All attempts to wean the country of its exuberant overconsumption of energy had failed. The ingrained habit of immediate self-gratification was too firmly planted in people's psyches at a young age, long before they matured enough to realize the prudence of conservation.
Numerous technological breakthroughs had improved methods of transportation and communication and introduced new laborsaving machines that greatly increased public welfare, but not without cost; they also placed additional demands on an already overloaded energy supply.
Although oil reserves were dwindling rapidly, major oil companies were unwilling to retool refineries to process other fuels such as natural gas or coal, none of which have the profit potential of oil and all of which are relatively scarce. Electricity was an option but, in light of public resistance to less powerful vehicles, the automobile industry was only halfheartedly willing to remodel cars to run electrically. Even more daunting, the world's rivers, already straining to supply hydroelectricity at maximum capacity in order to meet current high demand, were incapable of handling the large spike in consumption that a wholesale conversion to electrically driven cars would entail.
Our troubled government looked to the Academy for help. It accepted the challenge and came through in splendid fashion during Ben's last year in graduate school. Not surprisingly, the hero was Professor Donald Richardson, who unveiled an ingenious idea to an enthralled assembly of dignitaries.
“I'll begin by supplying the background information you will need in order to fully understand my plan. In 2272 our gravity probe of the solar system unexpectedly swerved from its plotted course, revealing a pocket of nearby dark matter in the vicinity of Mercury's orbit. I theorized that by accelerating a dense, highly concentrated, laser like beam of particles to near light speed and then aiming it at the recently discovered dark matter, the strange properties of dark energy would propel the beam beyond light speed rather than merely bend it (as would happen in an interaction with ordinary gravity). It would cross over to the dark side where, having positive mass since still moving slower than gravity, it would bombard some of the the dark matter, begin a chain reaction of colliding tachyons, slow them down, and jettison a chunk of who knows what kind of glowing ordinary matter into our solar system.
“In order to perform my 2289 experiment on gravity I invented a device capable of producing such a beam that was also small enough to be mounted on a satellite near Mercury's orbit. As I suspected, a newly formed object appeared in the distance. The satellite's computer had been programmed to transmit the time interval between the first instants that the object's infrared light and gravity impinged upon the satellite's state-of-the-art photometric and gravimetric sensors, respectively. Knowing this interval and the speed of light I only needed to know the distance between the satellite and the object to derive the speed of gravity8. I was easily able to ascertain this distance using the triangulation theorem of geometry called ‘angle-side-angle’ after measuring the angle between the lines pointing from Earth to the satellite and from Earth to the object and programming the satellite's computer to measure its distance from Earth and also the angle between the lines pointing from the satellite to Earth and from the satellite to the object.
“Even back then I realized that an upgraded version of my apparatus, one capable of emitting an ongoing stream of high energy particles rather than just a single blast, could target a reservoir of dark matter to not only create a new body of ordinary matter in our universe but also continually augment its mass and, in turn, its gravity. But there was no urgency to do the upgrade until the energy crisis supplied a potent reason.
“My colleagues and I invented another device that converts gravitational energy into mechanical energy and coupled it to an electric generator that was in turn connected to my upgraded apparatus. If housed within a large space station near Mercury, this synergistic configuration would function as follows: First, the body's destabilizing pull on the space station's orbit would be dampened from having part of its gravity transformed into mechanical energy. Second, as the body enlarged it would continually feed gravitational fuel to the device. Third, the resultant mechanical energy would power the electric generator's motor. Fourth, some of the generator's endless flow of electricity would be recycled to the apparatus enabling it to run perpetually. Fifth and most importantly, the remainder could pass through an insulated fiber optic cable stretching from the generator to a flanged outlet on Earth that was attached to a network of electrical energy ‘marts’. This Rube Goldberg-like process would solve the energy crisis once and for all.
“I am pleased to announce we have now completed the necessary preliminaries. The collection of dark matter near Mercury is an ideal source. It's large enough to be virtually inexhaustible and its proximity permits us to use a cable of manageable length. Furthermore, the cable would be unlikely to encounter galactic interference or debris since the cone swept out by its circuit would lie entirely within the inner solar system.” The plan received thunderous applause, was dispatched to an international committee of scientists for review, and promptly endorsed.
Next, an edited draft was forwarded to a specially convened United Nations subcommittee. Its members foresaw that the oil companies would initially object to swapping fossil fuel for electricity but would relent if a proviso were added granting them ownership of the new energy marts as a reward for compliance and they, in turn, could coerce automobile manufacturers to redesign cars. Oil-producing nations were also likely to resist, so a clause was appended guaranteeing them a larger share of any profits. Given these incentives and the dire straits confronting it, a plenary assembly of nations quickly and unanimously passed the proposal.
A multi-national organization was formed to oversee the project. It succeeded admirably due to the brilliance and far-sightedness of its staff, which functioned so effectively that countries formerly hostile to each other began to mediate their differences under its auspices. Being invariably reasonable (with one lamentable exception, as we shall soon see), resolutions were highly palatable to the involved parties. The organization's peaceful settlement of international disputes supplanted war and terrorism as the primary means for intransigent nations to gain their ends; over time it replaced an ineffectual United Nations as the precursor to a world government. Tourism once again became safe and the proliferation of cultural exchanges furthered understanding and tolerance of foreign life styles. For the first time people began referring to Earth, rather than their local place of birth, as home.
Development of the new energy-supplying process progressed rapidly, in fact too rapidly. Growing dissatisfaction with high gas prices, scheduled outages and long lines at the pump stirred the people into a foul and rebellious mood. The nascent organization hadn't yet gained sufficient self-assurance to withstand the outraged mob's clamor for immediate relief. It rashly instructed a task force to dispense with the routinely required environmental impact study and to posthaste set the device's parameters to the highest level, despite strenuous objection from Professor Richardson and other protestors within the scientific community.
Rather than admit to buckling under pressure the organization trumped up a rationalization that, “Since the dark matter lies outside the visible universe, an interaction with it should be nearly seamless and effects on our solar system should be negligible.” They correctly surmised that the experts, being unable to positively refute this contention, would be undermined in their pleas for caution to an impatient and energy-starved public.
Once again lessons from past mistakes such as those that polluted the air, punched a hole in the ozone layer and melted the polar icecaps went unheeded in order to curry favor by implementing a quick fix. And once again a serious irreversible problem (much more disastrous than any preceding it) would ensue — but that prospect was still a long way off. With the energy crisis at an end life in the near future would be better than ever and would continue to be so for many decades. As always this was all most people really cared about. Concern for posterity's welfare is too evanescent to compete with the overpowering natural human preoccupation with trifling short-term desires, no matter how harmful their fulfillment might be to the well being of future generations.
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8 G = D/((D/C) – T), where D designates the distance between the satellite and the object and T designates the time delay between the arrivals of the signals at the satellite.