On 15 December 2014 at 08:22, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > Technology doesn't come by magic. Nuclear power and photovoltaics were > both developed by the government. Low emission automobiles were developed > in response to government regulation. Sure technology is the solution to > global warming, but technology takes development and development takes > money. Regulations not only restrict things, they also promote things. > One of the impediments to building thorium based nuclear powerplants is > that there are not regulations for them. If you propose building one the > first thing investors, local communities, local governments will ask is, > "Will it meet all the safety requirments and regulations." There aren't any > (except the generic ones) so you can't get approval to build it. This is a > problem only the federal government can overcome by doing the initial > development and writing safety standards based on the operation of pilot > plants. No capitalist is going to invest in such a developmental project - > it's too risky at the legal level even if the technology were already > developed (which it isn't). > > And more broadly this is the reason why the "let the market sort it out" response I read a few posts back won't work. The market is a bunch of self-interested people trying to maximise profit. Only bodies which are powerful and have the interests of the country / world / people at least partly in their sights are capable of putting incentives in place that will bring about the necessary long term results.
How do you develop a nuclear arsenal or put a man in space? Not through private investment etc. You don't even get roads and railways and telephone lines and power grids and hospitals (and a 100 other things) created - or not created in a manner that is at all efficient - without some such organisation. Relying on the market to sort things out is approximately the same as treating what happens in "A Christmas carol" as your roadmap. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
