One thing that really makes me wonder about my fellow occupants of planet earth are the blogs about new technologies that will save us.
Many bloggers for various organizations troll tech newsletters from MIT and other universities or research groups for the latest and greatest and report on what they have no idea about but are certain it will save the world. There seems to be a theme of the week with a contest to who can post the most stupid article.
Many of the 'advances' reported are either only on paper or table top models.
Probably 99.9% of the 'advances' reported will never be commercialized. The remaining 0.1% are years if not decades from being used in everyday life. The one shortcut being if the military or NASA decides to follow up for their own needs.
Even the first pilot plants are no guarantee of success though maybe a few percent will make it to the next stage.
The recent direction from the president for all agencies to reduce their carbon footprint is a little scary in that it will lead to wasted billions as the various agencies line up for brownie points. Some good things will happen but we will see if they outweigh the bad.
Another point I don't understand is the fascination for Europe. Denmark has done well on wind. Solar in Germany and Spain is now going into the doldrums as the governments back of the very high FITs that have been in place. Sixty US cent power is a bit excessive.
A very large percentage of research on energy saving/generation/use is US government sponsored.
Anyone can go on the net and get information from US agencies about most anything at no charge. Try that with Europe! In the UK some is available but at a fee. Other countries hold tech information very close. Again, Denmark is good about sharing wind power information.
