Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–187
with those that already have models, but not have their own models. The climate models are
limited at best. The observations are tricky.
ASPATURIAN: When you speak of the climate models, you’re talking about global warming and
the oil-production peaks, and that sort of thing?
TOMBRELLO: Oh, the oil-production peaks are a separate thing. I know a little bit more about
that. I talked a little bit about King Hubbert and seeing him when I was just out of college
[Session 1]. I’m a great peak-oil person. I truly believe in it. I believe in the models. I don’t
think there is much else you can do there. I’m very much a fan of what David Rutledge is doing.
He’s looking at applying the same techniques to world coal production. To make a long story
short, everybody worries about the amount of CO 2 you can make from burning coal, and that’s a
legitimate worry over the short term. But if you look at what Rutledge has done—which I think
is exceedingly important, maybe underappreciated; I’m one of his greatest fans—the good news
is that there isn’t enough coal to make as much CO 2 as the extremists think, and the bad news is
there won’t be that much energy, either. So, since there is less fossil fuel that you can get at
efficiently, it won’t make as much CO 2 , but we may all get pretty cold. [Laughter]
ASPATURIAN: Are you involved in any work looking at nuclear reactors as an energy source?
TOMBRELLO: Years ago, more than twenty-five years ago, I was on a national committee to look
at reactor accidents. In every nuclear reactor accident, human error played an enormous role, if
not the only role. That is underappreciated. It means that the technology is a lot safer than
people think. It’s a matter of training. But you do have to design the systems appropriately, and
you have to train the people who operate the systems appropriately. I’m a fan of nuclear energy.
I think there’s a lot of hype out there now about new types of reactors, where they have great
concepts and no designs. The difference is that a concept is something that looks attractive, and
you put a few numbers into it, but in no way could you take that and actually make an actual
power plant. You could produce a concept for $10 million, $20 million. To do a design study
for something that’s going to cost as much as a nuclear reactor or a reactor system, you might
have to spend a billion dollars. And they haven’t done that. They’re going to have to think
about that. This comes into the fusion problem, both for the magnetic confinement of fusion,
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