Minnesota man says "go nuclear"

Writing books when one reaches a certain age of assumed wisdom is hardly unique. Most such authors use a memoir to stroke their own egos. Joseph Shuster of New Prague wrote his book to stoke a nuclear fire in everyone else.

Standing over the plastic-covered pool table in his converted basement workroom, Shuster explained his motivation. "Well, I'm really worried about my grandchildren. I'm worried about future generations because without energy, they can't have much of a life."

Shuster is no Johnny-come-lately to the energy crisis. As the founder of Minnesota Valley Engineering, he has been sounding the alarm about America's drowning in oil dependence for 4 decades. He accurately predicted the oil embargo and shortages of the 1970's. When American formed long lines at gas-starved stations, Shuster was appearing before Congress, pumping the nation's leadership for answers.

He recalled his frustration. "We were importing 7% of our oil at that time. Then it went to 25%. Then it went to 50%. You would think it would be panic time for them in Washington. Nothing happened."

Shuster worries that this year's Presidential candidates still do not get his message. "I'm just terribly, terribly worried that this is gonna be business as usual. I don't even hear the Presidential candidates talking much about the urgency of solving this problem. I hope that the people that read this book will probably gang up on our leaders, tell em where we want them to lead us, so they can lead us there."

"There" to Joe Shuster is the exit ramp from fossil fuel energy, period. His book is entitled "Fossil Fools", defined as anyone who thinks oil and coal can fuel the world's future. He thinks blaming the oil companies for high gasoline prices is a knee-jerk reaction and a waste of time.

At the same time, he says the oil and coal interests are not leveling with people. "We have about 1 trillion barrels left of conventional oil. We use about 30 billion, the world uses about 30 billion barrels a year. Do the math. It's very simple. I mean you don't have to be a Phd in math to figure that out."

He does not subscribe to the proposals for drilling in the continental shelf (too dangerous, he says) or the Alaskan Wildlife Reserves. "I think they want to go up in the ANWAR very badly and trying to get laws passed so they can get up there and so forth and so on, but I think going up in the ANWAR is a huge mistake because it doesn't do enough for us. I mean, if you find the minimum oil that they predict up there, hell, we'll blow that through our tailpipes in about, less than a year."

Joe Shuster has a dream that he doesn't expect to live to see come to fruition. He wants the world to adopt a mix of sun, wind and the atom to fill all of humanity's energy needs.

"It is a fact that nuclear radiation can kill people, but fossil fuels do kill people, like 2 million people a year." Shuster refers to deaths caused by pollution from dependence on fossil fuels.

He wants his plan fully implemented by the 4th of July. Not THIS 4th of July. He wants July 4, 2040 to be "American Energy Independence Day". On that date, he would like to have all the energy sources in this country be 10% wind, 10% solar and 80% nuclear.

Joe Shuster is 75 now. He says he wrote "Fossil Fools" for his grandchildren. Grandson Jason Lehmann of Lakeville is 14. He beams with pride at his Grandpa's accomplishment.

"I'm really proud of him. I mean he worked really hard on it. It's really cool that he would do that for me. I mean, that he's coming to the dusk of his life and that he would do that for us."

Another grandson is engineer Luke Lehmann, 22. Luke thinks "Fossil Fools is a book that finally offers solutions. "The whole situation. I'm in awe of my grandpa, the book."

And Luke thinks Joe's concept is workable. "I do. I do and speaking for my generation, we understand that nuclear is, nuclear energy is safe and can be part of the solution."

Shuster contends that all of the old questions about nuclear power, including safety and spent fuel rod storage, have been answered by new technology. He details those concepts in the book, which, though well-sourced and footnoted, is very readable for non-engineering types.

Shuster spent 2 ½ years working on the book in a converted room in his basement on Cedar Lake. He covered a pool table with plastic and source books to give me more work space. His research convinced him that Americans are not getting the whole story.

"Absolutely. I'm not surprised that people are confused because my background's in chemical engineering and I've been working around technical issues all my life. When I went researching this book, I mean there's so much conflicting information."

Joe Shuster hopes "Fossil Fools", which officially releases this week, will help clear up some of that confusion. He also hopes that the nation's leaders will listen. He is sending copies to all members of Congress, all the nation's governors, and other community leaders. He plans to donate all proceeds from sales of the book to energy research.

By Allen Costantini, KARE 11 News Read Allen's KAREmudgeon Blog

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