There should be a national lottery of energy innovation, to spur invention and refinement in key areas of national energy retooling. For example what mind is capable of the specialized research into how to make photovoltaic panels produce more electricity? Are the imaginations of amateur inventors working on it? Flying vehicles? Plug-in cars? Battery innovation? So many inventors lack the capital to deploy a great invention, so they don’t even try.
Some of the greatest inventions in history have come from the garages of ordinary people. (Hewlett Packard? Thomas Edison?)
The US Government should offer tax-free cash prizes of significant amounts ($1 million, $5 million, etc) to individuals and teams achieving key pre-defined innovation. Imagine the possibilities.
Or we could tar up the coast of California and Florida with oil drilling rigs . . . or pour cash into the pockets of families of Saudi Arabia . . . and melt our polar caps away, burning oil, your choice.
I’ve failed to convey my idea miserably.
Consider that Ted Kaczynski was one of the most brilliant mathematical minds this earth has ever known, and also happened to be a murder and the Unabomber. Corporations are pretty brain dead folks. General Motors has all the engineers and capital they need to pioneer electric cars or hydrogen fuel cell propulsion. They have little incentive to do so; the profit is still in gasoline vehicles for them. Business mitigates research with respect to risk. If the potential for a payoff is not obvious, they’ll blow it off. If this country wants to harvest the top intellect of its residents, it isn’t going to happen by hoping corporations get around to it. Without nationalizing research, our government can at least set intellectual goals for people outside of the corporate cube.
Hazel
