> From: Jed Rothwell ...
> All the handwringing in the newspapers about the energy crisis is > misguided. The New York Times claim that "energy independence is an > unattainable goal" is ignorant nonsense. We could attain it in 20 years > using conventional technology. If we had started 20 years ago, we > would be > independent already. In fact we would be a paid-up member of OPEC, busy > exporting oil and possibly hydrogen to other countries. Insane, indeed. > The problem with all these schemes is not technical or engineering. The > problem is that they would cost a terrific amount of money -- perhaps as > much as the war in Iraq. At the drop of a hat, the US will spend $270 > billion on a war in Iraq, or $110 billion on the Star Wars > missile defense > system (I think that is the latest estimate), but we will not spend that > kind of money building solar towers, wind turbines, improved PV > technology > and so on. > > Needless to say, one of the tremendous advantages cold fusion would have > over these conventional systems is that it would cost thousands of times > less to implement. It has many other advantages, described in my book. > > When you talk about "solving" a technical problem you have to > remember that > some solutions are much better than others. Mainframe computers > went a long > way to solving many nagging data processing problems in the > 1960s. If they > had not come along, the airline reservation system and the stock market > would have collapsed. But personal computers were a much better solution > and they allow us to do far more data processing than anyone > imagined in 1965. > > - Jed What remains mind boggling to me is the fact that even if none of these exotic new forms of energy (CF, ZPE, etc...) ever get developed we STILL could become energy independent in a short period of time, all based on careful extrapolations of technology we are capable of building - all applied to sources of energy we KNOW are available. This continues to suggest to me that the main issue is not a technological one. It is a political problem. Our nation needs another equivalent goal: "To land a man on the moon by the end of the decade..." Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
