Prescription for the planet
It's a world where cars run on recyclable boron and where people have all the water they will ever need to turn deserts into orchards. There would be no need for landfill, and the standard of living for people in developing countries would not be compromised by clean technologies.
The author, Tom Blees, in action
Nuclear waste and the material leftover from decommissioned nuclear weapons could produce all the electricity we will ever need for the next 1,000 years without any carbon emissions.
It might seem like utopian science fiction, but visiting US author, Tom Blees, told a packed audience at ANSTO that all of this is within our grasp using existing technologies.
"Many environmentalists say we need to be content using less. My solution suggests we do not need to compromise our standard of living to solve our environmental problems and energy needs," said Mr Blees, who is President of a new international organisation called the Science Council for Global Initiatives.
Visiting ANSTO as part of its Distinguished Lecture Series and to talk about his book, Prescription for the Planet, Mr Blees said that one of the cornerstones of his prescription for the future, the Integrated Fast Reactor (IFR), could be up and running in Russia as soon as 2015. In fact, he is working with a group of Russian scientists to make that happen. IFRs, which were first developed during a massive research project in the United States during the 1980s and 90s, do not produce waste or carbon emissions, and will virtually never run out of fuel, he said.
Another of his prescriptions for the future is a new technology known as plasma converters, which he says have the potential to turn the things we consider to be waste materials into fuels.
"Companies are currently working on plasma converters in Japan and Pennsylvania in the US. These have the potential to make ethanol for less than one dollar per gallon without driving up the price of corn, which is needed for food production."
Mr Blees also nominated boron fuel cells as being a superior clean technology for running cars.
"The virtuosity of using electric cars is somewhat shallow at the moment because the power in the batteries largely comes from coal-fired power stations."
Boron, on the other hand, has the potential to be recyclable, and the waste product boron oxide could be taken to an Integrated Fast Reactor where the oxygen can be removed, and the fuel reused.
Mr Blees, who visited ANSTO with Professor Barry Brook from the University of Adelaide, said the Science Council for Global Initiatives has been established to try and drive the energy revolution he is proposing.