PLENTIFUL ENERGY

enough. Except for temporary periods, it has never been enough, and it never will be
enough for the kind of developing country we are, with our population steadily
increasing and our desires and incomes expanding without long term letup. I have
listened for years to assertions that we don‘t need more energy; they have always and
everywhere been wrong, and they are just as wrong today as they have been
throughout the history of energy and industrialized economies. Energy is part of a
historic process, a substitute for the labor of human beings. As human aspirations
develop, so does the demand for and the use of energy develop and grow. This is the
basic lesson of history.‖
Rhodes then goes on,
―Satisfying human aspirations is what our species invents technology to do. Some
Americans, secure in comfortable affluence, may dream of a simpler and smaller
world. However noble such a dream appears to be, its hidden agenda is elitist, selfish
and violent. Millions of children die every year for lack of adequate resources—
clean water, food, medical care—and the development of those resources is directly
dependent on energy supplies. The real world of real human beings needs more
energy. With nuclear power, that energy can be generated cleanly and without
destructive global warming.‖
The passage of time has diminished neither the power nor the urgency of these
words.
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