"Energy resources and our future" - remarks by Admiral Hyman Rickover delivered in 1957

[IDemo]

"I suggest that this is a good time to think soberly about our responsibilities to our descendants - those who will ring out the Fossil Fuel Age."

http://www.energybulletin.net/23151.html

[Deep13]

1. Ah, father of the nuclear navy.

It was his idea to make nuclear submarines so they could operate free from the air which is necessary to power diesel subs and to recharge their batteries.

[NNadir]

2. He was rare inasmuch his remarks were prescient.

Thanks for this. He was telling the truth, and it interesting that he mentioned Cassandra. His predictions for renewable fuels in the future were somewhat over optimistic, but they recorded their drawbacks.

To think he said this in 1957. Remarkable.

[amandabeech]

3. This is an incredibly prescient piece.

The only real difference I see from something that might be written today is the emphasis on the impact of population growth, on which I offer no comment.

[IDemo]

4. Why was no one listening?

This speaks to what I believe will become truly the greatest mistake in the history of Man; that we were aware of our energy plight at least as early as 1957 (Hubbert and Rickover were, anyway), yet continued blithely down the path of destruction regardless.

Rickover's speech could be printed in tomorrows paper as a current editorial piece with barely a phrase edited. Solar photovoltaic and thermal electric have replaced heating as the primary solar energy application. World population grew by half again his estimate for AD 2000, to six billion rather than four.

His prescience rings especially true given todays oil wars and the planet-wide scramble for petroleum: "Ultimately, the nation(s) which control - the largest energy resources will become dominant."

[amandabeech]

7. People were ususally comfortable and optimistic in the '50s.

It is a tragedy of the human condition that most people cannot see beyond their monthly credit card balances or the ancient equivalent thereof.

Also, back then, Rickover would have been thought to be a commie pinko in charge of the Red under your very bed for his lack of optimism in the future of the American Way--even more so than today, if you can imagine it.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I think that more and more folks here in the U.S. are starting to get pessimistic. Pessimism sometimes leads to realism in my book.

I once read, and wish that I could find again, a review of an academic study revealing that those of us who are slightly depressed (dysthemic) are usually much more realistic than the majority.

We were depressed in the '70s and didn't like it, so we, as the American electorate, were ready to fall for Ronzo's "Morning in America."

The way I see it, we will be ready for a Carteresque reality in 2008, but we must watch for a desperate, Reaganesque backlash in 2012.

[NNadir]

9. Jimmy Carter's mentor was Rickover.

I think the case can be made that Carter heard what Rickover was saying, although some of Carter's nuclear energy decisions were less than inspired.

Of course, Carter's focus on energy was not met with universal acclaim. People acted as if it were a criminal act to wear a sweater in the White House. Frankly I think his worst energy decision short of banning plutonium recovery from spent nuclear fuel was his decision to kiss up to the Shah of Iran. It got him in a lot of trouble.

Carter's intentions were excellent, I think, and he was trying his very best to have a conversation with the American people in which they very much needed to participate. Some of his energy policies proved to be bad ideas ultimately: Syn fuels, corn ethanol and fuel reprocessing bans all come to mind, but at least he tried something.

In order to succeed one must risk failure and one cannot assume the risk of failure without actually acting. If Carter were allowed to continue to experiment, I think he may well have hit upon the winning formula. It was a great tragedy when he was defeated by the so called "great communicator." What the "great communicator" communicated was wholly banal and worthless.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. "his decision to kiss up to the Shah of Iran"--on the advice of Henry Kissinger.

Carter paid entirely too much attention to HK. He most especially should not have listened when HK said the US was obligated to admit the Shah for medical treatment (IIRC HK actually wanted to offer asylum, not just a medical stay).

HK represented a discredited administration and the failure of the Vietnam War, he should not have been called on for further advice. Instead he was treated as an "elder statesman".

(Concur on Reagan. Good Nielsens, bonehead content--the usual correlation.)

[NNadir]

20. Still Carter did that.

Jimmy Carter is a fine man and I admire him in many ways, but he was a grown up as President. His relations with the Shah are a stain on Carter's historical reputation, and they should be.

By 1976, Henry Kissinger's many failings - from Vietnam to Chile to the Middle East - should have been obvious to anyone concerned with human rights. Ditto the Shah. They were obvious to me, and I wasn't the President of the United States.

Jimmy Carter did not create the Shah - Dulles and Eisenhower did - but he certainly didn't cut him off either. Like all things involved in oil, the investment in the Shah was completely short term, and the long term implications have been marked by great tragedy.

[htuttle]

13. No, the GREATEST mistake is that Svante Arrhenius postulated global warming in 1898...

...as a result of carbon dioxide emissions from coal-powered industries, and we sat dumbfounded for over a hundred years. And still do.

The future's going to hate us for that one...

[NNadir]

5. It is probably the single most prescient piece written in the 1950's about energy

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:

We must also induce many more young Americans to become metallurgical and nuclear engineers. Else we shall not have the knowledge or the people to build and run the nuclear power plants which ultimately may have to furnish the major part of our energy needs. If we start to plan now, we may be able to achieve the requisite level of scientific and engineering knowledge before our fossil fuel reserves give out, but the margin of safety is not large.

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.

[amandabeech]

6. You commented. You are braver than I,

and I cannot disagree with you, although I may see a more drawn-out population decline in many places, including the U.S.

Some universities have maintained programs in nuclear and metallurgical engineering.

My alma mater, The University of Michigan--that's Ann Arbor and the Wolverines, has been consistently ranked at or near the top in nuclear engineering for some time. It's not all internal combustion engines, folks. Check it out.

[NNadir]

8. I know about the Michigan program. It's excellent.

MIT has an excellent program.

The beautiful recent book "Nuclear Reactor Physics" to which I constantly refer was written by Weston Stacy, at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In order to grow the number of nuclear engineers we will have to grow the number of nuclear engineering professors. This is more of a problem.

Dr. Stacy got his PhD from MIT in 1966.

http://www.frc.gatech.edu/Weston%20M_%20Stacey.htm

I am really concerned that this profession is dominated by older individuals. We absolutely need young nuclear engineers in this country. The profession is intellectually challenging, beautiful in that it brings high value to humanity, oh, and, by the way, is high paying.

Here is the young nuclear engineer Lisa Stiles-Shell talking about her pitch:

http://web.mit.edu/nse/newsandevents/news.html

[amandabeech]

10. That's a great pitch.

I wish that I could point to one from Michigan.

I hope that all the smarties from my native state and others will find their way into the U-M program. My home state has a bad rep, but, frankly, it has a lot going for it outside the auto industry.

The general cost of living is relatively low, there's still a lot of stuff, including a vibrant music scene, around Detroit (or Southeast Michigan for the folks who simply cannot bear to say the word "Detroit") to keep a person busy. It doesn't cost a fortune to moor a boat and one can still find reasonably-priced water-front getaways--so long as the gasoline or public transit holds out.

And there will never be a shortage of potable water so long as the state, including its voters, is interested in protecting what is perhaps the state's most valuable commodity. Even the non-crazy Republicans want to keep the environment up as much as possible, probably because most of them have a hidey hole on or near some decent sized body of water.


If I were much younger and much more mathematically inclined, I'd try it in a heartbeat.


For Michiganders, the price simply can't be beat.

[NNadir]

11. I spent a lot of time in Kalamazoo and in Holland on business.

I've also been to Midland a number of times and Ann Arbor a couple of times.

I drove through the UP once too.

Michigan is a beautiful state, under appreciated. Of course my state, New Jersey, has a less than stirling reputation, but it is a fabulous place nonetheless.

[amandabeech]

12. I lived in northern Hudson County, NJ, for seven years.

I lived less than a block from the Palisades and enjoyed the view of Manhattan and the Hudson River on my way to work every day. And I had a great and cheap apartment. Those were the days.

I had very good friends who lived in the Morristown and Parsippany areas. This was back in the '80s and those places were still lovely.

The Delaware River north of Camden is also great. I have not been to the NJ shore, preferring to fly to Lake Michigan in the summer, but it has many fans including my former and terrific cleaner, Ritchie.

BTW, the county including Holland, Ottawa, is the reddest in the state. It makes Grand Rapids, the Salt Lake City of the Midwest, look positively blue. I'm sure the natives were very friendly, but you wouldn't like their voting patterns.

Both our states could use some good press these days.

How are the engineering programs at Rutgers? I root for the public institutions and have heard that Rutgers is on upswing.

There's a good regional engineering school at Houghton in the U.P.--Michgan Tech. Their environmental science program is particularly good. I think that they still do metallurgy up there. I recall reading that they've been working on refinging processes for iron ores that have until now resisted efficient refining.

[NNadir]

14. Well, I was in Michigan mostly for business purposes. I avoided discussing politics.

I did have to bite my tongue a few times though.


I believe that Rutgers does not have a nuclear engineering program. I really don't know much about their offerings as I moved to New Jersey after I finished my education.

However there are some interesting nuclear texts and journals in their library of Science and Medicine. They have a great IEAE monograph on heavy water reactors. I use that library and the chemistry library from time to time and I have paused to read all about heavy water reactors, a type of reactor of which I am very fond.

Many nuclear engineering programs were abandoned in the 1980's, when it seemed that the future of nuclear energy was uncertain. As the profession gains in importance, however, this is likely to change in the other direction. It would be great if Rutgers established such a program. I very much favor more reactors here.

I am really trying to get my boys to contemplate such a career and am putting it in their adolescent minds. I have no idea whether they will actually embrace my advice - probably they won't - but it would be a great future for them if they did what I suggest.

[amandabeech]

15. Encourage them to study history or a modern language.

Rebelling against you then might consist of going into engineering.

I don't have kids, but my experience suggests that teenagers are literally contrary.

[NNadir]

16. I'll consider that.

I haven't noticed any rebellion yet, but surely it could happen. My oldest is 11.

[amandabeech]

17. Give it a few years.

Developmentally, rebellion has to happen to get the child to strike out on its own.

For boys, I think that 16 is the worst, so you have a few years.

Brace yourself!

[NNadir]

18. It's probably the case that these facts won't affect them when their young.

From the Princeton review about the nuke engineering profession:

# of people in profession: 820
Average hours per week: 45
Average starting salary: $40,000
Average salary after 5 years: $70,000
Average salary after 10 to 15 years: $90,000

http://www.princetonreview.com/cte/profiles/facts.asp?careerID=99