Nigeria and nuclear fusion – Part 2

“Strategic planning,” entails the formulation of a scheme, a step-by-step strategy to meet present and future collective needs.

I lay great emphasis on “needs”. That’s because, to a very large extent, policy and planning in Africa are based on “wants”—often whimsical desires.

“Communication,” for example, is a fundamental need, not only of humans but also of terrestrial organisms generally.

Yet the flow of information between Nigerians, depends almost entirely on externally manufactured and controlled computer systems, cellular phones and satellites.

Domestically based landlines, even with the old hand-cranked phones, would be more strategic than blinking and bleeping gadgets that could easily be rendered inoperable, if it served foreign interests.

“Energy” is likewise a fundamental need. In fact, it is one of the four basic attributes of all living entities, along with “information,” “matter” and “structural organization”.

In simple terms, energy is the ability of a physical system to do work—to change its state or direction in some way.

We eat, because the biological processes that keeps us alive (our “metabolism”) requires energy. Hunting (predation) and agriculture developed to meet this need.

It is axiomatic, that when one living organism needs energy, another living thing must die—be it plant, fungus, insect, mammal, human or what-have-you.

Nor is this a matter of “morality”. It is the immutable mechanics of Earth’s biology, the built-in rules that govern the game of life on our planet.

When you walk into your kitchen, or go to a restaurant, and ask for “pounded yam with cow meat,” for instance, the anguish of the cow, in getting its throat cut, is not a consideration!

On the grand scale, a reliable and secure source of energy is required to sustain the industrial, military, medical, education and transport sectors. Threaten the source: And the result is usually war!

Energy policy, therefore, is not to be taken lightly. Indeed, the need to ensure Nigeria’s energy security, for generations to come, ought to be accorded the highest strategic priority.

This compels planners and policy makers (and also militants!) to look beyond petroleum. Global energy trends point unequivocally to space and space-related technology.

It is true, of course, that methane power systems are becoming increasingly important. Gas powered rocket and vehicle engines–and even methane fuel cells—have been developed.

But while natural gas burns cleaner and more efficiently than gasoline, kerosene or diesel, it is still a hydrocarbon fuel–and is destined, ultimately, to be displaced.

I will discuss the emerging methane technology in future columns, as well as some of the more promising “alternative” systems, especially space-based solar energy.

But the point I wish to press upon policy makers, planners and the general public presently, is this: Black humanity must face the nuclear future, in all its dimensions.

There simply is no other option, open to Sub-Saharan Africa. The “dimensions” are varied, complex and far-reaching. But nuclear fusion is centrally important; and lithium is the strategic lynchpin.

A comment I came across in News Line, a publication of the European fusion project, conveys quite cogently, the line of thought that informs this column.

The use of lithium, to drive fusion reactors, it counselled, will ensure that “our great, great, great, great, great…. grandchildren will not have to worry about fusion fuel running out”.

Hence the importance of Nigerian lithium extends beyond “commercial exploitation: There is a genetic dimension as well!
To be continued.