Basic Strategies

Cars will not be needed, or used for commuting or shopping, nor are allowed to enter or travel inside any Utopia.  However, any necessary travel, other than by foot or bicycle, within a Utopium will be provided, at no charge to travellers, by Zero-CO2 public transport. By locating, Utopium Alpha, at least, near the Ebbsfleet International Terminal, rapid travel to many other locations will be available via Zero-CO2 trains, eg 15 minutes to the centre of London (Saint Pancras Station) or 110 minutes to Paris (Gard du Nord), 85 minutes to Brussels, etc. Travel to locations not served by Zero-CO2 trains or public transport, can be served, at first, from “mini-airports” for autogyros capable taking off and landing from: a) either of the two very short runways (about 250 feet long), or b) on moving platform on one or more autogyro-carrier-railcars towed behind a train , or c) on platforms on a autogyro-carrier-trailer towed at up to 60 mph, on unobstructed roads.  Later, new versions of autogyros will be able to take off and land vertically on roofs and small gardens or landing platforms, 40-feet in diameter, or less. As soon as possible (projected to be by the end of 2012), RDL will supply: a) engines for autogyros, fuelled by hydrogen, and b) hydrogen fuel cells, both adapted to autogyros. They can be used to provide all energy including, but not limited to: a) taking off, b) landing c) propulsion, at least at 350 mph, d) navigation and e) communication, all on a Zero-CO2-emission basis. (Similar systems will be adaptable for all energy requirements in homes and businesses in Utopia, whenever Zero-CO2 sources are absent or insufficient.)  

Initial energy requirements are furnished: a) to build new homes and businesses, b) for resident’s and worker’s use, c) after construction and for public transportation, as much as are economically feasible, will be provided by a central electricity generation plant from the sun, sky light, wind and tidal sources, referred to hereinafter as Zero-CO2 sources. Zero-CO2 sources will provide electricity in the daytime-Sun -light and from the wind, while it blows, covering current requirements, plus used to generate hydrogen for fuel as needed, and for hydrogen fuel cells to supply electricity whenever it is not available from other Zero-CO2 sources.  Each new house, business and industrial plant inside the city will have independent access to: a) photovoltaic panels, b) solar heat panels, c) wind driven electricity generators, d) access to underground heat supplies, e) underground storage for heat supplies, f) water, g) an electrolysis facility to produce hydrogen from water, h) storage facilities for storage of hydrogen and i) hydrogen fuel cells to produce electricity, j) a roof, or garden, mounted platform for vertical takeoff and landing of up to 6-person autogyros. (Initially, Utopia occupied before the end of 2012, include a mini-airport with two 250-feet long runways to serve about 100 autogyros.  Independent forty-feet wide platforms will be added later, either a) as stated in 1., above, or b) in groups near each group of about 50 houses, supporting five, shared, autogyros/platform.)

As soon as autogyros for vertical takeoff and landing, and using hydrogen as fuel, are available, independent use of cars on external roads and airways (for trans-oceanic use) for travel will be discouraged and replaced by Zero-CO2: a) autogyros, b) trains and c) busses for all offsite personal travel (except for trans-oceanic use). For transport of goods, airlines will be discouraged, and Zero-CO2 trains and trucks and conventional ships and canal, river and coastal boats encouraged instead.  Those which use sail and/or fuel from Zero-CO2 sources are especially encouraged.  

In line with the reduction of energy-need requirements, over the next 10 years, of the people and businesses located in Utopia: a) expansion of roads and b) airports (for conventional airplanes), can be stopped and much, c) maintenance downgraded, in both cases. The need for both: additional airplanes, and larger airplanes, can be reduced. The use of gas, coal and oil for fuel can be reduced a) wherever it can be replaced by hydrogen, or b) the energy load can be reduced.

Some reorientations of conventional practices, such as the widespread use of concrete in road, buildings and foundations (and brick for houses and buildings), toward using materials which produce less (or no) CO2, like wood, will bring about a major reduction of GHG emissions. Within 10 years, the RDL Target for reduction of 4.a) is 100% and for 4.b) 90%. 

Increasing use of sunlight, wind, tidal and subsurface heat sources to produce electricity will also reduce the need for maintaining or expansion of nuclear energy plants to replace the exhausted fossil fuel sources. This lowers the increased dangers connected with handling and storing of radioactive waste (for up to 100,000s of years, about as long ago as before homo sapiens had even first escaped from Africa). This also allows additional restrictions, on rogue countries (eg Iran, North Korea et al), of the availability of uranium and plutonium, which can also be used to produce nuclear weapons, as well as nuclear energy.  This will also ease and facilitate further reduction of weapons and programs to renew or maintain nuclear weapons in countries already possessing them (eg France, already under way, et al). (See Scientific American, MARCH 1958:
“If atomic power is to be developed on an important ENERGY, ASH, MONEY— scale, methods will have to be found for safely disposing of the vast quantities of radioactive ‘ashes’ that will be produced by nuclear reactors. Last month a committee of the National Academy of Sciences reported on waste disposal, pointing out that the costs of storing radioactive fission products temporarily to ‘cool’ them, of extracting long-lived isotopes and of shipping waste to distant points for ultimate disposal will have a major influence on the economics of nuclear power.”  Exactly fifty years later, we still await an acceptable solution.)

Substantially increasing the use of hydrogen powered autogyros instead of cars (even those powered by hydrogen) on roads, avoids both: a) the need for more cars of any type and for any purpose, even to replace worn out stocks, and b) the need for more roads, parking facilities etc. Both require combustion of fossil fuels and thus emit substantial CO2 into the atmosphere. 

Unfortunately, at present, it does not seem to be feasible to build more, or expand, hydroelectric dams to produce electricity. This always results in flooding large areas of vegetation, which rot. So, generating large volumes of methane, one hundred times more potent than CO2 as a GHG pollutant of the atmosphere.