(04-12-2017 11:06 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote: 100% intelligent. Because the benefit of the government is that you can more easily fund technology with high capital and research costs when it is in its infancy because you do not need to see a direct ROI. Then you eventually can have private industries take over and unleash the full potential of that technology. For example, without NASA, I doubt you see all of the private space flight companies you do today.
I think we may be on different pages about pushing though, and what that means.
I think it is intelligent to fully fund research and development into the possible technologies of the future, and to give funding to the scientists who want to be on the forefront of science and technology development.
But pushing for the nonviable does not mean ignoring and completely throwing out conventional energy sources - which is what I stated in my original response. You can still at least create an environment that is no unduly burdensome to those technologies. The Obama administration really only did that to coal, which is one technology that is not really in our best interests to keep pursuing.
They did not make it unduly burdensome to continue to develop oil and gas resources, and I know that because we are still producing a crap ton of it. They may have increased the burden, but not to an extent that it was causing the industry to flounder (but if you can provide evidence of that, I'll listen).
So as long as the Obama administration did not drive the industry into bankruptcy, their efforts to hassle and harass were all okay? The oil industry survived because of advances in seismic and fracking technology which overcame Obama's efforts to destroy it. Then the lying SOB Obama had the gall to claim responsibility for cheaper energy, reduced reliance on foreign oil, and the economic recovery that those (and not any of Obama's "stimulus" policies) sustained. Now, that recovery was very weak, IMO because Obama's "stimulus" efforts were actually counterproductive. So the energy industry actually overcame Obama's efforts to screw the American public on two fronts.
And to me, "nonviable" means "not viable." Given the definition, I fail to see how one can justify efforts to force nonviable solutions onto the public.
What should happen is more emphasis on making non-viable options become viable. The approach should include research to find ways to make options viable, experimentation with potentially bible options, and adoption of viable alternatives.
The beauty of what Brazil did is that they focused entirely on vile options with presently available technology, and in so doing managed to get 44% of their vehicle fuel from biofuels. That's the kind of approach that I favor:
Things that are doable now:
1) More nuclear generated electricity. There are risks, for sure, but right now the risk calculus favors nuclear over coal, and things like solar and wind really are not capable of meeting base load needs.
2) Converting trains to electric power. Trains are much easier than cars, because they run on fixed tracks so they don't need to carry their power source with them, but can take it from fixed supply lines.
3) Converting delivery fleets that can easily fuel at a single point to natural gas. We don't have the infrastructure in place to use CNG for everything, but we can certainly use it where the number of required distribution points can be limited.
4) Using sugar cane ethanol, as much as we can produce here and as much as we can import from places like Brazil and Cuba. We could revive the collapsed Cuban sugar cane industry and achieve a significant reduction in oil usage. Doing the same thing throughout Mexico and Central and South America--and possibly West Africa--could also facilitate considerable reductions in our drug and illegal immigration issues by providing viable alternative employment for people in those areas.
Experimentation, particularly to develop scale and infrastructure, two critical areas that those who are in such a rush to get away from fossil fuels all too often fail to weigh properly:
1) Electric cars are not viable yet because of range limitations. But getting them on the road and finding out what works and what doesn't is a critical part of increasing both viability and our ability to scale.
2) Finding ways to use electricity as a prime mover for more applications, as we increase our generation capacity, and finding ways to use natural gas for more internal combustion applications.
Research:
1) Better electric storage. This makes electric cars more viable, and also develops our ability to use solar and wind for base load.
2) Nuclear waste disposal. Why not just do like the French and recycle, until the residue can simply be put back where we found it? Jimmy Carter blocked this with a executive order that can be reversed, just as he blocked growth in our use of relatively clean burning natural gas.
3) Coal gasification and liquefaction. I realize that coal is now the favorite boogeyman, but if we could address these issues, we could turn a plentiful asset into long-term supply of relatively clean energy.
