Regard d'un physicien sur le probleme de l'energie

The energy problem is one of the most serious challenges facing our civilization. The issue is not whether there are sufficient energy resources in the short - or medium-term, even though world consumption is already considerable, but rather how can we satisfy the world's current and future energy requirements without compromising the planet's ecological balance and how can we ensure an equitable distribution of an acceptable level of energy resources between all countries, including developing countries? The problem has now become a worldwide one with consequences that are also world- wide. The developed countries have lost control of the Earth's ecological future. In 1990 the developing countries consumed only a quarter of the world's energy resources. By 2020 they will already be consuming 60 %. New environmentally friendly technologies will have to be invented to produce sufficient energy at competitive prices. It is not just in the interests of the developed countries to help developing countries to acquire these new technologies, it is also their moral duty to do so. Any injunction to the developing countries not to burn coal and oil as we have done to date would be indefensible. Nuclear energy appears to be one of the possible ways of combating global warming since it produces no CO//2 and is currently the only source of energy capable of meeting demand for several centuries at least. This is the general background to the proposal of Carlo Rubbia and his team of CERN physicists for a new way of exploiting nuclear fission energy which addresses the question: Can one imagine fission-based nuclear energy that would be acceptable to our society, in other words, an ecological source of nuclear energy?. 22 Refs.