Some of the most significant achievments of mankind (under-represented in mainstream media). Every engineer must read/watch these:

• Breeder reactors: A renewable energy source Bernard L.Cohen shows how energy from Uranium is renewable: can provide energy longer than the Sun, billions of years (and Thorium 3x longer still, out of the scope of the article)
• MSRE experiment, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Historical Project Summary Video
• MSRE experiment, wikipedia page. Note: scanned original project/experiment documentation is available since around 2006, thanks to Kirk Sorensen
• Ed Pheil on Fast Spectrum Molten Salt Reactors ... Chloride salt fast spectrum molten salt reactors is the best approach for next generation clean energy (most practical on U238 => Pu239 from spent fuel, denatured weapon material or depleted U, but also possible with Th232 => U233 with slightly worse neutron economy). Get rid of long-lived "nuclear waste" (which is not really waste, it is fuel to power our civilization for 1000+ years * current consumption) in a clean, safe, proliferation-resistant way. Minimize risks by eliminating most "dispersive mechanisms" (contain materials in case of a malfunction, minimize environmental issues during normal operation and accident scenarios).
• Technology is NOT the main issue here... Ed's team needs green light (regulatory changes that Obama's 2010 State of the Union speech suggested, but unfortunately never happened: USA president + Congress have no real power when it comes to real issues) + access to spent fuel, and they solve the world's energy problem in a few years (well within a decade).
• Even if Harry Potter solved fusion suddenly miraculously (otherwise "nuclear fusion is 30 years away, and it will always be"), fusion would provide no real benefit over the "best breed" fission breeder neutronic reactors (based on well understood and actually tried technologies). 1 radioactive isotope / 80..120 MeV (mostly short-lived waste that needs careful storage for a reasonable amount of time in reasonably low quantities) is possible with fission, and fusion (with appr 1 neutron / 17 MeV) is unlikely to be any better (and most likely needs U238 or Th232 fast fission blanket anyway to get usable energy out of fusion, with any of the foreseable designs - tokamak is not the best, not even close). Since criticality is an issue that is easy to solve today (keeping reactors delayed critical = safe away from prompt critical state), fusion, or accelerator based systems would just add unnecessary complexity, cost, and nuclear waste to a molten salt reactor. Fusion will someday be useful in interstellar space travel: roughly 2x the specific impulse (4x the energy content / mass) compared to fission. And possibly for smaller scale powerplants (possibly; hard to tell for certain; but the D-T cross sections and Farnsworth fusor experiments between 4 and 60keV and some other promising experimental data suggests it cannot be ruled out; grid based devices seem to hit a wall around 10^10 n/s in practice but gridless electromagnetically induced plasma apparatus will break new records - pulsed in time, reaction concentrated in highly localized small spot is the way to go instead of continuous homogenous plasma "contained" in tokamak which is 30 years away as always. ).
• Any "space-power-beam-down-scotty" or large-scale power production proposal should be compared to the FSMSR (2500..4500 USD /kW depending on legislation and economy of scale; < 0.00005 USD / kWh almost negligible fuel cost U238 => Pu239 and Th232=>U233 when burned in a breeder reactor: has similar energy content as U235: approximately 200MeV / nucleus or 24000000 kWh/kg appr 3 million times the energy content of coal. (In the ballpark of coal_fuel_cost/1000, even if calculating with elevated handling costs). A proposal might only be practical if the deployment + running cost compare favorably. Also: some method of energy storage is not practical if producing the energy costs less than the cost of storage.
• CME / Solar storm of 1859 We should prepare (at least with detailed plans) to fix the electric energy network if there is the slightest chance it ever becomes necessary.
  • (HU) CME/napkitörés 1770 és 1859 Az elektromos hálózat esetleges meghibásodása esetén annak javítására (pl. átvészelni az átmeneti időszakot + trafók pótlása) nem ártana felkészülni legalább akcióterv szinten...
• Note: "burrying CO2" is intentionally left out (CO2 is an important and scarce resource for life on Earth, at the bottom of food-chain we depend on). We should accomodate to climate change: climate change is "business as usual" on Earth, been so millions of years before technical civilization, and our ancestors could live with it. Take care to prevent overpopulation; not to put concrete all over the land; and enjoy the Green Greenland and Siberia (and later Antarctica, perhaps). Luckily IR absorption related to CO2 grows asymptotically, rate of change diminishing with every +100 ppm of plant food in the athmosphere (that was once in the athmosphere, and CO2 in the athmosphere means life; unlike CO2 in Dover cliffs or other limestone which is as dead as it can be).
• There are alternatives to Lithium rechargable batteries. Some (not disclosed here) chemical reactions based on B => H2 => fuel cell => electric energy might provide reasonable 500+km (passenger car) range with < 100kg fuel (that is less dangerous than gasoline, and can be swapped quick, and "recharged/regenerated" using electric energy in relatively low-tech, small scale plants).

This is just the tip of the iceberg, a modern "Ten Commandments" for science students. No need to agree with all of them (add your amendments as you like, naturally helps, especially after every few years of study). If scientists / engineers learn about them, it really makes a (positive) difference. Some advanced communication channel / formalized thematical organization of information will be necessary to coordinate efforts (a complex problem, but not unsolvable ... there is some progress every year).
As a start ? Discuss some of this with students/collegues, especially in physics / nuclear / engineering faculties (beware: F'book censors communication and disables accounts at will). At some point, today's students will have better understanding and new ideas (that's how knowledge evolved in the past; let's continue this practica, let's not allow this practice to go out of fashion, or depend on google or F'book).

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