Advanced Nuclear Asks: Does Renewable Energy Pencil Out?

Every day we encounter reminders of how quickly the rate of science is advancing.  As it happens, it was exactly 90 years ago today that we learned via the Hubbell Telescope that the Milky Way galaxy was not the entire universe; rather that it was only a small speck within it.  How much farther will the study of astrophysics take us, in the exploration of dark matter, dark energy, and the like? Of course, no one knows, but at the same time, no one needs to be reminded that the constant acceleration of all this work is staggering.  Half of the world’s information was created within the last 24 months. Meaning the world’s information supply (most of it worthless, I’ll admit) is doubling every two years.

This is what I find so strange about most of the proponents of advanced nuclear who work so hard to prove that theirs is the only solution.  I received 14 emails yesterday from this cadre with subject line: “renewables don’t pencil out.”

That’s a bit cavalier, don’t you think?

Sorry, all you wind energy folks whose contribution to the U.S. energy grid will be about 5% this year.  Better hang it up and stop wasting your time; maybe you’ll find Fantasy Football to your liking.  Sorry to all other proponents of solar and other forms of distributed generation whose vision could save the U.S. from catastrophic terrorist (EMP) threats.  And I guess I have to withdraw my congratulations to Denmark for becoming the first major country that will very soon have eliminated fossil fuels entirely.  As in every single molecule.

Look, I’m a proponent of advanced nuclear too; I’d love to see adequate appropriations made for the development of the liquid fluoride thorium reactors that we read about so frequently.  But tearing down the development of renewable energy, smart grid, energy efficiency, storage, electric transportation, etc., only serves to make you folks look like crackpots, which I know you’re not.

When we look at a simple illustration of the sun and the earth and realize that we’re receiving 6000 times more power from that source than we’re consuming, and then we consider how quickly all the relevant sciences are improving: electronic engineering, materials sciences, etc., we’re microscopically close to solving this problem now and forever.