Gulf Oil Slick

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by AtLastHome

An example of how science can kick butt! Now, I ask, is there the funding for the scientists that can make headway here? We don't seem to pump $ into our educational and research arenas like we do into oil production!!

A

This is why I am concerned for the direction our country is taking. We really *could* have a crash program along the lines of Apollo to get us largely off oil. SciAm about 2 years ago, devoted most of an issue to a plan to have the US off fossil fuels for heating and electricity generation in twenty years! Off it *entirely* and the beauty of this plan is that it didn't require building any new nukes just a combination of wind, solar and geothermal along with underground transmission lines (we actually lose quite a bit of power using overhead transmissions lines). We could realistically be off of fossil fuels for private transportation within that time frame and, quite honestly, if folks were willing to slow their pace of travel a bit we could largely eliminate jet aircraft and use dirigibles for long-distance air travel. Yes, it would take longer but it would be ecologically more sustainable. With maglev trains (already existing) we could have transcontinental rail travel that would also be far more ecologically sustainable and all of this is technology that we have in hand *now*.

Our problem isn't one of basic science--there are some longer term problems that ARE basic science problems but how to get our fossil fuel use down quite a bit isn't one of them--rather it's a matter of political will. There is just no will to actually *do* the things that we need to do and, unfortunately, we as a culture are so entirely in thrall to this idea that if we just wait long enough the market will take care of it that we can't actually do anything. The market isn't going to take care of this one though.

Cheers
Aj