Renewable Energy Offers Advantages, But No Free Lunch

I’m in the television studio this afternoon, shooting a series of short videos explaining the basics of renewable energy, for use in introducing newcomers to the subject. If there is a theme to the series, it’s “No Free Lunch.” Each one of the dozens of different flavors of clean energy technologies come with its own unique set of pros and cons. Some are expensive, some are intermittent, some are quite “early-stage” (experimental), and they all have a certain amount of their own environmental impact. My job, as I conceive it, is to present this with as much fairness and objectivity as I can possibly bring to the table.

And speaking of fairness…

In the course of the interview I conducted with Dr. Jim Boyden, I brought up the subject of low-energy nuclear reactions. Unfortunately, Jim hasn’t investigated this recently, but had come to believe, when he was studying the subject some time back, that there was a good chance that the phenomenon was real (i.e., that certain reactions produce more heat than would be expected with standard chemistry, and that the experiments’ products suggest that a nuclear reaction had taken place.).

During the course of the conversation, we both wondered why the subject is so vilified; it’s essentially been driven underground. How is it possible that many serious scientists are humiliated into hiding their work for fear of ridicule? This sounds like the result of a PR attack campaign, not the work of a true scientific community, openly and honestly working for the benefit of mankind.