Written by Ryan McGuine //
The history of humanity is to a large extent one of harvesting increasingly powerful sources of energy. Indeed, the relationship between energy consumption and income level is nearly linear, and Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev famously defined a society’s level of technological development based on the amount of energy it is capable of using and storing. But at the same time that controlling ever-higher amounts of energy is necessary for improving levels of well-being, it also creates immense dangers.
Everything is made up of atoms, which themselves are composed of protons and neutrons inside a nucleus with electrons surrounding them (the physicists reading will forgive the simplification and failure to mention quarks). Protons in the nucleus seem like they should repel each other because they have the same charge, but in fact they are held together by something called the strong nuclear force, or sometimes simply “the strong force.” The strong force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, the other three being gravity, the weak nuclear force, and the electromagnetic force. It is so strong as to be impossible to comprehend based on daily experience – it is roughly six thousand trillion trillion trillion times stronger than gravity.
Today’s large electricity generating nuclear reactors take advantage of the strong force by breaking apart atoms in a process called nuclear fission. In a nuclear fission reactor, neutrons are fired at fuel rods. When the neutrons hit the nuclei of uranium atoms in the fuel rods, more neutrons are released, kicking off a chain reaction of splitting atoms. The process of splitting atoms releases a lot of energy in the form of heat, which is used to boil water to make steam, which drives a steam turbine. This is all done underwater in order to slow down the neutrons and to prevent the fuel rods from overheating. Many, many engineering hours are spent designing redundant systems and planning maintenance to ensure that there is always cool water flowing to the reactor, since fuel rod overheating is the overwhelming public safety concern at a nuclear fission power plant.
There is another type of electricity generation from nuclear reactions called fusion, which harvests the energy released when two uranium nuclei are combined. Fusion has a few major advantages over traditional fission – the fuel is relatively abundant compared to uranium, it is an intrinsically safe process which can be shut off within seconds, and does not create radioactive waste. However, creating the conditions for a fusion reaction to take place requires a tremendous amount of heat and pressure, making reactions difficult to sustain. There have been numerous major breakthroughs in fusion recently, with some reactors approaching the milestone of producing as much energy as is contained in the fuel. Due to mechanical realities like losses and inefficiencies however, they remain a long way from producing as much energy is consumed by the reactor, and have yet to sustain the reactions for longer than a few minutes.
However, the strong force is also what lends nuclear weapons their terrifying destruction. Russia’s ongoing war of choice in Ukraine makes clear some of the dangers involved. On one hand, Russia has repeatedly used threats of nuclear weapons as a warning to prevent NATO member countries from intervening militarily. At the same time, fighting in the vicinity of numerous nuclear power plants in Ukraine have raised worries of a meltdown, like what happened at Chernobyl. While there has been no intentional destruction of nuclear power plants so far in the conflict, plant safety depends crucially on the ability to cool reactors, as well as level-headed operators. Nearby conflict endangers both.
Nuclear war is one of numerous potential existential risks that threaten to end humanity, or at least reduce it to a much lower level of development. These risks can broadly be divided into natural risks like asteroids and volcano eruptions, and anthropogenic risks like artificial intelligence and biosecurity. By most estimates, the latter are more likely by a few orders of magnitude. As humanity continues to develop more powerful technologies, the chances that accidental missteps, to say nothing of intentional malicious use, can produce catastrophic outcomes continues to increase. While the probability of one of these events is probably quite low in any given year, even events with low annual probabilities can get uncomfortably high over a longer time frame. For example, if the probability of some event is 1%, then the cumulative probability of that event happening within 100 years is around 63% – better odds than a coin flip.
Modern societies depend on massive flows of reliable, inexpensive energy. Whoever controls those flows can either unleash them productively to boost scientific research and individual comfort, or aggressively to cause destruction. Leaders within centralized power structures are more likely to engage in conflict than citizens want, since they are unaccountable to public sentiment. This makes advocating democracy in countries with authoritarian governments like Russia and China top priority in avoiding future conflict. On the other hand, great power competition is a major driver of multiple catastrophic risks. Decades of antagonizing rhetoric and policies toward the Russian and Chinese governments has driven tensions steadily higher, and has been used to justify dangerous actions like accelerating research on weapons systems and AI capabilities. Condemning actions by authoritarian regimes while maintaining collaboration on humanity-ending risks requires careful balance.
Homo sapiens have successfully avoided going extinct for about 300,000 years. This is good news! However, there have been numerous close calls with nuclear weapons, researchers are actively developing dangerous viruses, and algorithms which are relatively simple compared to those likely to be developed have polarized societies, making it harder to coordinate responses to other threats. This should give ardent optimists pause about humanity’s future success. Extinction would be a shame because humanity would never reach higher levels of Kardashev’s scale, and even more so because it would involve destroying the only observable conscious life in the universe. To avoid that, this correspondent raises existential risks as something society should act on earlier rather than later, and argues that it is currently not taking enough action on them. Progress and safety are complementary goals, but it is all too easy for the former to outpace the latter.