Way back in about 1958 an American Indian person discussed with me about changes in the weather that was noticed way back then. The discussion was about the so called “January thaw”; he informed me that his grandfather never experienced that kind of a change in the environment in all his life. I asked him “what would cause such a change in the weather system and he said that the only thing that had changed in the years that followed his grandfather’s observations was that atomic bombs and atomic power had been used in such a way that it contaminated the atmosphere.
It sounded logical to infer that if the change happened after the use of nuclear power, then there may be something to the claim, but at the time I had not studied nuclear power enough to understand how it could affect the atmosphere, so, I dismissed the “logic” as speculation because, I did not understand why the effect could take place.
The years that followed allowed me to study nuclear physics to some extent, and I did discuss my thoughts with some physics professors at the University of Toronto. The result was that I did need to change my views several times, it is a long story, but eventually I did manage to understand Einstein’s formula of E=mc^2 and how it relates to nuclear fission.
According to my understanding the nuclear fission happens due to the interaction between the momentum and the charges within the nucleus of the “radioactive” atom. The differences between the nuclear structures and the interaction between the momentum of the nuclear components and their charges, causes different atomic structures to have a differing decay rates. The decay rate can vary between very short duration of a fraction of a second to thousands of years.
Every time a nucleus of an atom “decays” in the said manner, some of the potential energy of the nucleus is converted (or released) as kinetic energy.
After understanding that nuclear fission and nuclear chain reaction represents kinetic energy, it occurred to me that “if” the atmospheric molecules obtain more than normal amount of kinetic energy on a global scale, then the air molecules will move faster than usual and this faster movement of the molecules is considered as temperature change or Global warming.
The difference between fission and chain reaction is that “chain reaction” is a method that is designed by people and it releases much more energy per unit of time than the natural fission.
Now the American Indian’s comments made more sense, although I still do not know how much ”extra” energy has been introduced into the environment, it is clear that nuclear energy is kinetic in nature and “if” enough energy is introduced into the environment then the environment will change.
Considering that it has been about 61 years since the “January thaw” discussion and if the “nuclear effect” was noticeable then; I wonder how bad it is now since so much more “extra” energy has been introduced into the environment, or how bad it will be some 61 years from now.
Whether the global change is caused by greenhouse gasses, nuclear energy, or some other source of “extra” kinetic energy, the result could develop into very serious events; for instance, if we extrapolate from the “heating” of the global environment and consider that the “hotter” the atmosphere becomes then the faster the air molecules will move and the “less dense” the atmosphere will become, I would expect such changes to create larger and more devastating storms.
If the atmospheric heating becomes “extreme” then other serious problems could develop, for instance; if the atoms and molecules in the very high atmosphere, that is in the area of the stratosphere, mesosphere and ionosphere, move very fast, these molecules and atoms can escape into space, if that happens in large quantity then the Earth’s atmosphere will become less dense, this type of a density change would create several “unusual” changes in the Earth’s environment. Such changes would not be in the atmosphere alone, they would extend into the ocean waters as well; if you understand the physics involved in the “Cartesian diver” then you can understand the effects to the living creatures in the waters.
Also such pressure changes could cause instability in the Earth’s crust, meaning more volcanoes and earthquakes.
In order to mitigate the global changes I would urge the scientists who study nuclear and atmospheric effects to figure out how much “extra” energy is being pumped into the environment and how it can be reduced.
Personally, I would like to see the “hydrogen economy” to become a viable alternative to the present coal and nuclear economy.
I believe that a very efficient hydrogen engine can be constructed and hydrogen can be stored safely as a metal hydride.