Jed, You mention projects that are advancing human civilization and many were great investments. Are you OK spending billions on green projects that have 1/100th or less the energy density/potential of existing fossil fuels vs. future clean nuclear options (Including LENR)? . Are you OK filling up the deserts with solar panels full of dust?. I guess you would recommend a Billion Dollar DOE investment in Rossi's company at this point? maybe a GigaCAT?
On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 3:18 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Chemical Engineer <cheme...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> I don't remember Steve and Bill asking for billions in government >> handouts. >> > > Those billions were spent when Steve and Bill were children, from 1950 to > 1970. In the late 50s and early 60s, as I recall reading that over half of > the money going into the construction of semiconductor plants came directly > from Uncle Sam, mainly for NASA and military applications. Most of the > sales were to Uncle, as well as over half of the capital used to make the > product in the first place. Without that investment the minicomputers and > later microcomputers would have arrived decades later. Industry would never > have spent billions for something that was too expensive for anything other > than an Apollo spacecraft. > > Some of early transistors cost ~$16 to replace a vacuum tube that cost a > nickel. No company in its right mind would develop something like that for > a commercial application. They were developed as quickly as possible, > ignoring the expense, for nuclear weapons and Nike missiles guidance > systems. > > The government also paid for most of the development of computers in ENIAC > and in later projects such the MIT Project Whirlwind, and the NORAD > computers, all of the early supercomputers, and SAGE which were later > developed into the SABRE airline reservation system, the first big > real-time distributed computer. > > > >> Much of what you mention are infrastructure projects using proven >> technology . . . >> > > You have that backwards. It was not proven until the government invested > billions in it. Especially in: canals, telegraphs, ocean going steamships > (not rivers), airplanes, highways, computers, semiconductors, nuclear power > and aerospace, especially rockets, which are nowhere near proven even > today. Airplanes were particularly dangerous and unsuited to civilian use, > and would have remained that way for decades had it not been for massive > government investments during WWI and in the 1930s. > > - Jed > >
