessing it. We are all made of matter. Having a bunch of antimatter make contact with matter makes both explode. As odd as it sounds we use animatter in modern medicine in the form of the PET scan, or Positron Emission Tomography. That is, they inject you with a source of antimatter that floats around your body and releases energy once it contacts matter. Sensors then read the radiation emitted, and use it to construct a model of your tissue inside. But, it will be a ways before we can fly around the galaxy in antimatter-fueled spacecraft.

Infinite Energy and Thermodynamics:

“Perpetual motion is perpetual fantasy.” -Unknown

Now we leave the realms of science and venture into the fantastic. There can be no such thing as truly infinite energy (barring weird stuff like dark matter or energy or some strange quantum properties we don't know much about yet). The general consensus is that you simply cannot get more energy out of a process than you put in. (Something that we call the conservation of energy.) As odd as it sounds, most of the machines we use in everyday life have a good degree of 'waste energy' in the form of heat emissions (or other things). Even the internal combustion engine only uses about 25 to 33 percent of the total energy of the gas you put in it. Jet engines and rockets are more efficient, ranging from like 40 to 60 percent. (But they consume fuel a lot faster as a drawback.)

In terms of energy expenditures, your body also does not make optimal use of stored energy. What's left is stored as fat. Exercising gets rid of some of that extra stuff, forcing your body to convert it to normal stores. But in terms of energy efficiency, one of the most efficient engines is a type of motor protein in your body: kinesin. It transports proteins around your cells using ATP (adensine tri-phosphate). For every unit of energy it gets, it gets 66 to 70 percent of the energy of that ATP. Sadly, it only moves a few micrometers, so it's not like we can use it to power anything other than nanobots. A lot of the waste energy that our cars produce leaves in the form of exhaust. Now, if we had say, cheaper, hyper efficient cars and motors on a large scale, the total exhaust and waste heat we produce goes down A LOT. That's how energy efficiency can cut carbon emissions and all that waste heat. But, back to less realistic power sources.

If you have a fantasy story, you might just consider throwing thermodynamics out the window. Most portrayals of magic in fantasy have it completely disregard physics as is: throwing fireballs, calling down lightning, flying around, and animating hordes of undead things. Now, what if we apply just a bit of it: Say we have a simple alchemical alloy that works well as a spring. When tightened, it releases more energy than was required to compress it. If I use magic to animate a simple perpetual motion machine, I don't need steam or diesel engines. If I feed some of that energy back into the input of the system, I get more energy out than I put in. While unrealistic, if you want a way to get your fantasy world industrialized, thaumechanics is a great way to do it. Hell, you can even say it's the “Aether” responsible.

If I want something a bit more 'scientific' for whatever reason, there are also things I could use. There's plenty of pseudoscientific and unknown things to use. Zero Point Energy, dark energy, and strange quantum things may be worth investigating for inspiration. But getting back to ecotech, there's one more topic I feel requires discussion, and it's a fairly big one.

Terraforming

“In the great commons at Gaia's Landing we have a tall and particularly beautiful stand of white pine, planted at the time of the first colonies. It represents our promise to the people, and to Planet itself, never to repeat the tragedy of Earth.” -Lady Deirdre Skye,"Planet Dreams"

Many of you have heard of the term terraforming before. It's the theoretical science of transforming alien planets into being more habitable for (baseline) humans and Earth-based life. Some things, such as the moon and asteroids, lack enough gravity for them to hold any good amounts of atmosphere. If a planet is in the 'habitable zone' (roughly between the distances of Mars and Venus by Sol System reckoning), and it has enough mass, chances are it can be terraformed. Gas giants can't really be terraformed, and nor can small rockballs or slushballs (like the Moon and asteroids), at least in a hard scifi universe with a limited tech level.

To make a planet habitable to humans, you first need to know how it is beforehand. Does it have any native life? Is that life worth studying or preserving? How about self-aware beings on the surface of the planet? (A dark answer to this appears in Dan Simmons' Hyperion.) Are there clear signs someone is living there? Or are the lights on but nobody home? Perhaps nature's reconquered any signs a civilization once existed there, and only when a few scientists examine strange rock patterns does something click...

If an alien world's just some dead rockball, there's probably going to be little ethical issues with terraforming it. However, it requires a comparable atmosphere to Earth, self-sustaining ecosystem to maintain it, and enough minerals and materials for the Earth life to thrive. Genetic engineering may be able to modify Earth critters (and perhaps us) to survive in the new home. Alternatively, perhaps we could just change ourselves around, and try to squeeze into an existing niche rather than wipe out an entire ecosystem? Some ecological disruption will result from any foreign body arriving on the planet. (Hope you had your shots against alien superplague.) Or with posthuman implants, the whole issue may be pointless. Who needs to sterilize the alien world from orbit when you can just upload your mind into a robot body adapted to living in hard vacuum? (Aside from if said alien world was attacking you.)

Another issue that is often covered with terraforming is time. Even with self replicating terraforming machines and genetically engineered organisms made specifically for that planet, it will likely take thousands of years to get an ecosystem started, to say nothing of knowing if it works on the first shot. You'd need a lot of political and social resources to ensure the world is terraformed. If you have fallible baseline humans in charge (even smart ones relative to the rest), they still require a lot of not-as-intelligent workers to carry out their operations. Kim Stanley Robinson's “Red Mars” trilogy shows how much work and time would be necessary to overhaul the Red Planet. But if the one in charge of terraforming is a godlike AI that can easily simulate millions of scenarios for terraforming in a second, it will be able to handle it A LOT faster and more efficiently than the human simply due to exponentially more computing power.

Terraforming and creation of ecosystems may not just be for settling new worlds in space. A real world idea and perhaps one worth toying with is the creation of a new ecology to replace an old one. If ecological damage has been caused and species wiped out, perhaps genetic engineering could clone them back to life...or improve upon the original. Once you leave carbon-only life behind, this becomes a lot more interesting. Imagine an ecology of self-replicating machines that evolved on an airless rock in space, perhaps the “descendants” of an automated mining probe. Or, more interestingly, biomechanical organisms that blend both characteristics at once. Cyborg ecology would be hell of a lot more interesting than Generic Earth-Like World Number Ten Million. The setting Orion's Arm has some awesome ideas for alien ecologies, especially “Stanislaw,” a world where machines evolved.

There are some uses in the present and near future, as well. Freeman Dyson, an awesome physicist, believes that biotech can be used to help alleviate poverty in the Third World. In his nonfiction book “The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet,” Dyson says genetically engineered crops could be used to help give people nutrients they might be missing, and could be made so they can easily be converted to biofuels to power generators and technology. The Internet could counter the physical isolation of many poor villages. Now, this type of awesome, creative thinking may be worth exploring. Perhaps a group of clandestine humanitarians see suffering in the Third World, and go about creating their own species of crops for those purposes, avoiding draconian laws against genetic engineering... There's plenty of opportunity for ecotech now and in the future (and past), so don't be afraid to use it!

Also See:

Orion's Arm: Awesome worldbuilding exercise for a posthuman setting (wwwDOTorionsarmDOTcom)

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri: Old PC strategy game with a very well put together ecology and ecotech level. Here, the environment fights back...

“Red Mars” Trilogy by Kim Robinson Stanley: A VERY hard scifi about terraforming the Red Planet into a Blue one.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons: Awesome book with genocide of sentient species as a minor (yet disturbing) background point.

Dune by Frank Herbert: Herbert's most famous scifi, has a good degree of ecological scifi, but focuses more on political aspects and conspiracy. Blatant Cold War analogies abound.

The Jesus Incident by Frank Herbert: A religious scifi with ecological elements that inspired Alpha Centauri. I personally liked it more than Dune.