Reply #5: It is probably the single most prescient piece written in the 1950's about energy [View All]

that I have seen.

Much of my cynicism derives from my memory - the conflict between what people said would happen and what did happen.

I was a child in the 1950's and few people saw it quite as well as Rickover apparently did.

I wish personally I had heard - and heeded - this piece of advice:



Although you will not comment on it, I will say that all of the world's current environmental and energy problems are derived from population. The interlude with fossil fuels delayed but did not prevent the Malthusian nightmare. We have long passed the earth's sustainable carrying capacity. The matter is now reduced to the question of whether we can ethically reduce the world's population, and from my perspective the possibility that we can do so becomes ever more remote each day. I believe population will fall through the agency of catastrophe.

It is interesting to note that renewable energy technology - in which the Admiral had little hope - has advanced quite a bit since his time. If the world population were somewhere under a billion, rather than over six billion, renewables would have a decent shot at providing a decent lifestyle for humanity. But given the actual situation, practically everything the Admiral said then is true today but the matter is far more exigent, dire, and immediate.