Alternative Energy Manhattan Project
When the United States unifies around a goal, it can achieve incredible results. In the 1940s, the Manhattan Project employed over 130,000 individuals including some of the best and brightest in the country, with a total budget that exceeded $23 billion in today’s dollars. That project was able to take something that was somewhere between an idea and a theory and turn it into incredibly powerful weapons that levelled entire cities. In the 1960s, America was inspired by Kennedy’s proposal to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, and the Apollo program was born which ended up spending over $135 billion in today’s dollars. Every generation faces its own unique challenges, and the great challenge to our generation is a looming energy crisis. The question is what we will do to address this crisis; the answer is that we need to unite as a nation and create something like a new Manhattan Project for alternative energy.
Right now, some of the most promising solutions for the declining oil supply are still in stages of infancy. The amount of money that our government invests in research grants for alternative energy is pathetic, and the market is not equipped to deal with such speculative projects when oil is so profitable and alternative fuel development is so risky. But we cannot afford to wait until it becomes profitable for the market to solve this inevitable crisis, we need to preempt it with a national project using the combined resources and ingenuity of this country.
We have some technologies that have promise, but need assistance so they can be implemented on a large scale. Some examples are:
- Wind turbines
- Cellulosic ethanol
- Solar panels
Other technologies may fall short of being currently feasible, but with some development and research, they could prove to be effective. Some proposals include:
- Nuclear fusion
- Clean coal
- Shale oil
Up to this point, the government has relied on mild tax incentives and subsidies to gently push the market toward green and alternative energy sources. This is not enough, and every day, the demand for oil grows from our country and from India, China, and the developing world while the finite supply declines. Right now, we only feel the effects through slightly raised gas prices, but without drastic and decisive action, our economic future is in jeopardy.
If $23 billion (Manhattan) or $135 billion (Apollo) seems like a lot of money, think about these comparisons. The US has spent over $512 already in Iraq with no end in sight and no strategic benefit whatsoever. In 2001, President Bush pushed through tax cuts that will cost the US over $1.35 trillion over ten years. We drop huge amounts of money at the drop of a hat, and right before us is the most important project that our nation could take on. I want to hear the presidential candidates and the congressional leadership talking about this issue. I wouldn’t mind hearing some inspiration and even some lofty goals. Let’s make visionaries like Kennedy proud with how we confront this challenge as a nation.
A discussion about alternate energy? Boring… lets go back to talking about banning assualt weapons!
- just kidding
Ha, right…
It is very ironic that people get extremely pasisonate and involved with issues that are utterly irrelevant to the actual political world (gun control, abortion, death penalty, etc.) but they are bored with the ones that are really facing our nation.
No major change is going to happen with any of those issues because we have already reached a stable equilibrium on them. The laws might fluxuate slightly with any of them, but abortion isn’t going to be completely unrestricted, nor is it going to be banned (ever). Guns are not going to be banned in huge quantities, and neither are they going to be available on demand without restriction.
Maybe some other time we can come back to the alternative energy issue, but so far we, like society at large, are drawn in by the temptation of the sensational over the real challenges that face our country.
that’s because this is about production and business.
these are not supposed to be controlled and directed by government.
to solve these type of issues it will take innovation, entrepeneurs, capitalism, not necessarily goverment.
i can see your point. i think. the manhattan project was a secret program that sought a weapon of ultimate destruction and it succeeded. so why not harness this power of legislation and law to use it for the betterment of all mankind.
i.e, more investment in alternative energy.
of course i would think that people would be skeptical of asking the government to invest more in anything. aren’t we still experiencing a humongous bubble in housing and credit that was encouraged by the governments economic policies?
Has Capitalism Failed?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul42.html
besides, you are claiming that what? there is an energy shortage/crisis looming?
how so? i think this theory has been exploited many times over again throughout history.
The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy (Hardcover)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465031161/
Energy: The Master Resource (very good)
http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Resource-Robert-Jr-Bradley/dp/0757511694
just look at the ill effects of the anti-nuclear movement. what was produced? a lot more pollution and higher costs because we had to rely on coal to satify demand.
Nuclear Regulatory Confusion
http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block59.html
do you really want congressman and fellows to decide on what energies are more efficient? on who owns what and what they will pay for that property?
The Anti-Energy Congress
http://www.mises.org/story/2464
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-4405160/Energy-at-the-Crossroads-Global.html
“The fundamental problem is a widespread tendency to treat knowledge a giant a la carte menu from which observers can pick at will. In this view, economic principles are adopted, adulterated, or ignored as suits the commentators’ fancies. Error always arises when economic principles are ignored. The difficulties, to be sure, are increased because of the willingness of too many economists to theorize without attention to the empirical relevance of alternative models. However, the theoretic and applied literature on exhaustion provides clear guidance if observers would seek it. ”
A No-Nonsense Look at US Energy Policy (Austrian economics, not long, good speaker)
http://mises.org/multimedia/mp3/Thornton-05-04-2007.mp3
That book, Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy, is absolutely idiotic when applied to the actual energy situation that we face today.
I’ll give them credit for being so optomistic about human ingenuity and resourcefulness. I’ll also agree with their argument that the Earth still has a lot of potential energy left in it in the form of oil (quickly becoming smaller, but still large), coal, uranium, and others.
Both of those points, which appear to be the foundation of the argument made in this book, have major problems.
The problem with human ingenuity is that when it comes to technological breakthroughs, it can be hit or miss. The market is averse to taking risks when there is not an expected profit, and for-profit firms do not perform R&D for the greater good of society. Also, the full force of human ingenuity will not really be unleashed until we really are in a crisis. Oil at $130 is not necessarily a crisis. Even at $200 per bbl is not catastrophic. But the price of oil is not going to stop there. International demand is rising at an exponential rate, compounded by the unprecedented growth of India and China. At some point, the price of oil will reach a crisis level, but that is not the responsible time for us to start the process of developing alternative energy sources.
With the second point, that of the remaining supply of natural resources, there are two problems. The first is the environmental effects of the currently available energy sources. Greenhouse gases are already causing detrimental climate change that is undeniable. The largest source of energy for us in America is coal, which is even worse for the environment than oil. The second major problem is that we do not yet have a suitable alternative to oil in terms of transportability. While there are still massive quantities of energy untapped in coal reserves and uranium mines, we do not have cars that run on coal or fission. More research is needed in hydrogen cells, ethanol, and bateries to make the energy we develop portable so we can still drive around in the cars we love so much.
Amazon calls this book a “techno-optimist manifesto,” but I think it sounds like someone arguing that we should all bury our heads in the sand and trust the magical powers of the market. Ha.
there is only criticism of one book here.
(and it’s not a critique but rather a dismissal)
here’s a little more info on this book
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/bottomlesswell/
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/rm/Huber-Forbes.lo.ram (real player video)
(i don’t want to place this book on a pedestal, but i think it represents a significant position on this subject; just as all info available is needed to gain accurate assessments in price, so should it be with government and policies)
“Oil at $130 is not necessarily a crisis”
prices are not the problem of course. they are market indicators. only when prices aren’t correct do they become a real problem.
“the price of oil will reach a crisis level, but that is not the responsible time for us to start the process of developing alternative energy sources”
People have been working on alternatives.
and as the authors of that book point out..
“Oil supplies about 40 percent of the raw energy we use”
“60 percent of our GDP now comes from industries and services that run on electricity.”
the remaining supply of natural resources is unknown. new resources will be created and discovered. what is on this earth at this very instant is limited. but energies will be renewed and technologies created. there is no way to know the future in this respect.
again the authors of the book
“It’s foolish to suppose that existing wells won’t run dry—they will. But it’s equally foolish to suppose that the tools we use to pump, strip, sift, seize, and separate energy from our surroundings can’t improve and adapt as fast, or faster, than they have since 1765, when James Watt perfected a coal-fired steam engine … to facilitate the mining of more coal. For all practical purposes, energy supplies are determined not by the planet but by how ingenious we humans are at finding and seizing the energy we crave”
why is energy a “problem”?
what needs to be done and how?
what will government do to “insure” the people’s security in this matter?
how did john stewart put it the other night? in mexico the government controls the oil companies, in america the oil companies control the government
“Greenhouse gases are already causing detrimental climate change that is undeniable”
this is completely debatable. controlling the earths climate is serious business.
assessing the reason for atmospheric changes is very important.
“The problem with human ingenuity is that when it comes to technological breakthroughs, it can be hit or miss”
do you have a way around it?
from a critique of Energy: The Master Resource”
http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae8_3_6.pdf
“Unlike almost every other popular book on the subject, it is squarely rooted in the optimistic tradition that was best exemplified by the late Julian Simon. Indeed, the title reflects Simon’s observation that, if human ingenuity is the “ultimate resource” that created all others, energy is the “master
resource” that enables human beings to convert one material into another.
Bradley and Fulmer deal succinctly with the basic physical concepts, history, technology, economics, and public policy of energy. They discuss both long term trends and recent controversies in a nontechnical and abundantly illustrated way that will appeal to students, policymakers, and the interested public.”
from the same critique:
“As the authors point out, virtually all energy-related long term trends in advanced economies are positive. For example: Our energy supply is becoming more abundant and affordable, not less. Despite the dire predictions of generations of energy pessimists, so-called “non-renewable” energy sources have become more abundant. In 1944, crude oil proved reserves were 51 billion barrels worldwide. After 58 years of production, reserves had grown to 1,266 billion barrels. Today, the average laborer can buy a week’s worth of gasoline and electricity for about 90 minutes of work, while the same amount of energy cost a full workday in 1920.”
i fully advocate alternative energies and sustainable developement.
the question is how these technologies will come to market.
and foremost in regards to this post, accurately describing what the “crisis” is