Fusion energy

[Chodon]

I recently have been jumping through all kinds of hoops to try to get the following into my local paper's "letters to the editor" section.  My word count was too high, then I didn't provide enough identifying information, then when I called and talked to the letters editor she said I had to totally resubmit my letter.  Finally, I realized I could just post on here and get immediate results.  Why are newspapers so behind the times? 

First, a little background.  Everyone here in the US is shitting their pants because gas is $4 per gallon.  It's been that way in the rest of the world for a while.  We've known this is going to happen eventually, but nobody REALLY thought it was going to happen.  Now local and federal politicians are trying to pander to the masses (much like the "economic stimulus" checks) by temporarily repealing the gas tax (about $.25/gallon state taxes and $.18/gallon federal taxes).  These taxes go to road maintenance and repair, which due to the climate in Michigan we need badly. 

Here goes:

I am writing in regards to your recent story regarding the effects of the gas tax removal will impact the state's roads.  I encourage you to present the only potential solution to the world energy crisis: fusion energy.  This is clean energy with no carbon dioxide emissions, no chance of meltdown, and no harmful by-products.  It generates power the same way as the sun, by smashing hydrogen atoms together to make helium atoms.  This is not science fiction, it is fact. The JET (Joint European Torus) team, located in Oxfordshire , UK , has created a small fusion reaction.  They are currently building a new fusion reactor twice the size of JET called ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) that is capable of a sustainable fusion reaction reaction, the next step to fusion power. 

The JET team is still 30-40 years away from a fusion power plant.  The world does not have that kind of time.  If America still has the ingenuity, drive, and innovation on which we love to pride ourselves I think we can beat Europe to sustainable fusion energy.  A little competition could really motivate us.  No more oil.  No more energy crisis.  We will have energy independence.

I encourage you to cover this groundbreaking energy research.  It is a permanent solution to the energy crisis that gets drowned out by political lobbying for oil wells in ANWAR and ethanol production, both of which are band-aids at best and environmental catastrophes at worst.  I encourage your readers to write their representatives to support domestic fusion energy research.
http://www.jet.efda.org/

So what do you guys think?  I don't think I tied the power generation to transportation as well as I would have liked.  In order for fusion to make a difference on gas prices we would also need more electric cars, which I simply didn't have room to discuss in this "letter to the editor" form.  I'm especially interested in the Europeans who visit this site.  Does this get much media coverage across the pond, because most people think I'm talking sci-fi when I go off about fusion energy.

I've already written my local representatives about this, and how I want them to get involved.  All they did is add me to their spam lists.  Does anyone know of private organizations researching fusion technology?

[wintermute]

There are two types of fusion: hot and cold.

Hot fusion is doable, and not even especially difficult, so long as you're comfortable dealing with temperatures in the millions of degrees. It might conceivably be used for power stations, but I think it's far to say no-one's ever going to put a hot fusion reactor in a car.

Cold fusion is, as of right now, unknown. There's no reason to assume it's impossible, but the only projects that have had even inconsistent results have turned out to be fatally flawed. It's possible that the vital breakthrough will be made next week, and small, highly efficient power plants will be being mass-produced within a decade, but it's not exactly the way to bet.

The JET reactor you mention is a Tokamak fusion reactor which started running in 1985, making it the second oldest Tokamak still running. It weighs five tonnes, runs at a temperature of 100,000,000°C and generated a peak current of a whopping 16 megawatts for a little under a second. For comparison, the nearby Didcot A power station generates a sustained output of 2 gigawatts. ITER will be several times larger than JET, and is planned to output as much as 200 megawatts for up to five minutes.

In thirty or forty years, we might have a hot fusion reactor that can be used in place of a fossil fuel power plant, generating a serious amount of energy, but right now we have 5th generation fission reactors that are safe, clean and efficient. But people remember a 1st generation plant with almost no safety features (even by 1st generation standards), crewed by people who'd never been trained on a nuclear reactor who decided to run an incredibly dangerous test during a shift change without telling the workers, and they declare that any new nuclear power station is a Chernobyl waiting to happen.

Personally, I think that demonising fission reactors is the biggest mistake the environmental movement ever made.


Oh, and ITER is no longer an acronym. The PR people thought that having both "thermonuclear" and "experimental" in the name was a bad idea. So now it's just the Latin word for "direction" or "journey".

[Chodon]

Hot fusion is doable, and not even especially difficult, so long as you're comfortable dealing with temperatures in the millions of degrees. It might conceivably be used for power stations, but I think it's far to say no-one's ever going to put a hot fusion reactor in a car.

For the record, I don't think there will ever be fusion powered cars.  It's tough to get my point across clearly in 250 words (the limit on the newspaper).  Hell, I have a hard time getting my point across with unlimited words on here most of the time.     I think the most likely scenario is in the future we will use electric powered cars charged by a central fusion plant (as opposed to coal, oil, natural gas, etc). 

Oh, and ITER is no longer an acronym. The PR people thought that having both "thermonuclear" and "experimental" in the name was a bad idea. So now it's just the Latin word for "direction" or "journey".

That makes sense about the ITER acronym.  I had to look pretty hard on the EFDA site to find what it stood for, and when people think "thermonuclear" it's usually followed by "weapon" or "bomb".  The EFDA team needs some marketing help.  It's like calling Chicken McNuggets "mechanically separated, injection molded chicken bits".

Personally, I think that demonising fission reactors is the biggest mistake the environmental movement ever made.

I agree that fission plants are better than fossil fuel plants.  There still isn't a consensus on what to do with the radioactive waste they generate though.  The spent fuel rods are just sitting in storage tanks at the plants right now waiting for a final resting place somewhere.  After reading The World Without Us I was very concerned about this.  In any sort of long term power loss situation the water cooling this waste would eventually stop circulating and boil off.  Once the water is gone the waste would melt and catch fire, releasing radioactive smoke much like the Chernobyl situation wintermute mentioned.  I know it's a remote possibility, but it still scares the hell out of me.  That's one of the reasons fusion seems like such an attractive alternative to me.

[wintermute]

Personally, I think that demonising fission reactors is the biggest mistake the environmental movement ever made.

I agree that fission plants are better than fossil fuel plants.  There still isn't a consensus on what to do with the radioactive waste they generate though.  The spent fuel rods are just sitting in storage tanks at the plants right now waiting for a final resting place somewhere.  After reading The World Without Us I was very concerned about this.  In any sort of long term power loss situation the water cooling this waste would eventually stop circulating and boil off.  Once the water is gone the waste would melt and catch fire, releasing radioactive smoke much like the Chernobyl situation wintermute mentioned.  I know it's a remote possibility, but it still scares the hell out of me.  That's one of the reasons fusion seems like such an attractive alternative to me.

I agree that radioactive waste is the biggest problem with fission reactors, though it's one that's a lot closer to beign solved than most people think. Existing 5th generation plants produce very little nuclear waste, none of it what used to be referred to as "high-level waste". The 6th generation plants currently on the drawing board will produce less radioactive waste than a coal-fired plant producing the same output. Which is to say, little enough that no-one's going to be worried about what to do with it.

Spent fuel rods are generally recycled either in second-stage reactors or into DPU munitions, though it's not as dangerous as that book seems to claim: anything that needs to be actively cooled to prevent fission is not waste, but fuel. The waste from a modern power station will, at worst, slowly poison everyone in the area.

I agree, that once it's a viable technology, fusion will have several significant advantages over fission. It's just that fission is here and now, and far superior to any other large-scale power source, and its weaknesses are vastly overblown by the public. Fusion is, as you say, at least 30 years away from being economically viable, and when it arrives, I'll be its biggest cheerleader. But until then, we need a solution that will get us to that point without using fossil fuels.

[Windup]

I agree that fission plants are better than fossil fuel plants.  There still isn't a consensus on what to do with the radioactive waste they generate though.  The spent fuel rods are just sitting in storage tanks at the plants right now waiting for a final resting place somewhere.  After reading The World Without Us I was very concerned about this.  In any sort of long term power loss situation the water cooling this waste would eventually stop circulating and boil off.  Once the water is gone the waste would melt and catch fire, releasing radioactive smoke much like the Chernobyl situation wintermute mentioned.  I know it's a remote possibility, but it still scares the hell out of me.  That's one of the reasons fusion seems like such an attractive alternative to me.

I was a little puzzled by that part of The World Without Us because the author assumed it would be a world-wide phenomena.  As I understand it, the reactors used by the French (and several other countries) are "intrinsically safe" because they use liquid sodium as coolant, rather than water.  The sodium is both the coolant and the moderator, so if the reactor vessel is breached and the coolant leaks out, the reaction comes to a halt.  Of course, you have a containment building that is now full of flaming sodium and the entire area is being bombarded with high-speed neutrons, but none of it is going anywhere. 

Anybody know if that's correct?

[Chodon]

I was a little puzzled by that part of The World Without Us because the author assumed it would be a world-wide phenomena.  As I understand it, the reactors used by the French (and several other countries) are "intrinsically safe" because they use liquid sodium as coolant, rather than water.  The sodium is both the coolant and the moderator, so if the reactor vessel is breached and the coolant leaks out, the reaction comes to a halt.  Of course, you have a containment building that is now full of flaming sodium and the entire area is being bombarded with high-speed neutrons, but none of it is going anywhere. 

Anybody know if that's correct?

I think that Weissman was talking about the used fuel storage facilities, not the reactors themselves.  I think the reactors are under enough pressure and can be throttled back enough to not pose a meltdown risk.  The used fuel on the other hand needs to be actively cooled.  Here is a photo of a French spent fuel storage facility:


As you can see, they store the spent fuel under water, which has to be pumped to keep it at a semi-uniform temperature.  If there is a power outage, once the diesel fuel powering the pumps is gone the water begins to boil.  Once the water boils away the fuel begins to melt, then burn, then give off radioactive smoke.  At least that's how Weissman described it.

[Troo]

I think the problem is that the technology has been around to run pollution-free vehicles since the seventies, but the companies that make oil and the governments that make fortunes on the tax of oil-based-products would fall over with their legs stiff in the air if cars could run on water or some other unsellable product.

GM appease critics by whipping out the deuterium-powered car once in a while, but there's no real development going on there - not at any realistic pace. The focus has switched to hydrogen fuel cells, but again the forward-progress is teeth-grindingly slow.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Because it's not yet necessary to move away from petrol, nobody's particularly pushing for it. It's just idling along in the crawler lane, waiting for when we really do need it.

Incidentally, cars were originally designed to run on... yes, hydrogen and oxygen. Then oil companies got involved and said "Run it off this waste product we currently throw away. We'll all make a ton of money." Thus were petrol-powered cars born, and lo did they pollute the world for the next 150 years...

[wintermute]

I think the problem is that the technology has been around to run pollution-free vehicles since the seventies, but the companies that make oil and the governments that make fortunes on the tax of oil-based-products would fall over with their legs stiff in the air if cars could run on water or some other unsellable product.

GM appease critics by whipping out the deuterium-powered car once in a while, but there's no real development going on there - not at any realistic pace. The focus has switched to hydrogen fuel cells, but again the forward-progress is teeth-grindingly slow.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Because it's not yet necessary to move away from petrol, nobody's particularly pushing for it. It's just idling along in the crawler lane, waiting for when we really do need it.

Incidentally, cars were originally designed to run on... yes, hydrogen and oxygen. Then oil companies got involved and said "Run it off this waste product we currently throw away. We'll all make a ton of money." Thus were petrol-powered cars born, and lo did they pollute the world for the next 150 years...

The thing is, GM have no stake in oil. No car manufacturer is owned by an oil company, or vice versa, so there's no way that oil companies can force car companies to use gasoline engines, and (so far as I'm aware) no major government is offering them incentives to stay with oil-based fuels.

The problem is that fuel-cell cars, or electric cars, or steam-powered cars is that they're inefficient, having limited range and low speeds, which means that people don't want them. So car companies stick with fossil fuels because they sell. And they'll keep on with the gasoline engines until such time as people stop buying them, which will probably happen when an alternative fuel is both cheaper and more efficient.

True, development of alternative engines has been slower than we'd all like, but this is changing as non-profit organisations (DARPA, universities) get involved instead of just leaving the research to car companies who aren't seeing any return on their investment. Once they get something working well enough, industry will jump all over it, no matter what the oil companies say.

And the earliest cars used a variety of fuel sources, depending on what the builder was familiar with: hydrogen gas, methane, steam and kerosene were all used. Gasoline became popular because it was compact (before the days of condensers, hydrogen had to be transported as a gas), contained a lot of energy, and very unlikely to explode. Had we stuck with hydrogen-powered cars, the chances are that horses would still be the vehicle of choice.

[Russell Nash]

The thing with gas has always been that it's cheap.  Everytime it got expensive and the car companies started coming out with more efficient cars, the oil companies pumped more oil and drove the price down.  It's run up so high now because of an extreme increase in demand. 

OPEC has refused to increase output.  I think they see the writing on the wall and are trying to make a final killing.  Mind you the final killing will go on for over ten years minimum.  (Supporting data:  Over the last 10-15 years the OPEC nations have been diversifying their investments.  Not just keeping everything in oil)

[Heradel]

The thing with gas has always been that it's cheap.  Everytime it got expensive and the car companies started coming out with more efficient cars, the oil companies pumped more oil and drove the price down.  It's run up so high now because of an extreme increase in demand. 

OPEC has refused to increase output.  I think they see the writing on the wall and are trying to make a final killing.  Mind you the final killing will go on for over ten years minimum.  (Supporting data:  Over the last 10-15 years the OPEC nations have been diversifying their investments.  Not just keeping everything in oil)

The only real example of a high price of gas in recent memory is the crisis in the 70s, but that was more of a temporary disturbance and there was no practical benefit because prices went down before more efficient cars reached the market. OPEC may increase output soon and drive prices down or at least stabilize them, but we're still left with the problem that every gallon of gas sold ignores the effects of the carbon dioxide released and is thus undervalued in terms of real cost to the economic system. And there's more of relationship between car manufacturers and oil companies than you think, but I'll need a while to dig up the information and I don't have that time right now.

Though painful, higher gas prices are necessary to spur innovation and get us off gas permanently — for example Nissan's just announced a full electric car on the US mass market by 2010. It's pretty certain that without gas beginning the unstoppable march to $5 a gallon and beyond that wouldn't be happening.

[Russell Nash]

The thing with gas has always been that it's cheap.  Everytime it got expensive and the car companies started coming out with more efficient cars, the oil companies pumped more oil and drove the price down.  It's run up so high now because of an extreme increase in demand. 

OPEC has refused to increase output.  I think they see the writing on the wall and are trying to make a final killing.  Mind you the final killing will go on for over ten years minimum.  (Supporting data:  Over the last 10-15 years the OPEC nations have been diversifying their investments.  Not just keeping everything in oil)

The only real example of a high price of gas in recent memory is the crisis in the 70s, but that was more of a temporary disturbance and there was no practical benefit because prices went down before more efficient cars reached the market. OPEC may increase output soon and drive prices down or at least stabilize them, but we're still left with the problem that every gallon of gas sold ignores the effects of the carbon dioxide released and is thus undervalued in terms of real cost to the economic system. And there's more of relationship between car manufacturers and oil companies than you think, but I'll need a while to dig up the information and I don't have that time right now.

Though painful, higher gas prices are necessary to spur innovation and get us off gas permanently — for example Nissan's just announced a full electric car on the US mass market by 2010. It's pretty certain that without gas beginning the unstoppable march to $5 a gallon and beyond that wouldn't be happening.

Actually the oil embargo of the 70's is what let all of the Japanese car companies get a good foothold in the American market.  A mid 70's Honda or Datsun(now Nissan) was a total rust bucket piece of shit, but it went more than twice as far on a gallon of gas.  After they started getting a pretty good market share, they really started working on the quality. 

The embargo also brought about the 55 MPH speed limit and the CAFE standards.

[wintermute]

Though painful, higher gas prices are necessary to spur innovation and get us off gas permanently — for example Nissan's just announced a full electric car on the US mass market by 2010. It's pretty certain that without gas beginning the unstoppable march to $5 a gallon and beyond that wouldn't be happening.

I'm not sure of the significance of the $5/gallon mark. Yes, prices are increasing steadily, but in Britain, you can expect to pay $7.50/gallon, and in Japan the price appears to be around the $5.50/gallon mark, and yet Nissan hasn't made any inroads into producing electric vehicles in either market. Why are Americans assumed to be so much more resistant to high gas prices than people in other countries?

There's more of an incentive for a manufacturer to produce a full electric car if gas is at $5/gallon than at $1/gallon, but I suspect that in a few years people will be using exactly the same language to bemoan $10/gallon gas, and doing exactly as little to reduce the amount they use.

[Chodon]

US gasoline demand was significantly below that of 2006-2007 until March.  However, gasoline demand has remained about constant from last year.


And supply is higher this year than it was this time in 2006-2007.

So why are gas prices so "high" in the US?  I think there is a lot of speculation going on with the futures market right now that is creating a "gasoline bubble" much like the housing bubble we saw a year or two ago.  Plus, this doesn't take international gasoline demand into consideration (and I couldn't find any data on that, but I'm going to assume it has also increased).

I just hope that prices stay high.  Yeah, it sucks right now, but if gas drops to $1.50 per gallon where is the incentive to make cleaner vehicles?  Where is the incentive to innovate?  There isn't any.  We will continue with the status quo, fat dumb, and happy like we have been.  I think these "high" gas prices are going to drive some fantastic changes to more efficient and cleaner vehicles.

The source I used is http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip_gasoline.html

[sirana]

edited: gah, I shouldn't post when I'm half asleep... move along, nothing to see here...

[Windup]

I think the problem is that the technology has been around to run pollution-free vehicles since the seventies, but the companies that make oil and the governments that make fortunes on the tax of oil-based-products would fall over with their legs stiff in the air if cars could run on water or some other unsellable product.

I've heard variations on this since the early 70's, and I'm not buying it.   Do you seriously think that the Big Three would have accepted the thrashing they've taken at the hands of the Japanese (and now the Korean) manufacturers if they had a 100-mph carbuerator (or whatever magical pollution & oil free technology you choose to believe in) squirreled away in the back vault somewhere?  Or that GM or Chrysler wouldn't have unveiled that technology before accepting multi-billion dollar losses?  It just doesn't make sense.

[Heradel]

Comparing US gas prices to those overseas is a bit of a red herring, the incentive for higher efficiency vehicles in terms of gas price comes from a psychological effect rather than a strictly economic one. For the US consumer, this is getting to be a tripling or quadrupling of gas prices within a short time frame and that's causing a bit of a mental freak-out, which is good as it causes there to be a high demand for things like the Tesla Roadster, the Prius, SMARTcars and other higher-efficiency/lower cost modes of transportation (for example, since January 1 there's been an noticeable increase in mass transit ridership, 5% in NYC alone, and NYC was already probably the national leader in mass transit per capita). Economically, most people are just feeling a bit more squeezed, but that's a lot because of the ripple effects of high gas prices, namely the raise in the price of staple goods. 

I was referring to the 70s not doing anything because they didn't force any mass change — American cars remained inefficient because there wasn't a driving force for them to be efficient, and people who were conscious of the environment/cumulative cost of gasoline went Japanese.

Chodon — your analysis of gasoline's supply and demand ignores one of the biggest factors in the price's rise — increased demand overseas. There may be a bit of a bubble from over-speculation, but the underlying reality of the oil market is that increased prosperity in developing nations (especially China and India), has led to a massive increase in their need for oil, which is mirrored by their demand for higher-quality food which has driven up food prices (and most commodity prices as well, for another example look at the metal market). We may have the same supply in terms of barrels of oil, but it's a more costly supply from a more crowded market than in years past.

[Chodon]

Plus, this doesn't take international gasoline demand into consideration (and I couldn't find any data on that, but I'm going to assume it has also increased).

I did cover that point in my post.  I decided to go out and find some information on the subject.  China's oil consumption increased 5% last year.  India's was the same.  With US consumption flat and China and India being the fastest growing markets that means world demand can not have increased by more than 5%.  I don't see how a 5% jump in oil consumption alone is enough to double prices. 

I don't think it is collusion between corporate big-wigs in some smoky office, I think it is a mob of speculators trying to make money on the oil market and buying up the reserves seen in the previously posted graphs.  Then they just sit on it, decrease the supply, and drive up prices.  When they sell I think there will be a drop in gas prices. 

I don't think this is a good thing.  I hope the prices stay high to force a change in the auto market.  Hopefully this will improve the environmental impact automobiles are making.  I can't find a citation for this, so take it with a grain of salt, but I remember hearing the energy producing capacity of all US cars is something like six times that of the electrical grid generation capacity.  It sounds shocking at first, but then think about how many cars there are (243,000,000 according to US Bureau transit) and how many horsepower they have.  That is a lot of energy being generated.  Then think of all the CO2 that is generating.  Shocking.

Sources:
http://www.indexmundi.com/india/oil_consumption.html
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5666

[Russell Nash]

Though painful, higher gas prices are necessary to spur innovation and get us off gas permanently — for example Nissan's just announced a full electric car on the US mass market by 2010. It's pretty certain that without gas beginning the unstoppable march to $5 a gallon and beyond that wouldn't be happening.

I'm not sure of the significance of the $5/gallon mark. Yes, prices are increasing steadily, but in Britain, you can expect to pay $7.50/gallon, and in Japan the price appears to be around the $5.50/gallon mark, and yet Nissan hasn't made any inroads into producing electric vehicles in either market. Why are Americans assumed to be so much more resistant to high gas prices than people in other countries?

There's more of an incentive for a manufacturer to produce a full electric car if gas is at $5/gallon than at $1/gallon, but I suspect that in a few years people will be using exactly the same language to bemoan $10/gallon gas, and doing exactly as little to reduce the amount they use.

The main reason the US market has such pull is that there is the biggest room for change.  The market share for efficient cars in the US is much lower than the rest of the world.  Prime example is that the Ford Focus is Ford's small car in the US.  Here in Germany Ford has a more efficient version of the Focus and has two model lines that are even smaller.

Also in the US (as Heradel mentioned) gas prices were rediculously low.  In 2001 I was paying $.91 a gallon.  The price at the same station is now over $3.50. 

Also (my official word of this post) the average American car is driven 12,000 miles (19,200 km) a year.  That's a lot more thann in Europe or Asia.

The Americans have been slapped across the face by this change and there's a shitload of them.  That makes for a very attractive market.  It's not often that you get some many buyers running in the same direction.

As a side note.  I have essentially not even noticed a change in the price of gas.  IIRC I paid €1.30 a liter in 2002 and I paid €1.41 earlier this week.  That's less than a 10% increase.  also we drive about 4000 miles (6400 km) a year.  Given my car uses 10L/100km (yes, that's how the Germans figure it and yes, it is stupid) my gas expense for a year has gone up €70.40 over the last 6 years.  Pretty much that's right in line with a low inflation rate.

[wherethewild]

As a side note.  I have essentially not even noticed a change in the price of gas.  IIRC I paid €1.30 a liter in 2002 and I paid €1.41 earlier this week.  That's less than a 10% increase.  also we drive about 4000 miles (6400 km) a year.  Given my car uses 10L/100km (yes, that's how the Germans figure it and yes, it is stupid) my gas expense for a year has gone up €70.40 over the last 6 years.  Pretty much that's right in line with a low inflation rate.

You know I really hate kinda disagreeing with my deity, but..

The price of petrol when the Euro came in in 2002 was 0.90c (had been 1.80DM before the currency change). My husband has that etched into his brain for some reason. I could give a real comparison of prices over the past 10 years if I could be bothered going out and getting the little tracking book from the car. Because my husband has written down Every. Single. Petrol. Purchase. since he bought the thing. While kind of annoying and more than a little freaky, it's a trait that means he LOVES doing taxes. So who am I to complain?

I do know that when we did our Scandanavian tour in 2006 we were paying ~1.40€ at the pumps in Norway, which was about 10c higher than it had been in Germany at the time.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I'm always baffled by the vicious cycle:  there are supposedly no electric/hyper-efficient/etc cars on the market because there is no market for them.  What?  I want one!  Everyone I know wants one!  Even at the height of popularity of the Hummer, most of the folks I knew were wishing there was something better available.

That tells me that the reason there's no market for them because they DON'T EXIST yet.  It's really hard to buy something when it isn't THERE.

Well, of course not, silly bearded man.  Why make them?  No one would buy them...

ARRG!

[Chodon]

I'm always baffled by the vicious cycle:  there are supposedly no electric/hyper-efficient/etc cars on the market because there is no market for them.  What?  I want one!  Everyone I know wants one!  Even at the height of popularity of the Hummer, most of the folks I knew were wishing there was something better available.

That tells me that the reason there's no market for them because they DON'T EXIST yet.  It's really hard to buy something when it isn't THERE.

Well, of course not, silly bearded man.  Why make them?  No one would buy them...

ARRG!

Exactly my thoughts.  I've even been throwing around the idea of converting a small car with a blown up engine to an electric car.  The only problem is that there is a 95% chance I would electrocute myself.  I'm still considering it though.

[wintermute]

The problem is that the technology to make them (or at least to make them affordable) doesn't exist yet. The manufacturers would need to sink billions of dollars into R&D to bring them to market. And everyone knows that R&D is pure overhead, and therefore the first thing to get cut when you're looking to impress the stockholders at the next AGM.

Nothing that won't bear fruit in the next fiscal quarter can be an acceptable investment.

[Windup]

The problem is that the technology to make them (or at least to make them affordable) doesn't exist yet. The manufacturers would need to sink billions of dollars into R&D to bring them to market. And everyone knows that R&D is pure overhead, and therefore the first thing to get cut when you're looking to impress the stockholders at the next AGM.

Nothing that won't bear fruit in the next fiscal quarter can be an acceptable investment.

I assume you're exaggerating for effect.  Corporations can be a bit myopic, but it's not like they don't do any long-range R&D.

In any case, the right fiscal quarter may finally be lumbering into view, says The Economist. 

Though I have to note that as an American, getting our technological head handed to us by the Japanese is a familiar situation.  But Renault???  This takes national humiliation to a whole new level...

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I've got this site in my RSS reader:  http://ecotechdaily.com/2008/05/17/the-daily-five-saturday-17-may-2008/   They have been reporting a lot of encouraging news the last couple of weeks about electric cars (Volt, Tesla, Nissan's plans, etc), companies investing in solar/wind/tidal generation, and the problem with biofuels.  I've also been bookmarking a lot of stuff about solar and wind tech in del.icio.us (user name "tadmaster").

If you aren't into social bookmarking yet, or RSS, I highly recommend watching these YouTube videos and signing up for Google Reader and Del.icio.us:

RSS In Plain English
Social Bookmarks in Plain English

[Chodon]

Woo hoo!  They published my letter to the editor!  It's the second one down and was in the paper yesterday.  Wow, I've never been published before.