In a December 1953 speech to the United Nations General Assembly titled, Atoms for Peace, President Eisenhower, proposed to share non‑military nuclear technology, training, and materials with nations around the world in an effort to win hearts and minds and dominate a global nuclear market.
A few months later, in a speech to the National Association of Science Writers aimed at promoting the global nuclear market, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss, predicted, "Transmutation of the elements, unlimited power, ability to investigate the working of living cells by tracer atoms, the secret of photosynthesis about to be uncovered,–these and a host of other results all in 15 short years. (From the time German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann first discovered nuclear fission December 19, 1938.) It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter,–will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history,–will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds,–and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age. This is the forecast for an age of peace.”
Unfortunately no age of peace has materialized, and according to the IEA, nuclear power accounts for only about 10% of global electricity generation, rising to about 20% in advanced economies.
The paper Another Record: Ocean Warming Continues through 2021 despite La Niña Conditions, by a group of 23 global climate researchers, estimated the oceans absorbed the equivalent to seven Hiroshima nuclear explosions worth of heat every second in 2021. And as the following NOAA graphic for August 2023, current temperatures are significantly higher than they were in 2021.
1 Terawatt Hour of electricity is the equivalent of 60 Hiroshima bomb explosions, and 1 terawatt hour is 1/(24 hour *365 days) terawatts, so as the following table shows the oceans are currently accumulating about 420 terawatts worth of energy every year,
Which corresponds with the analysis of the 2019 paper Quantification of ocean heat uptake from changes in atmospheric O2 and CO2 composition by Resplandy et al., which estimated an ocean gain of 1.29 ± 0.79 × 1022 Joules of heat per year between 1991 and 2016, which equates to 409 terawatts.
But, since a joint NASA, NOAA study found the Earth’s energy imbalance doubled over the course of the 14 year period between 2005 to 2019, and since it is assumed it will take about 50 years to scale to a solution to the ocean heat problem, and since the NOAA graphic above shows that the current heat load began to accumulate about 50 years ago, it is estimated 50 years from now the annual ocean heat content increase will be about 7,000 terawatts. Which would be the equivalent to an additional 116 Hiroshima bomb’s worth of heat added to the ocean every second. Which over the next 226 years, at a removal rate of 31 terawatts a year, would bring the surface temperature down to the preindustrial level.
As the following graphic from the 2001 paper Estimates of Meridional Atmosphere and Ocean Heat Transports shows, the current 409 terawatts of detrimental heat of global warming represents about 6.5% of the total 6 petawatts of heat that moves from the equator to the poles annually.
But this is a use it or lose it proposition, which could remove and convert about 17,000,000 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat to work every year or we can maintain the status quo and allow this heat to migrate towards the poles.
Whereas the aim of the Atoms for Peace strategy was to provide our children with energy too cheap to meter, we have evolved an energy imbalance of about 390 terawatts more detrimental heat than we can use. And with nuclear fission which is 33-37% efficient, to produce the 31 terawatts of power as Thermodynamic Geoengineering provides, you would add an additional 62 terawatts of heat to the ocean every year, or another 14 Hiroshima bombs worth heat every second.
Or considering fusion is estimated to be about 4 times more efficient than fission, you would still add about 3.5 bombs worth of heat to the ocean every second or about half of what we are currently producing burning fossil fuels.
And there is a 1500-year storage limit for ocean heat storage, which is the cycle period of the Thermohaline Circulation. After which the heat we have added to the ocean will start returning to the surface of its own volition. But for Thermodynamic Geoengineering which doubles this time by short-circuiting the Thermohaline Circulation by maintaining the heat of warming within the tropics and metering the ocean heat out to the atmosphere in 13 tranches of 226 years each.
Whereas the EIA estimates the capital cost of a 1 gigawatt nuclear reactor is $5.3 billion, and the IMF estimates the 2022 subsidies alone for fossil fuels is $7 trillion, the $2.9 billion cost for 1 gigawatt of TG or $2.9 trillion for 1 terawatt, is effectively too cheap to meter and is a recipe for true long lasting peace.