The Concern

The World's Energy Supply has

Problems of Quanity, Quality

and Sustainability.

President Obama's Science Advisor, John Holdren, has stated it well: “Without energy there is no economy.  Without climate there is no environment.  Without economy and environment there’s no material well-being, there’s no civil society, there’s no personal or national or international security.  And the problem is that the way we’ve been getting the energy our economies need is wrecking the climate that our environment needs.  That is the essence of the problem.”

Most, including DOE Secretary, Dr. Chu, are looking for a form of laser fusion, magnetic confinement fusion, bio fuel, wind, or solar energy to be our salvation. Well, none of these are big enough nor doable in time to stave off the crisis of the energy needed in the world in the next ten years. 

The limited supply and worldwide environmental effects of carbon-based fuels demand that a different source of energy be identified and tapped.  This analysis applies to synthetic bio fuels as well as fossil fuels.  The obvious candidates to supplant carbon-based fuels are solar conversion, wind generation, hydraulic generation, geothermal extraction, fission, and fusion.  When scaled to the size necessary to satisfy the energy demands of the world, all except fusion have severe unmitigated environmental impacts, induce geopolitical instability, or exhibit very limited availability, reliability, and sustainability. 

Most technologies suffer from more than one of these drawbacks.