cavolina wrote:Okie
I was gonna let Joe answer this one but I couldn't resist.
In 1957, the Ruskies sent a shot across our bow. It was called Sputnik. Three years later Kennedy promised to send a man to the Moon and bring him back safely. It was done.
Huge difference between going to the moon and producing synthetic oil in the open market. You are comparing apples and oranges. There is no doubt that synthetic oil can be produced, just not at a profit. Going to the moon was never a profit making venture. There are some things appropriate for government to do, such as organizing a military to defend itself, which is in fact one of the few things authorized by the constitution, but the military is never a profitable venture. And when sending man to the moon becomes profitable, or efficient, I doubt the government would be capable of doing it. It will likely require a private company to achieve it, and it seems like there is some news along those lines?
Quote:Carter may have wanted to produce synthetic oil, but the politics of Big Oil would never have let that happen. I think he may have spent some money on initial research, but billions is strethhing it by billions.
Another stupid statement. Big Oil has no power to keep anything from happening that is economically feasible. Demagoguery is all you are spouting out here with no facts whatsoever that are tied to reality. Big Oil would love to produce oil from coal or something else that is cheaper than buying it from the Arabs. Big Oil owns alot of coal reserves in fact.
Quote:As an educated man you must know that a research project like synthetic oil takes years to start. The criteris must be determined. The scientists must be picked. The labs selected and so forth. I recall none of this getting done during a contentious presidency.
The truth is the research failed to come up with a viable, economical solution. That is why it never resulted in success. The technology is still out there and is being investigated, and as conventional oil becomes higher in price due to demand and higher production costs, some of these things will enter the market place. This is not complicated to figure out. That is why Canadian oil production from tar sand mining has now entered the market. It is being done by private companies.
Quote:As for nuclear energy, as an educated man you of course know that fusion is generally clean and starts with the elements in a drop of water. The hydrogen molecules when fused together make that seriously funny gas called helium. Environmentally, pretty safe stuff.
The reality is that money for this research, which could make energy both abundant and practically free, is almost non-existent. An educated man like yourself probably could elucidate the reason for that oversight, couldn't you?
As for environmentalists, you, as an educated man, must know that when we have fouled our environment beyond repair, we have no other place to go.
I don't think you are correct on this. Research into fusion has been ongoing for a long time on many fronts by many nations. There are problems with it, and it is doubtful anything commercial could come out of this for at least 40 years according to one website that I looked at. Again, you need to look at reality here. Perhaps additional research money should be looked at, that is a matter of judgement in terms of capability of spending the research money wisely over and above the programs already well along in the process. I would need to look into this more to educate myself on the history of the research, but certainly I know that we have not ignored this possible energy source at all. I can remember research into fusion going back 30 and 40 years ago at least.
The argument of fusion being the magic bullet is a bit of new argument by liberals like yourself, unless I've missed out on this. Usually, its been solar, wind, biomass, or something else, but perhaps you've awakened to reality enough that you need something better than those now for an immediate fix to the problem.
My philosophy is: the free market is the answer. Necessity is the mother of invention. Have confidence in the free market and the ability of man to invent and discover, over and above and beyond what any government is capable of doing in the marketplace. The key for us is to devote ourselves to good educations and hard work, which will avail us the best chance at success. Government has not built the success in this country; it has only provided the appropriate atmosphere for the people to be successful. From the cotton gin, to Henry Ford, to Bill Gates, and the literally thousands of entreprenuers and inventors, there is no corporation that can keep a genie in the bottle if the genie is in the bottle.
