I was playing around with Cuil, the new startup search engine. Considering the subject of startups, I typed in "Tesla Motors WhiteStar" The results were promising, and after clicking around, I ended up stumbling through a series of webpages, culminating in my researching of the various methods of alternative energy on the website popularmechanics.com (Some picks from my list in history.). What I keep seeing popping up in both comments and blog/article text is mentionings of federal regulation, and if you have 4 hours to dive the articles and links, you'll notice the same trend in there.
Right now we can see E85 popping up in the odd place. E85 has emerged as the front runner of alternative fuel technology. Perhaps it'll get us over the hump, but I despise the amount of money the United States Federal Government is putting into it. In one of the articles from above, SynthFuels are mentioned, in comparison to the United States putting into the Ethanol craze. Synthfuel was given millions and millions of dollars up until 2007, even though the technology failed mere years after the oil crisis in the mid-late 70's prompted the subsidies. Government has this track record of providing gobs of green cash to, not just the "green tech of the future" but any tech that looks like it may or may not have a possible promise some unnamed amount of time in the future. It's a simple game, really, wow the right people with the right connectsions, get media cover, hype built up, and you have yourself a subsidy.
It needs to stop.
The United States Government is spending money like crazy. We're in debt to an amount I don't even want to fathom, and we spend billions upon billions of dollars on things that the marketplace should be allowed to decide, such as what fuels our vehicles most effectively. Gas prices were at $4 a gallon. That scared a number of people and sliced SUVs at the ankles, toppling the market-niche-turned-status-symbol. At $3 a gallon, we were getting Tesla Motors, Fiskar Coachbuilding, the Chevy Volt, amongst others, and now, at $4, we're FINALLY seeing the Honda Clarity hydrogen car, and the Equinox Hydrogen concept. Chrysler has said petrolium is out of the long term plans, and Daimler-Benz has sworn off Gasoline by 2015. We're going places, people, and urgency is now appearant. Cafe standards are about to kick in, 35 MPG minimum, and gasoline engines are struggling to get that, especailly in vehicles built to do what SUVs do.
The marketplace, however, would have decided this a long time ago if regulations hadn't forced gasoline engines to evolve to where they are. Of course, we also wouldn't be here if Carter hadn't regulated Gas prices in the 70's, giving americans a proper taste of sky high fuel costs, leaving us the sheltered rich kids now turned out into the crime ridden ghetto at night; but I digress. The problem is with regulation. An unregulated marketplace is a happy marketplace, it can maneuver more effeciently, it's unencumbered with regulations that paint it into corners, and much much more. Right now, government can subsidize a poor technology, give it the abilty to outlast its better and more liked competitor, give it the ability to undercut in price, as was shown by the inexpensive E85 at various gas stations. The real cost is seen in higher taxes that offer diminishing returns as they trickle down through the layers of beaurocracy until finally our $2-$3 put in knocks a buck off each gallon we pay for, if that much. Supposedly that's how it works, but dang if the numbers don't quite add up in my mind. I want to say each individual will knock, per dollar put in, $0.01 - $0.10 off each gallon he/she buys, and the rest is made up of credit that is, in effect, government debt. A dollar can only get stretched so far (Just about any mother of 5 can tell you just how far that dollar can get stretched, ask her, not me.), so why are we subsidizing?
Why don't we stop the subsidies, stop the penalizing of certain sectors of technologies, as well, to make sure that the playing ground is level, and take all the savings in government, pass that on to the citizens, and let the marketplace figure out what it wants to do with the mix of high gas prices and the culmination of technologies that I doubt stunted by the system (read: lack of subsidies) back in the 1990s (My proof? Electric tech was waiting for the new iron oxide batteries A123 is peddling for the Volt, LiION is also relatively new, coming about in the 80s and being perfected by a number of the biggest corporations. Hydrogen and Nanotechnology are seeming to go hand in hand, and both are powered by research grants. Ethanol had no public interest because gas was cheap and Ethanol was expensive in the 90's.) the marketplace is a big boy, it can survive on its own, and a good idea will nearly always push through. And the only thing that can stop that is practices that are mostly illegal in today's generally accepted version of capitalism.
The only thing the government should be doing is enforcing anti-trust laws and keeping monopolies and unfair business practices from occuring, acting as a referee instead of what it's currently doing, guiding the game to an outcome favorable to those in power at the time.
Cudos to Cuil for giving me a good launching point. I'll admit, it's not as refined as google has become, but I remember the days when Google was new, and it was so much fun to input things like "diphallic superstructure" into the google search text box, and generate no results. Googlewhacking, it was called. Two words that come up with absolutely nothing. It's still done to this day, but it's incredibly difficult. Google said its infractructure was still learning, I believe, and now Cuil is asking for the same consideration for their search engine. I like its results, personally, the search engine seems, so far, to think like I do. That's hard to come by. Of course, that's ehnanced by the occasional "input search terms - draw blank" that we share....heck, that's why I'm using the dadgummed thing. But, it learns, I learn...and I have so talked myself into a corner here.
I expect, by now, you've either forgotten about, or are vaguely curious as to the Theory of Bob. I shall enlighten. When I started this post, I figured, given my state of mind, I'd have a hard time closing it, and theory of Bob was my easy out. The theory is that you can utilize a random notion to distract from the fact that you can't sum up an article in a proper conclusion without contriving one from a randomly generated concept. Let me know how it worked.
Right now we can see E85 popping up in the odd place. E85 has emerged as the front runner of alternative fuel technology. Perhaps it'll get us over the hump, but I despise the amount of money the United States Federal Government is putting into it. In one of the articles from above, SynthFuels are mentioned, in comparison to the United States putting into the Ethanol craze. Synthfuel was given millions and millions of dollars up until 2007, even though the technology failed mere years after the oil crisis in the mid-late 70's prompted the subsidies. Government has this track record of providing gobs of green cash to, not just the "green tech of the future" but any tech that looks like it may or may not have a possible promise some unnamed amount of time in the future. It's a simple game, really, wow the right people with the right connectsions, get media cover, hype built up, and you have yourself a subsidy.
It needs to stop.
The United States Government is spending money like crazy. We're in debt to an amount I don't even want to fathom, and we spend billions upon billions of dollars on things that the marketplace should be allowed to decide, such as what fuels our vehicles most effectively. Gas prices were at $4 a gallon. That scared a number of people and sliced SUVs at the ankles, toppling the market-niche-turned-status-symbol. At $3 a gallon, we were getting Tesla Motors, Fiskar Coachbuilding, the Chevy Volt, amongst others, and now, at $4, we're FINALLY seeing the Honda Clarity hydrogen car, and the Equinox Hydrogen concept. Chrysler has said petrolium is out of the long term plans, and Daimler-Benz has sworn off Gasoline by 2015. We're going places, people, and urgency is now appearant. Cafe standards are about to kick in, 35 MPG minimum, and gasoline engines are struggling to get that, especailly in vehicles built to do what SUVs do.
The marketplace, however, would have decided this a long time ago if regulations hadn't forced gasoline engines to evolve to where they are. Of course, we also wouldn't be here if Carter hadn't regulated Gas prices in the 70's, giving americans a proper taste of sky high fuel costs, leaving us the sheltered rich kids now turned out into the crime ridden ghetto at night; but I digress. The problem is with regulation. An unregulated marketplace is a happy marketplace, it can maneuver more effeciently, it's unencumbered with regulations that paint it into corners, and much much more. Right now, government can subsidize a poor technology, give it the abilty to outlast its better and more liked competitor, give it the ability to undercut in price, as was shown by the inexpensive E85 at various gas stations. The real cost is seen in higher taxes that offer diminishing returns as they trickle down through the layers of beaurocracy until finally our $2-$3 put in knocks a buck off each gallon we pay for, if that much. Supposedly that's how it works, but dang if the numbers don't quite add up in my mind. I want to say each individual will knock, per dollar put in, $0.01 - $0.10 off each gallon he/she buys, and the rest is made up of credit that is, in effect, government debt. A dollar can only get stretched so far (Just about any mother of 5 can tell you just how far that dollar can get stretched, ask her, not me.), so why are we subsidizing?
Why don't we stop the subsidies, stop the penalizing of certain sectors of technologies, as well, to make sure that the playing ground is level, and take all the savings in government, pass that on to the citizens, and let the marketplace figure out what it wants to do with the mix of high gas prices and the culmination of technologies that I doubt stunted by the system (read: lack of subsidies) back in the 1990s (My proof? Electric tech was waiting for the new iron oxide batteries A123 is peddling for the Volt, LiION is also relatively new, coming about in the 80s and being perfected by a number of the biggest corporations. Hydrogen and Nanotechnology are seeming to go hand in hand, and both are powered by research grants. Ethanol had no public interest because gas was cheap and Ethanol was expensive in the 90's.) the marketplace is a big boy, it can survive on its own, and a good idea will nearly always push through. And the only thing that can stop that is practices that are mostly illegal in today's generally accepted version of capitalism.
The only thing the government should be doing is enforcing anti-trust laws and keeping monopolies and unfair business practices from occuring, acting as a referee instead of what it's currently doing, guiding the game to an outcome favorable to those in power at the time.
Cudos to Cuil for giving me a good launching point. I'll admit, it's not as refined as google has become, but I remember the days when Google was new, and it was so much fun to input things like "diphallic superstructure" into the google search text box, and generate no results. Googlewhacking, it was called. Two words that come up with absolutely nothing. It's still done to this day, but it's incredibly difficult. Google said its infractructure was still learning, I believe, and now Cuil is asking for the same consideration for their search engine. I like its results, personally, the search engine seems, so far, to think like I do. That's hard to come by. Of course, that's ehnanced by the occasional "input search terms - draw blank" that we share....heck, that's why I'm using the dadgummed thing. But, it learns, I learn...and I have so talked myself into a corner here.
I expect, by now, you've either forgotten about, or are vaguely curious as to the Theory of Bob. I shall enlighten. When I started this post, I figured, given my state of mind, I'd have a hard time closing it, and theory of Bob was my easy out. The theory is that you can utilize a random notion to distract from the fact that you can't sum up an article in a proper conclusion without contriving one from a randomly generated concept. Let me know how it worked.