Predicting the future is a risky business

No fusion power, no fuel cells…not even reliable light bulbs – have we really got the 21st century we were promised? Russ Swan laments a dream that seems forever out of reach

September sees a significant anniversary for me, so I hope you will indulge me a little. It marks 20 years since I first wrote an article predicting that hydrogen fuel cells would be widely available in five years’ time.

Those five years came, and those five years went, and I have still to see a practical fuel cell in an everyday situation.

Perhaps I shouldn’t complain, as it means this is the fifth time I’ve been able to revisit the subject, and score another beer token as a result, but I can’t help feeling a little let down. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re living in the future and we still don’t have flying cars or holidays on the moon, let alone clean, cheap and unlimited power supplies. Some 21st century this is turning out to be.

In those 20 years, the five-year prediction has remained almost unmoved – although there are recent reports that Honda, Toyota, and Daimler reckon that 2015 might see the new dawn. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Last month I found myself spending a few days at a proving ground somewhere in England, presented with the challenge of testing over three dozen of the most advanced, powerful, and fuel-efficient cars available to buy today. None of them was powered by a fuel cell, although two were diesel/electric hybrids. While these do seem to make a minor contribution to saving the planet, I can’t believe that this technology is anything more than a stepping-stone to properly green transport.

One of the hybrids was a Volvo, a marque famous for having pioneered the now-universal ‘always-on’ running lights. Get this: because it is a hybrid, it has to do everything it can to conserve electrical energy. Where it used to be impossible to turn the lights off in a Volvo, now it’s almost impossible to turn them on. Even with the advent of high-efficiency LED lights, the car cannot afford to squander a single electron. This, I was assured, is progress.

And don’t get me started on LED lights. Always keen to be at the cutting edge of domestic technologies, I have recently inflicted several of these on the family. The days of the incandescent bulb are numbered, and rightly so – even the most efficient turn about 95% of the power they consume into heat rather than light. Not to put too fine a point on it, there are cheaper ways of heating a home.

Your usage may vary, but my experience of LED replacement bulbs is not entirely satisfactory. Even overlooking the high cost of the bulbs and their less-than-pleasant light quality, the damned things seem to die rather quickly. I’m tempted to rewire the house with a 12V DC lighting circuit, maybe adding another 5V circuit to place USB charging points in strategic locations, all powered by rooftop photovoltaics, but the reality is that all of these present-day technologies are a bit of a disappointment. When we get fusion power, certainly, everything will be just ticketty-boo.

But when will that be? Unlike fuel cells, which have gradually inched closer, getting about a year nearer to reality each decade, fusion seems to be getting ever further out of reach.

When I first visited the experimental Joint European Torus (Jet) fusion reactor at Culham in 1999, it had already been running for about 15 years. The scientists I spoke to then were keen to point out that it would be at least another 15 years until a commercial fusion reactor could be built. That was 14 years ago, and guess what? The technology has still to ‘break even’ producing more power than it consumes. The most recent predictions I have seen are that 2050 (27 years from now) is the earliest date for a commercial reactor. Fusion is getting further away.

Predicting the future is always a risky business (sometimes even remembering the past is a challenge), but are we former pilots-of-the-future simply living in a dream world? As scientists and engineers, do we always take an unrealistically optimistic view of coming developments?

Not always, and especially not in the lab. Sequencing the first human genome cost billions and took the thick end of a decade. Predictions were made then, that one day a sequence might take just a couple of hours and cost perhaps $1000, and that this might take only 20 years to become reality. In fact, it has taken half of that time.

Predictions are not always hopelessly optimistic, even the pessimistic ones. In the 1970s it was predicted that the world would run out of oil by 2000. In reality I think the world will run out of oil just in time for the energy companies to make more money out of fuel cells, LEDs, photovoltaics, and fusion.