May 20 2012: In his vision of the future nuclear power isn't really necessary...which is a good thing because as he mentioned, nobody wants to fund nuclear at the moment.
Feb 11 2012: I think this has already been mentioned a couple times; but it seems like in previous times there was a lot of "kitchen science" going on simply because it was interesting and there wasn't anything else to do. Nowadays people are constantly bombarded by distractions like video games, social networking, media being shoved in their face, ever-increasing work hours (look at how many hours on average people work a week now compared to a century ago) etc.. It now takes a real dedicated effort to be able to get yourself away from all that even if you're really passionate about it. Where back in "the day" (pick an era) people would go and tinker with machines and rockets and crazy stuff because it was pretty much the only way to learn (not to mention blowing stuff up is a fun way to pass the time), it's easier today to just read something on arstechnica about a big lab doing something neat to scratch that curious itch.
That and the whole "economic turmoil" thing makes it difficult to get things done even when you do have the drive...I can think of tons of projects I'd love to work on if only I didn't have to work on not starving.
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A reply on Talk: Amory Lovins: A 40-year plan for energy
A comment on Conversation: Why don't we have more "Kitchen" scientists?
That and the whole "economic turmoil" thing makes it difficult to get things done even when you do have the drive...I can think of tons of projects I'd love to work on if only I didn't have to work on not starving.