2012 May Launch New Stage for Civilization
By wchung | 22 Feb, 2025

I am hopeful that this year — 2012 — will mark a transition for humanity from rapacious exploiters of the planet’s resources to conscientious citizens.

Civilization has been built on our success in exploiting forests, rivers, oceans and mineral resources like coal, petroleum and uranium. In the process we’ve created a lifestyle of air-conditioned abundance for about a fifth of humanity while our air and waters become toxic and the planet warms under a blanket of carbon dioxide.

Plenty of us have expressed concern about the degrading of our environment and even taken steps to slow down the degradation. But as a race, we’ve devoted far more of our energies on exploiting resources than in restoring them. Of course that’s simply a function of our state of dependence on insouciant exploitation that has not been accompanied by sufficient development of the technology and discipline to feed our needs while preserving a pristine environment.

But

The US is likely to reelect its first African American president to a second term. It’s one thing for an African American to be elected on the hope that any kind of change is likely to be better than taking a chance on more of the same policies that drove us into a ditch; it’s another for Americans to acknowledge that Barack Obama has been a leader of sound judgment and inspiring character as he led the team that is slowly but surely pulling us out of the ditch. Not only does it represent a sea change in historical American attitudes about race, it represents a change in the world’s perceptions about race. The blatantly racist views evidenced by Japanese, Koreans, Germans, French and most of the industrialized world has faded into the margins of our consciousness because the world’s leading nation is led by a Black man. This change in perception is likely having a profound impact on the way black people and all minorities in industrialized world will see their potential for acceptance and advancement. In 2012 we will start to see some of the beneficial impact of the human potential energy that this perception change will bring about.

One of the major impediments to an aggressive pursuit of green energy sources has been the specter of nuclear power as the cheapest of the possible sources of our future energy. The Fukushima nuclear crisis has dispelled any doubts that may have lingered in some minds about the true cost of using nuclear fission as an energy source. Japan, one of the world’s leading technological powers, has been forced to acknowledge that it will take a half century or longer to decontaminate the area around the damaged reactor. This is bound to give pause to even the most ardent supporters of fission plants. The traveling wave reactors being pushed by Bill Gates — and apparently generating interest in China — may minimize the cleanup headache a bit but it isn’t likely to eliminate the catastrophic consequences of damage resulting from natural causes or technological glitches. By showing the true cost of nuclear fission, Fukushima has already resulted in more financial resources and technological energy being channeled toward developing clean, renewable and efficient technologies. Some of the advances in biofuels, solar power, wind power, tidal energy and efficient batteries has begun a tidal wave of innovation that will turn green energy into one of the world’s top handful of industries.

Battery developer Eos Energy Storage claims to have solved key problems holding back a battery technology that could revolutionize grid energy storage. If the company is right, its zinc-air batteries will be able to store energy for half the cost of additional generation from natural gas—the method currently used to meet peak power demands.

Company officials say that current prototypes demonstrate twice the energy density of lithium-ion batteries. They claim their final product will last for 30 years in grid-scale applications with a cycle life that is orders of magnitude greater than that of lead-acid batteries, making it one of the longest-lasting battery types around. CEO Michael Oster says Eos will soon complete a $10 million round of funding from several investors.

“If they can get what they are claiming, it would be revolutionary,” says Steve Minnihan, an analyst with Lux Research, who says the technology shows promise for both grid storage and electric vehicles.

Zinc-air technology has long attracted battery developers because it’s safe, it’s inexpensive, and it offers high energy densities. Unlike conventional batteries, in which all reactants are packaged within the battery, zinc-air cells draw in oxygen from the air to generate current. Drawing on outside air gives the batteries a higher capacity-to-volume ratio and lowers the material costs. The battery’s water-based chemistry also means it isn’t prone to catching fire, unlike lithium-ion batteries.