evidence: All other things being equal, everyone would prefer clean over dirty energy. However, all other things are not equal. We need secure, reliable, and economic energy systems for all countries in the world. This includes Africa, which is currently lacking grid electricity in many countries. We need a 21st century infrastructure for our electricity and transportation systems, to support continued and growing prosperity. The urgency of rushing to implement 20th century renewable technologies risks wasting resources on an inadequate energy infrastructure, increasing our vulnerability to weather and climate extremes and harming our environment in new ways. [...] We should work to minimize our impact on the planet, which isn’t simple for a planet with 8 billion inhabitants. We should work to minimize air and water pollution. From time immemorial, humans have adapted to climate change. Whether or not we manage to drastically curtail our carbon dioxide emissions in the coming decades, we need to reduce our vulnerability to extreme weather and climate events. [...] To thrive in the 21st century, the world will need much more energy. Of course we prefer our energy to be clean, as well as cheap. To get there, we need new technologies. The most promising right now is small modular nuclear reactors. But there are also exciting advances in geothermal, hydrogen and others. And the technology landscape will look different ten years from now.