On Jun 21, 2009, at 8:12 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
Speaking of how politics and energy overlap...
Here is a "supercritical" way that the DoE could reduce natural gas
usage significantly:
http://www.r744.com/knowledge/faq/files/ecocute_all.pdf
Why aren't we doing this here, or even talking about it?
A very good question, Jones. I suggest another answer beside the one
you offer exists. The US population, which increasingly is asked to
set policy, is either too ignorant of the issues or is fighting with
each other over ideological issues. For example, even this list is
uninterested in discussing the political issues that influence how
decisions are made. Any approach that can be called socialism
immediately generates an emotional response by a few people, which is
enough to stop the discussion. Any approach that suggests the system
needs to be guided by adult supervision is viewed as a threat to
capitalism. As a result, the powerful industries set policy while the
rest of us fight among ourselves. This worked great until the
financial industry bought permission from Congress to maximize their
profit, which totally screwed up the system. This event made a change
necessary. This change has become especially important because many
"scientific" solutions are available to solve our problems, but they
won't be implemented simply because this would reduce the profit or
influence of a powerful lobby. Instead, we discuss these solutions
here as if we were actually doing something useful when, in fact, the
science is not usually the reason the ideas are not used. I find this
situation very frustrating and hope other people share this feeling.
Ed
Answer: the natural gas lobby is rich and powerful, but even more
importantly - few American manufacturers could be competitive using
US labor to build the units, and since we do not want to import
them, and sent dollars to Asia - which would mean a net loss of our
jobs, then this will probably never happen here.
