2008 Woodie Awards
Engineer urges immediate action
Aaron Rozanski
Issue date: 10/3/08 Section: News
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In a discussion entitled "Beyond fossil fools: The roadmap to energy independence by 2040," Shuster argued that the public needs to become more knowledgeable about the current state of energy affairs so that accurate information is spread and better decisions can be made.
"We have to solve the problem in the next 30 years," Shuster said. "We need to start building a bridge from where we are today to the alternative fuels being planned."
The need for independence from conventional oil has been a hot topic in recent political discourse, but in Shuster's eyes the popularity of this topic often distorts or confuses people from being truly informed.
Along with issues of conservation and pollution, Shuster sees the most important factor as depletion.
"The world only has 40 years left until the depletion of all the conventional oil," Shuster said. "Energy is and will be the root of most of the other problems in the world."
Advocating for urgent and direct action, Shuster believes that certain alternative energy solutions are important mainly as a means to buy us some more time until we can reach the goal of energy independence.
"Once you get into these games, be it nuclear or solar or wind power, you start to learn more about it," Shuster said. "Even while doing the research for my book ["Beyond Fossil Fools: The Roadmap to Energy Independence by 2040"] I was able to learn the structural difficulties of wind and solar power."
While he sees wind and solar power as a step in the right direction by buying more time, both require massive support and land for their use and also need 100 percent back-up.
Shuster also addressed certain myths and misunderstandings related to the energy crisis, particularly focusing on the notion of global warming.
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