We know it occurs in nature, and we know how to do it on a laboratory scale, and in weapons. Whether it can be done industrially in time to solve our energy problems I don't know. Just because something doesn't violate the laws of nature doesn't necessarily mean we can do it. I'll keep my fingers crossed on fusion but I'm not counting on it.

Fission is something else again. We know it works, we've done it for years. But it has enormous problems, and although I believe they can be solved, there are too many political obstacles to doing so. I worked in the propaganda arm of the US Atomic Energy Commission and I know that since the 1950s we knew the oil would eventually run out. The Eisenhower "Atoms for Peace" plan was to encourage the use of fission power until the breeder reactors could come on line and use the nuclear wastes as fuel. That's the original "something for nothing" scheme!

The concept had been proved, but it was dangerous and expensive, and the power generation industry had no intention of getting involved in a messy fuel recycling program. And the governments disastrous experience in fuel waste processing at Hanford Works did little to encourage them.

Neither did they have any intention of becoming responsible for the waste management problem. As long as oil was cheap, there seemed no incentive to develop a sustainable nuclear fission economy. Or as the old-timers referred to it, a "fuel cycle".

So what can we do on the policy end? We can tax fossil fuel use to discourage expansion of that industry. and to promote renewable energy resources and energy conservation. And we'll have to make other hard choices, like damming more rivers, or initiating massive changes in how we design our buildings, develop mass transit, restructure our consumer economy, lay out our cities, alter the way we grow food. All these things will cost a lot of money, and our extravagant lifestyles will degrade. No one wants to live in an urban apartment and commute to work on a train, not while oil is cheap and the oil companies fund our elections. There is no silver bullet, but a combination of strategies, and acceptance of a lower standard of living, could get us past the crisis

I think these problems can be solved. But I agree with RL, I don't think they will be. Its all about the Law of Supply and Demand. It only works in the short term. When you start trying to apply it in the long term the big money boys decide its not in their short term interest. After all, no matter how bad things get, or how soon, those with lots of $ will always be able to buy anything THEY need.