Manuel Lozano Leyva, physicist: “What Trump wants to do with nuclear energy is a delusion. He is giving millions to some kids” | Science | EUROtoday

Manuel Lozano Leyva, a physicist from Seville, emeritus professor and advisor to the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), turns 77 this yr and says that he’s not sufficiently old to be afraid to say what he thinks. For this purpose, he states with out hesitation that “[Donald] Trump is crazy” or advocates the restoration of mandatory military service or defends nuclear energy. An anecdote that this coachman’s grandson remembers with laughter, from whom he inherited a passion for horses (he houses 66 on the eight-hectare farm where he lives in Dos Hermanas), summarizes his life strategy: during a cross-country competition he had to ride Opinion. He was surprised to be greeted with laughter and applause at the exit and he soon saw why. The animal was known because it did not stop refusing and was a specialist in reaching the goal last, when it arrived. But this time he managed to complete the course and, for the first time, not in last place.

Lozano Leyva lives life as he did with Opinion: disdaining political correctness and the currents that he considers wrong, no matter how strong they may be, focused on reaching the end of what he undertakes, investigating and remaining firm in his faith in science.

Clandestine activist for democracy during the Franco regime, he participated in a coup d’état plan shortly before the death of the dictator he fictionalized in The rebellion of the ‘Vulcan’ (Algaida, 2015). And this passion for writing (he is the author of fifteen works), together with his unwavering scientific and dissemination vocation, has led him to a latest book that will be published this January: The sixth element (RBA, 2026). Although the subtitle, A biography of carbonleads one to think that it is a treatise on physics and chemistry, nothing could be further from the truth. He defends that carbon is “the backbone of life” and as such makes use of it to hunt solutions to basic questions: our origin, our existence and our future.

Ask. It states that the carbon in our bodies was forged in the hearts of dying stars. Are we their dust?

Answer. Or ashes, depending on how romantic you are. All matter arises from stars when they form. These are born, live, die, die and are reborn by thermonuclear reactions (fusion). After the Big Bang, some heavier elements begin to be generated. But the transition from beryllium to carbon occurs due to an extraordinarily unique circumstance: an energy level that in the universe can only occur inside large dying stars, in a stage of their agony. This is the miracle. From there, heavier elements are formed within the dying stars. Carbon can take various forms, from carbon to graphite or diamond. It is the skeleton of the molecules of life and an absolutely natural consequence of a certain physical circumstance. The only appropriate medium to join together into more complex molecules is mud. He Genesis The biblical story tells that man emerged from the clay and that on the first day there was light, like the spontaneous generation of radiation from the Big Bang. I do not defend anything because I am an atheist or agnostic, whatever you want to call it, but the intuition of those who wrote these things was formidable, fantastic. The rest is all madness.

P. In the book he remembers that Napoleon said that he did not see God anywhere. He says you don’t either.

R. Was [Pierre-Simon] Laplace, [astrónomo y efímero ministro del Interior de Francia] who taught Napoleon the mathematical description of the movements of the solar system. After looking at her, he told her that he didn’t see God anywhere. Laplace’s response was that at no time had he worked with such a hypothesis.

P. He warns that science and technology lead us to restlessness, to unprecedented well-being or to self-destruction. Where are we going?

R. Everything that science discovers can be applied to creation or destruction. It is we and not science who decide. We are capable of reaching the moon or flying, but aviation can be used to make us happy traveling the world or to develop fighter-bombers, which are based on the same laws of aerodynamics. We can fight a virus or trigger an artificial pandemic.

P. Can it be controlled?

R. I believe that democracy and constitutions must be slightly transformed to educate the political classes and avoid consequences like the ones we are seeing. From the scientific and technological side, we have to put ourselves at the forefront again, as we have always done in Europe. Trump is manipulating technology and putting it in the hands of riffraff. He is doing terrible things and disrupting all legality. You have to merge the two parts [política y ciencia] to give democracy a totally different meaning.

We must go beyond national projects, unify supranational teams and provide them with clear objectives. The problem is the new politician that Europe is taking over

P. Can Europe do it independently?

R. We have to put ourselves at the forefront of the scientific and technical revolution. Europe can be independent of all North American digitalization. We have plenty of capacity for that and to have a defense that is cheaper than the sum of those that exist individually. I am one of those who think that mandatory European military service must be recovered. We must go beyond national projects, unify supranational teams and provide them with clear objectives. The problem is the new politician that Europe is taking over. We must promote projects that really give us freedom and independence.

P. The book addresses climate change with three options: a new productive paradigm, the gradual and unstoppable increase in the use of new non-polluting energy sources or the reasonable combination of the previous two. Is the last alternative possible?

R. The atmosphere is a highly complex system, as is the human body. Global warming is not debatable, it is measured, but addressing climate change is complicated. Energy sources, the more renewable, the better. But, from my point of view, the support of variable sources [intermitentes, como la solar o la eólica] It has to be nuclear. Not the one that exists now, which is old, but the new reactors that are being considered for development. What Trump wants to do with nuclear energy is delusional. He is giving millions to some kids for something that is technically wrong. Trump is unhinged. On the other hand, the modular nuclear reactors proposed by Europe are super-sophisticated technology. There is an alternative to uranium: thorium, which has very similar characteristics, but is much better. Norway has enough thorium to maintain a fleet of nuclear reactors for one to two centuries.

What Trump wants to do with nuclear energy is delusional. He is giving millions to some kids for something that is technically wrong. He’s crazy

P. And there wouldn’t be safety or waste problems?

R. The waste would be much less than that generated by uranium and, regarding security, plutonium is not in the chain. China already has a thorium reactor. I don’t know where the research is to solve our problems in Europe, to decide and become sovereign and independent in terms of energy.

P. And nuclear fusion?

R. It is ideal, but it is still a desideratum that must continue to be investigated because it is the future. But it’s not around the corner. What is done in Granada [IFMIF-DONES] It is wonderful and I have fully supported it. But the ITER [International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor] It is today the largest fusion experiment and it is that: experimental. We are in a fusion stage that will give the expected results of stability, but its connection to the network will be a demo [demostración]. We still do not know the amount of high-energy neutrons that come out of the fusion or how they interact with the structural materials. We are getting into something that, as physicists say, is a new constant: the number of years left to have the fusion is always 50.

P. Does not avoid any puddles.

R. I like to get in the middle of the horses’ scares. A pack will do anything except throw you.

You don’t fear what happened before you were born and you don’t care about the future either. What concerns you is life. So dedicate yourself to it

P. He says that the diamond, formed by crystallized carbon, represents the eternal struggle before the beauty we seek and the price we pay for it.

R. The diamond has a double aspect: the first aspect is beauty, perfection; The dark side is that it is associated with luxury, power and blood.

P. He also affirms that not only should we not fear death, but rather enjoy the relationship established by Epicurus between atoms and the joy of living.

R. What one has to do is just not take into consideration the afterlife or be afraid of loss of life. You do not concern what occurred earlier than you had been born and you do not care concerning the future both. What considerations you is life. So, dedicate your self to it.