"Gang of 10" energy bill compromise ~$10B research
"Gang of 10" energy bill compromise ~$10B research
Heard about this yesterday on the news; iirc they said some $10B would go to "alternative" energy, which obviously doesn't mean Polwell at this point (and it may not go through anyway) but it's another sign the climate looks pretty favorable for funding, pending the results of peer review.
Pro Forma stuff in an election season. I'm waiting until next year. Heres agood list of the details:An estimated $30 billion that would be paid by the oil companies over 10 years would help fund initiatives such as $7.5 billion to help U.S. automakers expand the production of alternative-fuel vehicles. Funding also would be provided for tax credits to encourage consumers to buy more fuel-efficient cars and for extending tax credits to promote energy efficiency and cleaner energy sources, such as sun and wind power.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printeditio ... 3020.story
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/polit ... _plan.html
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.
Thanks for the list.
This is Something New, and I think it bodes well if the peer review finds Polywell has promise -- thougb, of course, we would still have to wait till next year for a funding bill.
Hmmm? I don't remember anyone throwing this kind of money at energy research in past election years. Hell, they're talking about $500M just for automotive materials research, and billions for electric car research.Pro Forma stuff in an election season. I'm waiting until next year.
This is Something New, and I think it bodes well if the peer review finds Polywell has promise -- thougb, of course, we would still have to wait till next year for a funding bill.
Oh, I've seen it before.
Back when gas hit a jaw dropping $1 per gallon there were all sorts of projects talked about during a couple of election years.
Let's see: hydrogen, Stirling engines, electric vehicles. natural gas vehicles, coal synfuel, solar power satellites, solar, wind, geothermal, ethanol, gas turbines...
Sound famillar? None of these ideas are really new. A few are spun for the current fashions. Back then there were a few more than are on the list now.
Significant $ numbers were discussed, perhaps like the current ones if converted honestly to todays dollars. There was always some excuse.
Very few ever actually got funded, not all the way down to the people doing the work.
And of those, even fewer were completed, like the 50 mph speed limit (but it don't count to me) and a few fission plants. Maybe you can count the Alaska pipeline.
They talk a lot especially during election years but seldom have any follow through.
Cars got smaller because of toyota and honda etc.
Then prices went up to $1.50 for a while and people screamed some more then they came back down to $1 and everybody breathed a sigh of relief and all the projects got quietly de-funded.
Remember those old oil company TV commercials showing the wetland restoration around a refinery, where they spent 10x the project cost on the TV commercials tooting their horns.
Maybe it's for real this time, but I'm not holding my breath.
We are running out of slack for making the transition.
Back when gas hit a jaw dropping $1 per gallon there were all sorts of projects talked about during a couple of election years.
Let's see: hydrogen, Stirling engines, electric vehicles. natural gas vehicles, coal synfuel, solar power satellites, solar, wind, geothermal, ethanol, gas turbines...
Sound famillar? None of these ideas are really new. A few are spun for the current fashions. Back then there were a few more than are on the list now.
Significant $ numbers were discussed, perhaps like the current ones if converted honestly to todays dollars. There was always some excuse.
Very few ever actually got funded, not all the way down to the people doing the work.
And of those, even fewer were completed, like the 50 mph speed limit (but it don't count to me) and a few fission plants. Maybe you can count the Alaska pipeline.
They talk a lot especially during election years but seldom have any follow through.
Cars got smaller because of toyota and honda etc.
Then prices went up to $1.50 for a while and people screamed some more then they came back down to $1 and everybody breathed a sigh of relief and all the projects got quietly de-funded.
Remember those old oil company TV commercials showing the wetland restoration around a refinery, where they spent 10x the project cost on the TV commercials tooting their horns.
Maybe it's for real this time, but I'm not holding my breath.
We are running out of slack for making the transition.
-Tom Boydston-
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?" ~Albert Einstein
"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it?" ~Albert Einstein
I just love the taxing the oil companies idea.
Who will pay the tax? Consumers. What is the consumer's #1 complaint this election season? The high price of gasoline and the ripple effect it has on the economy. So the pols are giving the people the opposite of what they want. What else is new.
Who will benefit? Those with the best government connections.
I like Dr. Nebel's attitude. He wants to get off the government dole as soon as feasible.
If the politicians said that they wanted to seed a lot of small projects with those that produce results getting further funding leading to commercialization, I might have more confidence.
This is another one of those "just do something anything" to make it look like results will be forthcoming.
I have talked to VC guys and a number of them have said that there is more VC money chasing energy than worthwhile projects.
Take battery/fuel cell research. Loads of money already going into that. Computer companies are investing, auto companies, utility companies, battery companies, etc.
I think all this will come under the rubric of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Who will pay the tax? Consumers. What is the consumer's #1 complaint this election season? The high price of gasoline and the ripple effect it has on the economy. So the pols are giving the people the opposite of what they want. What else is new.
Who will benefit? Those with the best government connections.
I like Dr. Nebel's attitude. He wants to get off the government dole as soon as feasible.
If the politicians said that they wanted to seed a lot of small projects with those that produce results getting further funding leading to commercialization, I might have more confidence.
This is another one of those "just do something anything" to make it look like results will be forthcoming.
I have talked to VC guys and a number of them have said that there is more VC money chasing energy than worthwhile projects.
Take battery/fuel cell research. Loads of money already going into that. Computer companies are investing, auto companies, utility companies, battery companies, etc.
I think all this will come under the rubric of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Remember the "Moral equivalent of War"?TallDave wrote: I don't remember anyone throwing this kind of money at energy research
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/fil ... nergy.html
Remember "I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000."
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/16698He proposed a sweeping $142 billion energy plan
$142 billion bucks in 1977 dollars....
...really seems to dwarf what the Gang of 10 is talking about here.
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.
Yes, precisely my point, Roger: 31 years ago, near the peak of the last energy crisis, is the last time we saw anything like this.
And guess what fusion research funding looked like at that time? Bob Zubrin's book on alternative energy has a nice graph showing the positive correlation between fusion research funding and oil prices.
This isn't just normal election year noise; huge efforts are going to be made. If the peer review offers a serious glimmer of hope for economic fusion power in a 5-10 year timeframe, there should be significant money available.
It's almost enough for me to hope oil prices don't go down anytime soon (although, the Corvette I just bought isn't exactly a high-mileage vehicle, so hopefully they don't get any higher).
And guess what fusion research funding looked like at that time? Bob Zubrin's book on alternative energy has a nice graph showing the positive correlation between fusion research funding and oil prices.
This isn't just normal election year noise; huge efforts are going to be made. If the peer review offers a serious glimmer of hope for economic fusion power in a 5-10 year timeframe, there should be significant money available.
It's almost enough for me to hope oil prices don't go down anytime soon (although, the Corvette I just bought isn't exactly a high-mileage vehicle, so hopefully they don't get any higher).
I have no problem rescinding the tax breaks we gave them at $20/bbl -- and we should do the same for farm subsidies, which make even less sense now. The "windfall profits" tax is silly, though -- if you remove the profit, you remove the incentive to invest in new production to make future profits.I just love the taxing the oil companies idea.
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ravingdave
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TallDave wrote:Yes, precisely my point, Roger: 31 years ago, near the peak of the last energy crisis, is the last time we saw anything like this.
And guess what fusion research funding looked like at that time? Bob Zubrin's book on alternative energy has a nice graph showing the positive correlation between fusion research funding and oil prices.
This isn't just normal election year noise; huge efforts are going to be made. If the peer review offers a serious glimmer of hope for economic fusion power in a 5-10 year timeframe, there should be significant money available.
It's almost enough for me to hope oil prices don't go down anytime soon (although, the Corvette I just bought isn't exactly a high-mileage vehicle, so hopefully they don't get any higher).
Over a year ago I was suggesting to my friends that this country needed higher gas prices. Americans were behaving stupidly and wastefully in their energy usage, ( I have been griping for 25 years about the continued use of the inefficient rankine cycle engines ) and the only way something is going to change is if people feel pain. This nation, as a body of people, has collectively about the brain power of a common worm, and like all creatures we are motivated by the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
Well, sometimes pain is theraputic. It is the body's way of telling you "don't do that." The theraputic pain of high gas prices is now having a theraputic effect. The worm is starting to turn.
David
A Vette .....I'm a bit jealous, lemme see if I can get back at you....TallDave wrote: the Corvette I just bought isn't exactly a high-mileage vehicle, so hopefully they don't get any higher).
on second thought .... ... that was weak.Dave I might buy one of those 120mpg Vespa Motor scooters this year......
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.
Well, I don't know; when petroleum is cheapest it probably makes sense to use petroleum. There are certainly upsides, but higher fuel costs might have meant we'd have had 1-2% lower GDP growth over those decades, which means real pain for real people. Let the free market find the efficient solution, which it is now doing.Over a year ago I was suggesting to my friends that this country needed higher gas prices. Americans were behaving stupidly and wastefully in their energy usage,
That said, the government could certainly have planned better on the research funding, rather than having such a short-term, knee-jerk reaction to oil prices. If Brazil can get off foreign oil, we certainly should be capable of that as well, and far more. Who knows, if fusion funding had stayed high we might be putting the finishing touches on WB-100 this week.
I thought the problem is the free market, which spent the last 30 yrs revving up like a 757 on takeoff, and has headed in the wrong direction for 30 yrs.
Free Markets become these big things with lots of momentum, they are very hard to stop & turn... or they collapse.
If the so called "Free Market" had turned the the right way 30 yrs ago, we wouldnt be here, oil wise.
Wasting 30 yrs of time is no way efficient.
And Free Market is a misnomer, its signed sealed and delivering to the richest few, who consistently go trampling off in the wrong direction twice a century.
Oh, you mean market free of tariffs, my bad Dave you are right, it is a Free Market. Free for the taking. And thats what happened we got took.
Free Markets become these big things with lots of momentum, they are very hard to stop & turn... or they collapse.
If the so called "Free Market" had turned the the right way 30 yrs ago, we wouldnt be here, oil wise.
Wasting 30 yrs of time is no way efficient.
And Free Market is a misnomer, its signed sealed and delivering to the richest few, who consistently go trampling off in the wrong direction twice a century.
Oh, you mean market free of tariffs, my bad Dave you are right, it is a Free Market. Free for the taking. And thats what happened we got took.
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.
Actually it wasn't wasted. The technology today is so much better. I would hate to try to get an 8085 to run some of the processes we have in mind. And even if we could make it work the eqpt would be on the large side and the A/D converters would be slow and expensive. Not to mention large.Wasting 30 yrs of time is no way efficient.
A board full of parts is now reduced to a single chip.
Superconductors are much better. Making parts with machine tools is so much easier. etc. etc. etc.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.