The Plowboy Interview with Amory Lovins
(Page 14 of 15)
November/December 1977
By the Mother Earth News editors
LOVINS: I used to think it would be a good idea to try to build a fusion reactor, but I don't think so anymore, for three reasons.
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First, fusion will—at least with the designs we're pursuing now—be rather dirty. It won't be quite as bad as fast breeder reactors, but it won't be clean enough to be attractive. You'll still have the problem of what to do with radioactive wastes. But even if—contrary to most fusion experts' expectationsfusion turns out to be a clean source of energy as advertised, I think we would lack the discipline to use it with restraint. If you ask me, it'd be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other.
Which brings me to my second point ... namely, that fusion produces a lot of fast neutrons that could—and probably would —be used to make bomb materials. The kind of fusion research that involves compressing pellets by means of high-energy lasers is a technology that I think should be abandoned immediately because of its very worrisome military implications.
Thirdly, fusion is nothing but a very clever way to do something that we don't really want to do. That is, it's just another complex, costly, slow-todeploy, centralized, high-technology way to make electricity. And that's not what we need.
PLOWBOY: If we don't need more ways to generate electricity, why is the Energy Research and Development Administration spending so much money on the solar conversion of electricity these days?
LOVINS: Beats me! A little over a year ago, you know, the ERDA people said that solar technologies cannot be considered to have a major long-term impact unless they're electrified. That's just nuts! Right now only about eight percent of our end-use energy needs can be justifiably met with electricity, and it doesn't make sense to try to fit the other 92% into that mold.
I think most of the ERDA solar money is misdirected, and it's not clear to me on the face of it whether ERDA is actually advancing or retarding solar technology. Some people—Steve Baer, for instance—think ERDA should be abolished, and I don't reject that view out of hand at all.
PLOWBOY: It seems—from most of what you've been sayingthat you don't put a great deal of faith in so—called energy "experts" and government agencies when it comes to finding solutions for our energy problems.
LOVINS: Right. I've often said that the basic issues in energy strategy today—far from being too complex and technical for ordinary people to understand—are, on the contrary, far too simple and political for the experts to understand. Our "experts" don't really comprehend the nature of the problem. As I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, the fundamental questions of who's going to require how much of what kind of energy for what purposes for how long are only just now beginning to be asked in the energy policy community.
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