Saturn-Uranus and new energy technologies

We are only a few months away from the first exact opposition between Saturn and Uranus. As is well known, it will occur on Election Day in the USA, 4th November.

In 2006/7 we had the Saturn-Neptune Opposition: in terms of exact oppositions, this only lasted for about 9 months. The Saturn-Uranus opposition is going to take about 18 months to complete 5 exact crossings, so we will be under the influence of this transit for much longer. (See also my posts of 17/6/7 and 18/6/7).

I am glad about this, because what we need more than anything at the moment are technological breakthroughs so that 7 billion people can continue to live in a world of limited resources. Uranus is associated with scientific/technological advances, and Saturn helps them manifest, become concrete. Pluto’s entry into Capricorn and Saturn’s entry into Virgo have forced us to acknowledge, or at least begin to acknowledge, that the world’s resources are limited and that we have a responsibility to take care of the planet. The old paradigm of endless growth, in which the real purpose of economic activity has been lost sight of, will have to change.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and it is the underlying limitation on resources which will be providing the push to make technological advances. The other day I was reading about developments in solar cell technology, in which US researchers, by treating glass above the cell in a particular way, were able to direct something like 10 times more light into the cell. This is exactly the sort of thing I expect to see more of. The economic argument for alternative fuel sources is only just starting to be made. It is this argument more than anything that will create advances. So far we have just been tinkering around, and one or two alternative sources – e.g. wind turbines – have started to become economically viable.

I think that developments so far will be as nothing compared to what is to come over the next few years as Saturn opposes Uranus, and the price of energy continues to stay very high for simple supply and demand reasons.

The exact opposition on Election Day in the US suggests that there may be a lot of political will behind technological developments in the next few years. Barack Obama has repeatedly highlighted the need to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

I’ve always thought that while the US is the biggest waster of energy, the country that has most lost sight of what work and economic activity are really for (Sun-Jupiter square Saturn in the US chart), it will also make the greatest contribution, when the time comes, to finding technological solutions to the problem of limited resources. The US has Saturn trine Angular Uranus in Air, so inventive ideas come easily to the US as a nation. And the country has historically proved to be enormously resourceful and effective when it needs to be. This is the dynamic upside of its Sun square Saturn. The Sun is also conjunct Jupiter, which gives the wastefulness and excess, but also the ability to grow and to think big.

Here’s a Saturn-Uranus item from BBC News, on the ‘most powerful physics experiment ever built’ – and it’s not American!

“A vast physics experiment built in a tunnel below the French-Swiss border is fast becoming one of the coolest places in the Universe. The Large Hadron Collider is entering the final stages of being lowered to a temperature of -271C: colder than deep space.

The LHC has thousands of magnets which will be maintained in this frigid condition using liquid helium. The magnets are arranged in a ring that runs for 27km through the giant tunnel.

Once the LHC is operational, two particle beams - usually consisting of protons accelerated to high energies - will be fired down pipes running through the magnets. These beams will then travel in opposite directions around the main ring at close to the speed of light.

At allotted points along the tunnel, the beams will cross paths, smashing into one another with cataclysmic force. Scientists hope to see new particles in the debris of these collisions, revealing fundamental new insights into the nature of the cosmos and how it came into being.

The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the LHC will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang.”

The major outcomes of a transit often do not occur until after it is over. The 1973 Oil Crisis, for example, occurred a year after the Saturn-Neptune opposition of the time had finished. We are seeing the same thing with the current soaring of oil prices, occurring well after the end of last year’s Saturn-Neptune Opposition. (Neptune is associated with oil and Saturn with practical limitations.) It is a bit like the exact crossings of a transit constitute the stirring of the pot, the gradual build-up of inner transformations, which eventually lead to a new life or to a changed world after the transit is over.

In the same way I would expect the Saturn-Uranus opposition of the next couple of years to lead to intensive technological research, but it may only be after that period that we start to see some real results. Quite logical, really.

There are, of course, many other dimensions to Saturn-Uranus, like new political ideas, which are almost inevitable if we are having to change our economic paradigm. And these new ideas belong as much to the 2012 square of Uranus in Aries (new vision) to Pluto in Capricorn (transformation of governmental structures) as they do to the slightly nearer-at-hand Saturn-Uranus opposition. It’s as though whatever new political ideas/ideals that come in over the next 2 years (Saturn-Uranus) will precipitate a much deeper revolution as we move in to 2011/12 (Uranus-Pluto).