He proposes collecting surcharges on the use of fossil fuels and electricity amounting to $4.8 trillion over 30 years, leaving a surplus of $1 trillion for investment or refund.

What will be the payback to the American people over the 30-year transition from the investments in all renewable energy?

Mr. Shuster calculates fuel savings and electricity savings of $8.3 trillion, which leaves a net benefit of $3.5 trillion from an investment of $4.8 trillion — a return of 72.9%.

To that he adds a cleaner environment, stable energy prices with savings projected at $500 billion per year, an improved balance of payments, a resurgent dollar, and a prosperous and sustainable economy.

If this plan is extended to the world, he sees that oceans will recover, mercury will dissipate, acid rain and toxic gasses will disappear, and human-caused global warming will no longer be an issue.

Finally, he suggests that an energy-independent world will have lost a major cause of conflict, violence and war.

This is Mr. Shuster’s plan. I applaud his initiative, although I know it will be a controversial proposal.  And it is true that there are many alternative routes towards a self-renewing energy solution for the U.S.  Here are some thoughts about these opportunities:

·        I have seen a Russian gamma ray reactor that supposedly could reduce the half-life of nuclear waste to twenty-five days.  Nuclear energy produces no CO2 greenhouse gasses.  If nuclear waste can be stored safely or rendered harmless, nuclear energy can meet all of our baseload energy needs for more that 100 thousand years.

·        In South Africa, the most advanced, and most safe nuclear reactor is being built, using small spheres of uranium oxide and graphite.  Put enough spheres together and a chain reaction will start.  Safety is assured in that the system shuts itself down if it overheats.

·        I’ve listened to researchers who believe that the oil economy could be replaced by a glucose economy.  The U.S. could harvest plant matter in the amount of 1.3 billion tons peer year without affecting food production.  That is enough to replace 65% of current petroleum consumption.  Add algae and new and more genetically appropriate plants and better technology, and tropical countries could join us in the next industrial revolution. 

·        I’ve seen the potential of geothermal in Iceland.  It is an invisible form of energy, ready for the taking, and my late friend, Dr. Curt Nicolin, heated his home and pool with it in southern Sweden.

·        Windmills were virtually absent a decade ago — soon they will supply up to 25% of the energy of a state or a country.  They dot the landscape of the Midwest “wind tunnel.”  Using intelligent grids and intelligent user technology, the variations in supply may be accommodated so that demand and supply are a seamless fit.

·        Solar power technology improves every day — now a system of concentrated sun energy applied to solar cells has driven costs down to 5¢ per kilowatt hour — matching the cost of the use of coal in energy production.

·        Geographic luck offers certain locations special energy advantages.  Waves and tides supply coastal homes in Norway with energy. Abundant waterfalls drive turbines throughout that mountainous country.  And under Norway’s continental shelf, there are considerable reserves of oil and gas.

·        In the Sahara, they have just begun to harvest energy from the sun; the deserts of New Mexico are perfect for solar farms.  And Saudi Arabia is sometimes referred to as the “Saudi Arabia” of solar energy.

Those who would like another route to energy independence should propose a plan that will be better than Mr. Shuster’s plan.  That may not be easy, because I think Mr. Shuster may have underestimated the possible savings from his approach, extraordinary as even those numbers may seem.

Here is why:  The moment the U.S. commits to this plan, OPEC will know that oil and gas will be marginalized as future sources of energy.  Energy independence is the greatest threat to the power of the cartel.

Immediately, oil prices will start to fall as oil producers scramble to compete for diminishing demand, both current and projected.  There are about one trillion barrels of known reserves in the ground; if you were holding them, what would you do between now and 2040?

Prices will need to fall in order to sell the overhang of excessive supply of oil in a rapidly energy converting world.

But, the U.S. must tax gasoline in a more imaginative way than what Mr. Shuster suggests.  He proposes a 50¢ tax per gallon of gasoline.  A better way will be to guarantee a $3.00 price of gasoline, and pocket the difference between what is likely to be a $1.00 per gallon (or less) market price and the $3.00 guaranteed price.  The difference will then finance the conversion costs of changing to an energy-independent economy instead of fueling the profits of oil companies and the OPEC cartel.

The falling market price is likely to generate $280 billion per year in surcharges on gasoline.  Add this to the other fees on electricity production (2.5¢ per kilowatt), coal ($50 per ton), gas ($1 per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas burned) and gas guzzlers, and the annual take will be $450 million per year – enough to finance the entire cost of conversion in only 7.2 years.

To achieve the desired energy source mix of 80% nuclear, ten percent wind and ten percent solar, I don’t know if it is possible to build the 95 nuclear power plants per year over those 7.2 years, or 15 thousand 2-megawatt windmills, or the equivalent in solar energy plants that will be required.  Engineers will have to come up with drawings, technologies and time lines to make it happen.

I do know that it would be the kind of effort that could define our generation.  I believe that leadership and steadfastness will be the critical factors in such a gargantuan project, and I believe that we can do it.

I am a grandfather, too.

I read Mr. Shuster’s persuasive and brilliant book with a critical eye.  I am not a nuclear scientist.  I know nothing about fast neutron reactors or the reasons why they are considered to be environmentally sound.

But I know that the ideas underlying the book are simply derived by applying the principles of productivity to perhaps the most challenging problem of our time.  And because I know productivity, I took the liberty to speed up the transformation by 22.8 years (317%).

Even I am probably underestimating the gains from succeeding in this extraordinary quest; the returns from having our children grow up in a clean, safe and just world, a world in which they are educated and cared for, will exceed any projections Mr. Shuster and I could dare offer.

Mr. Shuster is 74 years of age.  Consider his perspective when he sat down to write this book.  He wrote it as a message to a future that he thought he would never know but that his grandchildren would.  And that fueled his efforts.

Now, we both might live to see it.

Will the leader of this all-important energy quest please step forward?