The President is the only elected politician on the Committee, the rest are professors and engineers. The Technology Committee is charged with deciding which technologies to revive or abandon.
In the past, the Committee did triage on technology, deciding what to give up and what to struggle to keep in those stressful years. Today, the more pleasant task is deciding what technologies to revive. Unfortunately, technologies useful in violence against humans too often got priority.
Once she declared her candidacy for the Presidency, she and three other candidates were invited as observers. After observing four meetings, and reading the minutes for several years back, she was not quite so lost with the issues, the criteria and the logic used in making decisions.
After the initial opening remarks and congratulations, Kristiana went to the item she has placed first on the agenda - Technology in Antarctica.
"As you all know, Antarctica does not have a representative on this committee, they do not have a university with research capabilities and only agricultural and forestry research stations. The only manufacturing that they have that requires technology beyond mid-20th Century is to produce medicine for local consumption - and even in that area we ship them the more difficult to fabricate medicines. And they do not even have that much mid-20th Century technology.
In the last census, they had 1.9 million people to Scandinavia's 7.1 million. The Antarctic culture is evolving away from Scandinavia as they move away from learning and education. The frontier mentality there needs, in my opinion, to evolve.
It is the role of this committee to select technologies to revive, and new technologies to pursue - and that includes technology for Antarctica. What should we do ? And how to do it, given the disconnection between this committee and Down Under ?
I should also mention that I plan to visit Antarctica with the next Grand Convoy - and I can bring some people with me.
Arni said - "Yes, we need to bring Antarctica into the development of technology, and more than just duplicating what we do up here in the North. Antarctica needs to do their own original work. And that will require a spark that they do not yet seem to have."
"Intellectuals will likely always be a minority in Antarctica, but they need to become a visible, and important minority".
Gudmunder responded "We must be careful not to disrupt the mutually beneficial North-South trade. We ship technological products south and get a variety of critical metals back. Plus wheat in bad years."
Bridgette broke in with "When, not if, Antarctica recreates some technology we do not yet have, we can trade for that as well. It is MUCH better to get it from Antarctica than not at all".
"Antarctica is *US* - not some foreign power ! We on this committee, despite the lack of a Southern representative - do represent both the North and the South" declared Kristiana. "We need to think of Antarctica as an integral part of our entire Union".
She then shifted the discussion to an issue that was quite important to her.
"As you know, Antarctica has yet to respond "Yes" or "No" to the Alien Invitation. As most of you also know, Delta Pavonis is high in the Southern sky and cannot be seen directly from Scandinavia. Apparently we can communicate with the aliens of Delta Pavonis on long wave, just as we received their message. But it should be better to do so with direct line of sight communications."
"The small community of Star's Reach appears not to be able to agree to say "Yes". So if we are to say "Yes" and not involve them, we need to use radio signals that do not reach Stars Reach. A higher frequency line-of-sight radio link from Antarctica is the obvious solution to joining the Alien Conversation without involving Stars Reach - or any of our primary rivals that may develop the required technology to listen in."
"In addition, from a geopolitical perspective, if may be better to keep our communication with "jinns and sorcerers" away from Islamic powers. So may I suggest that we bring the radio gear necessary for an interstellar communication post with us on the next Grand Convoy. This should fire the imagination of more than one bright, young Antarctic student. We should bring copies of our entire Cetan archives as well as the movie theater version of the Alien Invitation to provide the basis of an Antarctic Alien Contact Research Institution - unless someone can come up with better acronym."
A bit of laughter at the end of that dramatic proposal. And they quickly agreed to ship the necessary equipment and data south on the next Grand Convoy.
They also quickly agreed to go ahead with field tests of four different types of Old World solar photovoltaics - being developed primarily for export. Ascension and Base Islands were the logical long term test locations but they added Antarctica for "social reasons" as well.
The committee agreed to approve and recommend funding experimentation with an oxygen atmosphere adaptation of the photovoltaic device Tau Ceti had transmitted.
The committee tabled a request for production of a more sophisticated integrated circuit chip. The resources required, the risk and the marginal benefits from a one generation better logic chip and larger memory chips - "Does not compute" as Gudmunder quipped. Arni added "Besides, we still have 14% of the batches of durable chips that Denmark and Sweden ordered for long term cold storage at the end of the Old World".
A research professor at the University of Nye Aarhus wanted permission to repeat and expand Old World research to use X-rays to stimulate metastable Silver 108 (Ag108). A physicist on the committee had to spend 20 minutes just explaining this one.
When nuclear reactors split uranium or thorium into two atoms, about 4% of the atoms were Ag108. Most Ag108 atoms had round nucleus and were stable. 48% of the silver in the world was stable Ag108. But a good percent of the Ag108 formed by fission had oblong shaped nucleus. These were metastable atoms.
With a half-life of 418 years, these metastable Ag108 atoms would spontaneously rearrange themselves into round nucleus and emit a gamma ray to get rid of the now excess energy.
The Union had reprocessed tens of thousands of tons of used nuclear fuel to extract the platinum group metals (palladium, rhodium and ruthenium). Over 16,000 tons has been processed further to extract the silver, zirconium and some other metals. These tons of silver were slightly radioactive due to metastable Ag108, which restricted their use. It would be thousands of years more before the radioactivity would fade away naturally.
Some Old World researchers found that certain X-rays would stimulate metastable atoms to decay immediately - instead of waiting for several half-lives. This researcher wanted to pick up where the Old World left off. The used nuclear fuel held by the Union, reprocessed and not, had almost 16,500 tonnes of slightly radioactive silver in it. This researcher MIGHT find a way to make that silver generally useful, instead of being restricted to applications where people had very little exposure.
He needed only modest resources to pursue this research, so the proposal was quickly accepted once it was understood.
A previously tabled proposal to develop zeppelins decades before was brought up again by Kristiana. She talked about the benefits in accessing vast sections of East Antarctica, far from any rail line. She also pointed out that the winds in interior Antarctica should not excessively disrupt zeppelin use.
Gudmunder suggested several potential military applications of zeppelins.
Anna pointed out that Zeppelins would mostly use available technology, unless they wanted to use a better gas bag envelope than gold beater's skin. The Old World had several good candidates for gas bag membranes, but none were made today.
Further discussion lead to deciding to charge Antarctica with developing Zeppelins if they would fund the research & development. Several technical experts would be encouraged to immigrate South to help in the development. Later, they could export Zeppelins to the North, perhaps flying South to North.
There was a lengthy discussion in trying to recreate an Old World anti-viral drug which was never produced in Scandinavia - and hence there was no detailed production information in the archives. It was estimated to be able to reduce about 450 deaths per year in those under age 72 and another 110 in older people. This antiviral was also effective against the genetically engineered "Blue Tongue" virus. This virus had apparently died out, but a stockpile may still exist outside the Union or a remote population might still suffer from it.
After extended debate, they agreed to approve work on synthesizing the most difficult precursor chemical. If researchers could successfully do that, then an effort could be made to do the rest.
And with that the meeting drew to a close. The committee members went to the adjacent Presidential Library for drinks and more discussion - while waiting for dinner to be served in another room of the Presidential Palace in Bergen.
The Technology Committee was an all day affair most months. The after meeting informal discussions were a vital part of the process. A most enjoyable and stimulating conclusion to an exhausting day.
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