Lightfoot is Nobody’s Fuel

BY MARC LALONDE

marc.lalonde@transcontinental.ca

Baie d’Urfé resident Doug Lightfoot’s got an inconvenient truth for you: it’s an overdependence on fossil fuels that’s going to sap the planet’s finite resources before climate change can really even take hold.

Lightfoot, a retired mechanical engineer and a member of McGill University’s Global Environmental and Climate Change Centre, has produced and is actively promoting a DVD production called Nobody’s Fuel, which details his hypothesis that the world’s current reliance on finite fossil fuels will lead us all into ruin.

“I’ve been studying this for a long time — since the 1970s, actually,” said Lightfoot, who has published multiple research papers detailing the consumption and depletion of the world’s natural fuel resources. “The reason the United States is so rich is because it has been burning more energy than anyone else.”

For instance, Lightfoot reports the United States used more energy in 1850 than 60 per cent of the world’s countries use today — and that’s before Henry Ford’s Model-T revolutionized transportation in the early part of the 20th century.

The solution, he contends, is nuclear energy that is gleaned from uranium in fast-breeding reactors — nuclear fission energy.

“There has been enough uranium mined already to power the world for another 150 to 200 years,” he said. “Using fast-breeder reactors, we could have enough energy to last for tens of thousands of years,” he said, adding that one kilogram of uranium holds more energy than 2.3 million litres of gasoline.”

Now, he’s taking Nobody’s Fuel on the road. Lightfoot, who has produced a two-hour DVD detailing his ideas - available for $39.95 on his website, nobodysfuel.com - will speak at the Senneville Curling Club.

The presentation, which includes a viewing of the DVD, is slated for Sunday at the Senneville Curling Club.

The nuclear-fission idea, Lightfoot says, is not out of the financial question.

“It’s not untenable from an economic standpoint, and even if the price of uranium goes up, it’s still within reason,” he said.

The big obstacle is getting scientists and engineers together to help the engineers put the scientists’ ideas into practice, he said.

“We have to bring the two fields together to make things work past a theoretical standpoint,” Lightfoot said.

Lightfoot will present Nobody’s Fuel Sunday from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Senneville Curling Club, 11 Tunstall Rd. For more information, visit www.nobodysfuel.ca.쇓