Anybody that says we should evaluate options based purely on engineering considerations has my complete support. I think a vigorous open expert on-going investigation of the engineering considerations is crucial. My feeling is that we will need a LOT of energy because we are running out of other things as well as fossil fuels, and energy can substitute for many things (e.g. fresh water via desalination). I'm pretty pessimistic: I think we'll be seeing people starving to death live on TV, and the only question is: How many? Stalin said "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic". It will be hard to resist that attitude if we don't have enough energy to do anything about it.