Visions of the Future
Page 65
42–44
Gasoline
46
Diesel
48
Methane (CH4, gaseous fuel, compression dependent)
55
Hydrogen (H2, gaseous fuel, compression dependent)
140
Nuclear isomers (Ta-180m isomer)
41,340
Nuclear isomers (Hf-178m2 isomer)
1,326,000
Nuclear fission (natural uranium in fast breeder reactor)
86,000,000
Nuclear fusion (Hydrogen, H)
300,000,000
Binding energy of helium (He)
675,000,000
Mass-energy equivalence (Einstein’s equation E = mc2)
89,880,000,000
Annihilation of matter and antimatter
180,000,000,000
Humanity has continuously increased its energy sources throughout history, starting from different types of biomass and hydropower in the distant past, to coal and hydrocarbons constituting the largest energy sources today. Nonetheless, nuclear energy, first fission and later fusion, will probably become the major energy sources in the near future, while we keep moving towards the “Energularity” and finally become a Type I civilization.
According to Kardashev, our civilization is still at Type 0 status, but we might reach Type I in the next century. Indeed, we have advanced exponentially in our energy uses from harnessing fire about half a million years ago to developing sustainable nuclear fusion in the coming decades. Eventually, we should be able to harness the full energy content of matter and convert matter directly into energy, according to Einstein’s equation, and even annihilate matter and antimatter to produce more energy. To have an idea of the incredible energy potential represented just by our planet, the Earth has an estimated mass of 5.98 × 1024 kg, which represents a theoretical energy content of 5.37 × 1041 J. Therefore, just our oceans have enough water to power humanity beyond Type I status over very long geological time scales. Additionally, in the case of our Sun, its mass is estimated to be 1.99 × 1030 kg, which is theoretically equivalent to 1.79 × 1047 J. Those numbers are really enormous and they represent more than enough energy for billions and billions of years.
Considering the visible and known universe, its total mass-energy is currently estimated at about 4 × 1069 J. In a few words, there is certainly no lack of mass-energy in the universe. Moreover, ordinary matter is now considered to be only about 4% of the total matter-energy density in the observable universe, which also includes 22% dark matter and 74% dark energy as well. Since matter and energy can not be destroyed but only converted from one type to another, as scientists believe, there are almost unlimited amounts of energy for our civilization to keep expanding throughout the universe after reaching the “Energularity.”
The Earth, the Sun, the Milky Way galaxy and the visible universe have more than enough energy to power our civilization for the following decades, centuries, millennia, and even billions of years into the future. It is thus possible to convert the immense energy supplies available in the universe into usable power, but it will certainly take massive investments and lots of imagination, creativity, science, and technology. Our civilization is still in its infancy, and barring any wild cards, geopolitical crises, nuclear wars, bio disasters, nano grey goo, environmental disasters, or extraterrestrial contacts, science and technology will keep uncovering the contours of the universe. As Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, one of the “founding fathers” of astronautics, said about a century ago:
The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.
Планета есть колыбель разума, но нельзя вечно жить в колыбели.
REFERENCES
BP. 2014. BP Statistical Review of World Energy. London, UK: BP. http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/about-bp/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
British Telecom. 2005. Technology Timeline. London, UK: British Telecom. https://www.btplc.com/Innovation/News/timeline/TechnologyTimeline.pdf
Chaisson, Eric. 2005. Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Clarke, Arthur Charles. 1984 (revised). Profiles of the Future: An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
Cordeiro, José Luis. 2011. “The Energularity” in Moving From Vision to Action. Bethesda, MD: World Future Society.
Cordeiro, José Luis. 2010. The Future of Energy and the Energy of the Future. San Francisco, CA: Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.
Cordeiro, José Luis. 2006. “Energy 2020: A Vision of the Future” in Creating Global Strategies for Humanity’s Future. Bethesda, MD: World Future Society.
de Gray, Aubrey D.N.J. 2008. The Singularity and the Methuselarity: Similarities and Differences. Lorton, VA: Methuselah Foundation.
DeLong, James Bradford. 2000. “Cornucopia: The Pace of Economic Growth in the Twentieth Century.” NBER Working Paper 7602. Cambridge, MA: NBER.
Dyson, Freeman John. 1966. “The Search for Extraterrestrial Technology” in Perspectives in Modern Physics. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
EIA. 2014. International Energy Outlook. Washington, DC: EIA. http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo
Foundation for the Future. 2007. Energy Challenges: The Next Thousand Years. Bellevue, WA: Foundation for the Future. https://web.archive.org/web/20080509075150/http://www.futurefoundation.org/documents/hum_pro_energychallenges.pdf
Foundation for the Future. 2002. The Next Thousand Years. Bellevue, WA: Foundation for the Future. https://web.archive.org/web/20080907140709/http://www.futurefoundation.org/documents/nty_projdesc.pdf
Fuller, Richard Buckminster. 1981. Critical Path. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Glenn, Jerome et al. 2014. 2013–14 State of the Future. Washington, DC: The Millennium Project. http://www.StateOfTheFuture.org
Good, Irving John. 1965. “Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine” in Advances in Computers, Vol. 6. Burlington, MA: Academic Press.
Hawking, Stephen. 2002. The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe. New York, NY: New Millennium Press.
IEA. 2014. World Energy Outlook. Paris, France: IEA. http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/publications/weo-2014
Kahn, Herman et al. 1976. The Next 200 Years: A Scenario for America and the World. New York, NY: William Morrow and Company.
Kaku, Michio. 2011. Physics of the Future. New York, NY: Double Day.
Kaku, Michio. 2005. Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Kardashev, Nikolai Semenovich. 1964. “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations.” Soviet Astronomy 8:217.
Kurian, George T. and Molitor, Graham T.T. 1996. Encyclopedia of the Future. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Kurzweil, Ray. 2005. The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York, NY: Viking. http://singularity.com
Kurzweil, Ray. 1999. The Age of Spiritual Machines. New York, NY: Penguin Books. http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-age-of-intelligent-machines-prologue-the-second-industrial-revolution
Maryniak, Gregg. 2012. “Storage, Not Generation, is the Challenge to Renewable Energy.” Forbes.com. http://www.forbes.com/sites/singularity/2012/07/20/storage-not-generation-is-the-challenge-to-renewable-energy/
Metcalfe, Robert. 2007. The Enernet. Unpublished presentation. http://gigaom.com/cleantech/bob-metcalfe-welcome-to-the-enernet-1
Nordhaus, William. 1997. “Do Real Output and Real Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not” in The Economics of New Goods. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
Romm, Joe. 2011. “Solar Power Much Cheaper to Produce Than Most Analysts Realize, Study Finds.” ThinkProgress. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/12/11/387108/solar-power-much-cheaper-than-most-realize-study/
Sagan, Carl. 197
7. The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence. New York, NY: Random House.
Sagan, Carl. 1973. The Cosmic Connection. New York, NY: Doubleday.
Shell. 2014. Shell Global Scenarios. London, UK: Shell: http://www.shell.com/global/future-energy/scenarios.html
Simon, Julian Lincoln. 1996. The Ultimate Resource 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Vinge, Vernor. 1993. “The Coming Technological Singularity.” Whole Earth Review. Winter issue. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html
Wells, Herbert George. 1902. “The Discovery of the Future.” Nature, 65. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44867/44867-h/44867-h.htm
Zubrin, Robert. 1999. Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization. New York, NY: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam.
INTOLERABLE DELAYS
william faloon
Bill compiled the 1,500 page medical reference book Disease Prevention and Treatment and is Director and Cofounder of the Life Extension Foundation. His latest book is Pharmocracy: How Corrupt Deals and Misguided Medical Regulations Are Bankrupting America—and What to Do About It at http://amzn.to/1DNxtjW.
The Life Extension Foundation is a nonprofit organization, whose long-range goal is the radical extension of the healthy human lifespan. In seeking to control aging, their objective is to develop methods to enable us to live in health, youth, and vigor for unlimited periods of time. The Life Extension Foundation was officially incorporated in 1980, but the founders have been involved in antiaging research since the 1960s. Learn more at http://lef.org.
Dr. Allen Whipple
1881–1963
Photo courtesy of the
College of Physicians of Philadelphia
The first surgical attempt to cure pancreatic cancer was demonstrated in Germany in 1909.1 In 1935, a doctor named Allen Whipple devised a more effective way to remove the pancreas and adjacent body parts.2
Dr. Whipple’s technique involves the removal of the head of the pancreas, along with portions of the stomach, small intestine, gall bladder, and common bile duct.
The surgical impact on the body is severe. There is a higher death rate from this procedure than many other hospital operations.3 Sometimes the rearranged internal organs do not hold together and infection spreads inside the patient. This leads to follow-up surgery where the remainder of the pancreas and the spleen are removed to correct problems caused by the first operation.4
Some patients do not heal well and leak pancreatic juice from where body parts are sewn together. This happens so frequently that the surgeon leaves in drainage catheters for fluids to exit so they don’t accumulate inside the patient.4,5
Another complication is paralysis of the stomach that can take over a month to heal. During this time a feeding tube is surgically placed into the small intestine to provide nourishment.6
Some patients develop type I diabetes because the insulin-producing areas of their pancreas is removed, requiring life-long insulin injections.7
Despite these horrific surgical side effects, most patients who survive the painful hospital ordeal die from metastatic pancreatic cancer. Few are cured.
The name of this surgery is the “Whipple Procedure.” While it’s been refined since Dr. Whipple’s work in 1935, pancreatic cancer still kills the vast majority of its victims—79 years later!8
The snail’s pace of progress against malignancies like pancreatic cancer should provoke societal outrage against the establishment. Yet like lambs standing in line awaiting slaughter, the public tolerates mediocre medicine that is inflicting horrific suffering and massive numbers of needless deaths.
We view these bureaucratic lags as intolerable delays that will be ridiculed by future medical historians. This article describes a drug long ago approved by the FDA that can improve outcomes in pancreatic and other cancer cases. This treatment, however, is not being incorporated into conventional practice.
Steve Jobs 1955–2011
Pancreatic Cancer Victim
Steve Jobs was criticized for delaying a Whipple Procedure for nine months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.9 The initial approaches Jobs tried (acupuncture, vegan diet, herbs, spiritualists) had no chance of eradicating his primary pancreatic tumor.
It’s hard to blame the then 49-year-old co-founder of Apple, however, for not wanting his body cut up via a Whipple Procedure. Steve Jobs eventually died at age 56 after undergoing multiple aggressive treatments, including a liver transplant.10–12
How many technologies developed in the early 1900s do consumers still use today? Even the stethoscope (invented in 1819) remains state-of-the-art in today’s archaic world of medical practice.
If one is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at a relatively early stage, the Whipple Procedure is still the best treatment option. Overlooked are a myriad of adjuvant therapies that can markedly improve long-term survival and reduce the horrific complications inherent to the Whipple surgical procedure.
The cancer treatment I describe next is not new. It has long been recommended to Life Extension® members.
Table 1: Interleukin-2 Versus Placebo
This study should have made headline news. Instead it was buried in a 2006 edition of the journal Hepato-Gastroenterology.46
Life Extension has been recommending moderate dose interleukin-2 as an adjuvant cancer treatment since the late 1990s.
Skeptics point to studies in advanced melanoma and renal cell carcinoma patients where interleukin-2 provides only modest survival improvements. These narrow-focused cynics neglect evidence that interleukin-2 is most effective when administered before immune-suppressing surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy begins.33–37,47,48
Interleukin-2 Improves Survival 3-Fold!
Interleukin-2 (IL-2) enhances overall immune function, most notably by enhancing natural killer cell activity.13–15 Natural killer cells are among the body’s most important immune defenses against malignant and viral-infected cells.16–20 (Cells infected with certain viruses are more prone to convert to malignant cells.)21
IL-2 was long ago approved to treat kidney cancer22–26 and metastatic melanoma.27–29 Its efficacy was likely limited by the advanced disease stage patients are at by the time IL-2 is administered.30 There is toxicity associated with high-dose IL-2.31,32
Intriguing research suggests that administering moderate-dose IL-2 to patients before surgery and chemotherapy may improve survival and other outcomes.33–37 It does this by boosting immune function prior to it being impaired by conventional treatments.
Surgery results in significant immune impairment, something we warned against long before the mainstream considered it a factor in the poor survival rates seen in many types of cancer.38–43 Immune suppression that occurs during chemotherapy is a well-established treatment complication.44,45
In a study conducted on pancreatic cancer patients, half the group was administered moderate dose IL-2 for three consecutive days prior to a Whipple Procedure. Two years after the operation, 33% of patients pre-administered IL-2 were alive compared to only 10% of control surgical patients. Three-year survival was 22% in the IL-2 group compared to 0% of the controls.46
Surgical complications occurred in 80% of the control surgical patients compared with only 33% in the IL-2 pretreatment group. While the control group spent 19.5 days confined to the hospital after their Whipple Procedure, the IL-2 group escaped the hospital in 12 days.46
Life Extension has been recommending moderate-dose IL-2 since the 1990s, yet the mainstream oncologists behave as if these drugs are limited to advanced cancers for which they originally gained FDA-approval. The reality is that IL-2 and other immune-boosting drugs may have far greater efficacy when administered early in the disease process against of a wide range of solid tumors and some types of leukemia.
Why Cancer Patients Need To Boost Natural Killer Cell Activity
Natural killer cells are the part of the immune system that is capable of recognizing and killing v
irus-infected and malignant cells, while sparing normal cells.49,50
The importance of killing virus-infected cells is that cells infected with human papilloma virus (HPV) and other viruses have greater propensity to mutate into cancer cells. Chronic infection with some of these viruses also exhausts vital immune functions.51
In mice deficient in natural killer cells, tumors grow more aggressively and are more metastatic.52–54
Natural killer cells play an important role in the control of tumor growth.55
Infusion of immune enhancers like interleukin-2 boosts natural killer cell activity which can lead to the death of tumor cells.56
Leukemia patients have benefited using natural killer cells obtained from hematopoietic stem cell donors, which is an exciting area of cancer research.57–59
Non-drug ways of boosting natural killer cell activity include garlic,60–64 melatonin,65–67 Reishi extract,68–71 and other supplements used by Life Extension members. When treating cancer, however, interleukin-2 should be considered to provide an exponential improvement in natural killer cell activity prior to initiation of conventional treatments.
Contrast Mediocre Cancer Treatment to HIV
Cancer is not relegated to modern times. It has killed human beings forever, but has become prominent as people live longer and cancer incidence markedly increases. Pancreatic cancer, for instance, increases sharply in individuals over age 50, and most patients are 60 to 80 years old when diagnosed.72
HIV rose to prominence in the early 1980s, though the virus existed in the human population before then. The problem was that no one paid attention until thousands started dying.
Within 15 years of HIV infection becoming pandemic, effective anti-viral “cocktails” were discovered that turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable chronic disease.73–75