In the next 100 years or so, we will run out of fossil fuels. In the film below, Nobel laureates Mario Molina and Robert Laughlin challenge three young physicists at this summer’s Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting in Germany to think seriously about the energy endgame and their children’s futures. Molina thinks we can solve the looming crisis through international collaboration—as happened after he showed that CFCs were damaging the ozone layer. Laughlin disagrees. He wants engineering solutions, and says nations will go to war unless we find them.

At this year's Lindau meeting, the participating laureates and young researchers came from all over the world, but they had one thing in common: physics. The Nature Video team filmed five debates on issues that matter to the current generation of physicists. Is dark matter real? How can we solve the looming energy crisis? How is physics perceived by the public? The result was a five-episode film series, including this film, which is the second episode in the series. 

2 Comments

1. 1. photohv 10:44 AM 9/29/12

   There is an energy endgame that we will need to address in the future. Solar and windpower are only part of the solution. They will provide heat and light and power all the gadgets we use in our home. And maybe in 100 years our cars as well. What are we going to do about the other stuff that depends on oil? Pharmaceuticals, plastics, every day items that we take for granted. The population is consuming a huge amounts of resources everyday and will continue to do so until something dramatic happens, plague, war, famine that effectively reduces the population. It has happen before it will happen again.
   With regard to America, we have more reserves in this country than the world combine, but we are not mining it because this is our reserve. When the world supply starts to diminish the US will pump oil to maintain the US economy. There will be war over energy, I predict China will be a big player because they have no natural resources (oil) to drive their economy. They import oil, coal and food. The US produces so much food for the world, if we were to stop exports to china famine would be widespread in 30 days.
   
   As an old scientist this is what I would do.
   1. Legislate car technology demanding high fuel MPG we already have the technology. This not popular, takes away freedom of choice, but consuming all our oil is not an option. This will decrease oil consumption by 50%.
   2. Legislate electricity production using natural gas and nuclear only.
   3. Develop biotechnology to convert coal to oil or other hydrocarbons. We have vast amounts of coal reserves.
   4. Continue solar research, they are making great strides, it is anyone's guess how much more efficient solar cells will increase in efficiency.
   5. Recycle, recycle and recycle.
   6. We consume energy as if it will be here forever. Reduce, reduce, and reduce consumption. It is not that hard. We have 300 million people in this country. If we reduced our gasoline consumption by 1 gallon each day (about 25 miles), this equates to 10 million barrels of oil/day. The US consumes 20 million barrels of oil/day. If everyone drove 25 miles less each day we would reduce our consumption by 50%.
   
   

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2. 2. kaebomb 02:47 AM 10/1/12

   IF we have a war over resources??!!?? We have been at war over resources--specifically the control of oil--since World War II. We are living what we fear. It's so distant that we can pretend it's not happening. For now. Or maybe forever. Maybe we can continue demolishing and frightening every society around us. Maybe we'll evolve to grow some devil horns while we're at it...

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