It ain't just us.

See also.

Plus this & this.

This could go on and on.

And it does:

As the ratio of workers to beneficiaries has fallen from 42-to-1 in 1945, to 3.3-to-1 in 2007, here's what it has taken at various points to support one worker--and what it will take when the ratio falls to 2-to-1 sometime in the [2030s].

Why does this NGO even exist especially when it is funded by the taxpayer.

This R&D should be done by and paid for by private companies.

Jim P:

Because no private company will dump asstons of money to the right politically-connected people for no return?

(Which I suspect was your point.)

(Which I suspect was your point.) -- Unix-Jedi at February 24, 2013 8:14 AM

Got it in one. Very good.

How exactly do any of you suppose scientists get trained if not by government funded research?

Private companies do not fund academic research to any large extent.

Furthermore, solar energy and wind energy are perfectly legitimate research targets... corn ethanol on the other hand is not very useful.

> How exactly do any of you suppose scientists
> get trained if not by government
> funded research?

"Science training" is an animal new to me.

If you want to talk about "education," we can do that, but you'll have a bad morning of it. Higher Ed is all fucked up.

Just curious, Orion... How old are you?

And what on Earth makes you think that "academic research" can do for solar energy?

Did you go to colle

Well first, tell us how old you are.

Crid Asks:

"And what on Earth makes you think that "academic research" can do for solar energy?"

I would be more than happy to answer that question if you answer one for me.

How does a solar cell work?

This is a highly relevant question because if you do not comprehend even the simple ideas behind solar technology you don't understand anything I have to say on the subject.

You did this last time, too, with the airline thing... Refused to answer any points except with more questions. You're a deeply defended little guy.

How old?

Crid,

Once again... let me make this very clear. My knowledge of how energy generation works probably FAR exceeds your own.

As a result, in order for us to have any useful communication on the subject I first need to gauge your level of knowledge.

As for distraction from the topic at hand.

I am asking about your understanding of solar energy... you are asking for my birthday.

The first of these is relevant to a conversation about energy generation, the second isn't.

I mean seriously... what would it matter if I was 25, 35, 55, or 85 when it comes to a conversation like this?

This is just more of your bull shit where you focus upon the people in the conversation as opposed to the details that actually matter.

Next you'll ask for my skin color or gender as if those things are relevant.

> Once again... let me make this very clear.

Again, unnecessary defensive perimeter. No one here will ever stop you from being clear. Amy hosts terabytes of people's bullshit, just 'cause she likes to watch 'em drown in their own foolishness.

> what would it matter if I was 25, 35, 55,
> or 85 when it comes to a conversation
> like this?

If you really are a sixth-grader, the naiveté of your arguments would be understandable (if not forgivable). Otherwise, we'll wonder why (and how) your discomfort with social cues weakens your positions. You're just a big ol' honking International Man of Mystery, Orie-O, and we're just tryin' to figure it out. We're all doing the best we can over here.

Science training, ever'buddy!

Crid,

Obviously you know nothing about science or technology that is relevant to this conversation.

But ignorance has never stopped you from pontificating before.

If you know something... anything about solar energy please let me know.

Otherwise I have to assume that your obsession with my age, location, and family are because you are secretly in love with me.

Well golly, who could resist such an enigmatic thinker?

This happens a lot on Amy's blog... Someone cloddishly steps up to claim authority in political matters on the basis of mundane professional expertise —I run the tightest goddam Continental Brek' of any hotel on Topeka's Eastside!— and then gets all surprised and wounded-like when people don't care. They think we can't see that they're self-interested.

People who truly bring professional insight to these discussions never, ever swing their dicks, but aren't coy about the scope of their credentials, either.

Most of these are straight out of Wikipedia, and are there annotated with copious links:

Solyndra—

On 1 September 2011, the company ceased all business activity, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and laid off all employees.[2] The company is also being sued by employees who were abruptly laid off.

Solyndra received a $535 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee before going bankrupt. Under the Solyndra restructuring plan, the government is projected to recoup 19 percent on $142.8 million of the loan and nothing on the remaining $385 million.[19] Additionally, Solyndra received a $25.1 million tax break from California's Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority.[20]

Beacon Power—

In 2009 Beacon received a loan guarantee from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) for $43 million to build a 20-megawatt flywheel power plant in Stephentown, New York.[9][10]

On 30 October 2011, the company filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code in the United States bankruptcy court in Delaware.[11][12] As part of the bankruptcy court proceedings, Beacon Power agreed on November 18 to sell its Stephentown facility to repay the DOE loan.

Solar Trust/Solar Millennium—

On 18 April 2011, US Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, offered the Solar Millennium a conditional commitment for a USD 2.1 billion loan guarantee. On June 18 government and corporate leaders lifted shovels of dirt to toast the Blythe Solar Power Project in the California desert, 225 miles east of Los Angeles.[10]

In December 2011, the company announced it was bankrupt and undergoing insolvency proceedings.[12]

Nevada Geothermal—

Based in Vancouver, BC, the company has 6 geothermal projects in the Western United States. Despite federal government loan guarantees, the company is facing financial trouble and there is "significant doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern".

SoloPower [via Oregonian: http://bit.ly/Vto3Zi]—

Oregon officials greenlighted a $20 million tax credit for SoloPower — tripling taxpayers' stake — despite unfulfilled job and production promises and signs the Portland solar panel factory was sliding even further behind. That was December. In January, company executives were deep in negotiations to refinance a $197 million federal loan commitment, also threatened by the missed benchmarks.

> If you know something... anything about
> solar energy please let me know.

All you cocksuckers belong in prison.

Crid,

You are all over the place with quotes that aren't the least bit relevant to any point I have made.

You are bloviating quite a bit and putting a great many words down… but you haven’t said anything remotely useful in terms of addressing my points.

Just to get my point across, you have posted information relevant to a discussion about government funding PRIVATE INDUSTRY when you talk about Solyndra, Beacon Power, Nevada Geothermal, etc…

Can you seriously not tell the difference between government funded research taking place on a university campus to train new scientists… and note I’m not talking about undergraduate education here as your previous link was talking about.

I am talking about training new scientists who perform research, publish papers, earn PhD’s and then enter into industry.

So when I talk about academia you come back with a collection of quotes about private industry being funded by government grants.

You can’t even follow the conversation.

You know nothing about what you are talking about. If you want to learn something maybe you should shut up and listen for a second instead of ranting and raving about things that I haven’t said anything about.

When I talk about training scientists and you come back with a link about undergraduate education you aren’t following the conversation.

When I talk about government funding training new scientists in academia and you come back with quotes about Solyndra you aren’t following the conversation.

Just stop already, you are embarrassing yourself with your utter ignorance on this subject and your inability to fathom the relevant issues that I have brought up.

Here is a clue… when someone is talking about training scientists, they aren’t talking about people earning a bachelors degree… and when someone is talking about government funded academic research, they aren’t talking about private corporations.

"All you cocksuckers belong in prison."

You sir are a moron who doesn't even have the common decency to recognize how ignorant you are on this particular subject.

I'd be happy to educate you, but you already think you know everything... even though you have demonstrated that you can't even follow the objectively simply distinctions between training PhD's and funding private industry with government money.

These two subjects are NOT the same thing.

> who doesn't even have the common decency
> to recognize how

See above, "then gets all surprised and wounded-like."

Crid,

The fact remains that when you hear someone talk about training new scientists you responded with a rebuttal focused upon government funding of Solyndra.

These two items have nothing to do with one another.

Your argument is as flawed and stupid as someone suggesting that training people in math is a bad idea because the banks have failed.

Such an argument is ignorant, wrong, and stupid because such a person has failed to comprehend that such things aren't causally linked in any rational way.

How exactly do any of you suppose scientists get trained if not by government funded research?

How did they get trained prior to the military-industrial complex?

Private companies do not fund academic research to any large extent.

Private companies fund research, both academic, and economic. Tell me why the pharmacy companies have research scientists? Have you ever done any research about the history of the Bell Labs? How about Procter and Gamble? How about the MITRE Corporation and labs? Where does CERN stand in your estimation?

Furthermore, solar energy and wind energy are perfectly legitimate research targets... corn ethanol on the other hand is not very useful.

Who the fuck are you to make that judgement?

They've had solar cells since the 60's, they've had windmills since about the time humans started grinding grain. Water wheels have been around for centuries. They used alcohol lamps prior to 1791 (Whiskey Rebellion).

So get off your presumptions and actually learn things.

So that we don't let this get away...
Orion, it doesen't matter how solar cells work. What matters is that there is NO WAY a civil servant should be making close to a million bucks to oversee a government facility researching it for the public.

I'd hafta check, but I'm sure there are any number of facility heads of much larger departments who don't make that, and look at the jumps in salary grade!

Importantly, companies do R&D WHEN THEY THINK THEY CAN MAKE MONEY ON A PRODUCT.

Ask the Chinese what the profit margin is on a PV cell. Ask Vestas why they are laying off 120 people barely 30 miles from NREL.

And then look at those salaries and ask who's zoomin' who.

If solar was a bonanza, companies woulda jumped on it. It isn't, and proly never will be. And those Ph.D's will wish they had stopped going in debt, instead of starting up their own thing.

But Jimp!... Science Training!

SwissArmyD Says:

"Orion, it doesen't matter how solar cells work. What matters is that there is NO WAY a civil servant should be making close to a million bucks to oversee a government facility researching it for the public."

That is perfectly fine, and I am in agreement that 1 million dollars seems like an outrageous salary.

However, it does matter if someone knows how a solar cell works when they make the following statement as Crid did:

"And what on Earth makes you think that "academic research" can do for solar energy?"

Keep in mind that it was in response to this question that I asked Crid what he knew about solar cells.

I asked specifically because it is impossible to answer such a question without first assessing the level of knowledge someone has on the subject.

I would have been completely happy to keep the conversation about outrageous salaries if these alternative issues weren't being injected into the discourse.

However, when an ignorant person pontificates on a subject for which they know next to nothing, it is important to correct them as quickly as possible to prevent the propagation of false information.

Wordy... Someone important in your life was too patient with you.

Jim P. Says:

"How did they get trained prior to the military-industrial complex?"

Well considering the "military-industrial complex" refers to a time period pertaining to the after the 1940's... scientists are trained today in essentially the same manner now as they were prior to this.

Scientists are trained by earning PhD's at universities, they perform research into new areas (i.e. they aren't being "educated" in a class room from a text book), publish the products of that research, write a thesis of their findings and defend their work in front of a panel of experts.

This isn't some new process developed since 1950.

"Private companies fund research, both academic, and economic. Tell me why the pharmacy companies have research scientists?"

The distinction between academic research and the research private companies often engage in is that the first gets published in the public domain and the second is not generally published anywhere such that a company can maintain a competitive advantage. Some research from private companies does get published, but this is usually on the periphery of anything they deem to be economically important.

For example, a company like Intel invests billions of dollars into research and development... but the results of this work is only available internally.

"Private companies fund research, both academic, and economic. Tell me why the pharmacy companies have research scientists?"

Again, pharmacy companies do perform research, but the vast majority of what they learn isn't made available to the public in any form.

Furthermore... where do you think all of the scientists working for these companies came from?

They weren't originally trained by the pharmaceutical company, instead they had to first earn a PhD from a university in a field like chemistry and publish academic work in peer reviewed journals and defend a thesis before they are considered competent enough in their field to perform research in private industry.

Scientists don't just appear fully qualified out of thin air. It takes at least 11 years of post high school education/training in order to do the jobs you are talking about.

"Who the fuck are you to make that judgement?"

I'm someone who actually knows how these devices functions... knows what the relevant challenges are that remain to be addressed... knows what the current state of the art technology is.

Let's put it this way, the laser was invented in around the 1950's... however it only became a mainstay within peoples homes circa the 1980's.

Why do you suppose there was such a time lag?

The reason is the the original laser was constructed from a ruby crystal that was excited via a flash bulb to produce a laser pulse.

That bares almost no resemblance at all to the technology that currently functions within your dvd player.

Instead those technologies are CW (continuous wave) lasers that function off of solid state semiconductor devices. They are so-called diode lasers.

Examples like this are why your argument that solar cells have existed since the 1960's falls flat on its face.

The solar cells of the 1960's simply aren't the same technology being explored in modern research facilities.

Silicon based solar cells are a mature technology... they also aren't the focus of most academic research because there isn't much more to learn there.

I'd be happy to explain to you the kinds of things scientists are currently working on, but it would be helpful if you stopped saying things like this:

"So get off your presumptions and actually learn things."

Because I'm not actually "presuming" anything here.

If you suspect that the solar cells being explored today are the same as the ones from the 1960's you must understand that such a statement is as ignorant as suggesting that your dvd player runs off of a ruby crystal.

Well considering the "military-industrial complex" refers to a time period pertaining to the after the 1940's... scientists are trained today in essentially the same manner now as they were prior to this.

Scientists are trained by earning PhD's at universities, they perform research into new areas (i.e. they aren't being "educated" in a class room from a text book), publish the products of that research, write a thesis of their findings and defend their work in front of a panel of experts.

Your original Question that I responded to: How exactly do any of you suppose scientists get trained if not by government funded research?

So now you are saying that is the scientist's original research -- where does the government come into it?

They weren't originally trained by the pharmaceutical company, instead they had to first earn a PhD from a university in a field like chemistry and publish academic work in peer reviewed journals and defend a thesis before they are considered competent enough in their field to perform research in private industry.

You are again saying that is the scientist's original research and the government didn't fund it or they couldn't have become a scientist with out government funding?

I'm someone who actually knows how these devices functions... knows what the relevant challenges are that remain to be addressed... knows what the current state of the art technology is.

Then why don't you fix them all and bring us into Utopia?

Instead those technologies are CW (continuous wave) lasers that function off of solid state semiconductor devices. They are so-called diode lasers.

What made the CW laser commercially viable and who did the research into it? Was it government funded? If you know your history at all the laser improvements were just as gradual as anything else and were just as commercially driven: The first laser disk, demonstrated in 1972, was the Laservision 12-inch video disk.

If you suspect that the solar cells being explored today are the same as the ones from the 1960's you must understand that such a statement is as ignorant as suggesting that your dvd player runs off of a ruby crystal.

No I don't -- but you are a proponent of solar and wind. You are also proposing spending my money to do that research. That is where I get offended.

The government should not be in research or energy development, or many other things.

If energy gets too expensive -- the government should be telling everyone that the citizens need to talk to their electric company, BP, Shell, etc.

The government shouldn't be in the way of developing coal, oil, nuclear, natural gas, or solar if a private company wants to do it.

Jim P. Says:

"Your original Question that I responded to: How exactly do any of you suppose scientists get trained if not by government funded research?

So now you are saying that is the scientist's original research -- where does the government come into it?"

Of course the research is original. You cannot earn a PhD by rehashing things we already know. A thesis must be composed of original research.

However, who do you think provides the funding for the academic research facilities?

The vast majority of that doesn't come from private industry. Most of it is funded by government grants for which graduate students, professors, and research scientists have to apply and compete for.

The modern funding agencies are the NSF, DoD, DoE, NIH etc...

These funding agencies put out calls for proposals which are responded to by research scientists. Those proposals are then rated and potentially funded based upon several factors.

Beyond these individual proposals, the government also fosters large academic centers with specified research goals. These centers are intended to bring together interdisciplinary research efforts in order to tackle very difficult problems and have high funding levels.

The fundamental disconnect that I see with the way you are viewing things is you tout the amazing accomplishments of industrial scientists but completely ignore where those scientists came from. It is the equivalent of saying that steak comes from the supermarket while completely ignoring that the steak was originally produced on a farm. In the spirit of this analogy, industry is the supermarket, scientists are the steak, and universities are the farm.

It would be great if industry hired people with bachelor degrees and spent 5 years training them to earn a degree… but they don’t want that responsibility. Instead they hire scientists who have been trained in universities to perform their research. The government supports the training of these scientists under the condition that the graduate students in question perform research on subjects of interest to the government.

That is how it works, and this isn’t really anything that is very new.

“You are again saying that is the scientist's original research and the government didn't fund it or they couldn't have become a scientist with out government funding?”

No… the government does fund the research. Modern research facilities in universities have multimillion dollar pieces of equipment that graduate students are trained to use. The students don’t purchase million dollar pieces of equipment for the university in order to earn a PhD. The universities don’t pay for it out of pocket either.

In the course of earning a PhD in the physical sciences students have access to and are trained to use equipment that far exceeds the value of your home. The students perform research that the government has put out a proposal for, in the course of doing this work the students earns their PhD. It actually gets more complicated than this, but I’m trying to keep things simple for the sake of this discussion.

“Then why don't you fix them all and bring us into Utopia?”

Just because I know what the relevant issues are and the things that need to be resolved in order to make solar technology more competitive in the market doesn’t mean I know the solutions.

Science is a very challenging thing… it isn’t like star trek where the problem is isolated and resolved within the course of a 1 hour episode. Going back to the laser example, it was known for over a decade what needed to happen in order to create a platform that could hold a feature length film on one disc before anyone figured out how to do it.

It was known that the wavelength of the light needed to be shifted to the blue as opposed to the red lasers used for CD’s. However knowing what needed to happen doesn’t tell you how to do it.

Millions of dollars in research were required to develop the blue laser, which incidentally is based upon a gallium nitride crystal that cannot be grown via the traditional semiconductor growth methods used for silicon.

Once we know the solution it is all easy… discovering the answer to a problem with an unknown solution is the job of a scientist.

Right now we know the problems, the solutions are being worked on. That is the purpose of research funding. Experts are constantly making educated guesses at the proper solution, that is where the money goes. Once the solution has been found a new problem is focused on.

“What made the CW laser commercially viable and who did the research into it? Was it government funded? If you know your history at all the laser improvements were just as gradual as anything else and were just as commercially driven: The first laser disk, demonstrated in 1972, was the Laservision 12-inch video disk.”

Jim, you really are misunderstanding what you are talking about. I am not saying that industry doesn’t perform valuable research.

What I am saying is that industry doesn’t train anyone to be a scientist. Industry hires people who have already been trained to be a scientist.

Those researchers who work at those companies didn’t just appear out of nowhere. They went to graduate school and were trained due to government funding.

The lithium ion battery is another good example, it has certainly been worked on and developed by industry. However, academia is right now in the course of doing very fundamental research in the area (and was integrally involved in the original developments of this technlology as well).

You are misunderstanding the relationship between academic research and industrial research. Academia works on the basic research side of things, they demonstrate what is possible, they explore new avenues for doing things and take on high risk high reward endeavors that are often outside the purview of industry. What then tends to happen is if a discovery of significant industrial merit is isolated, venture capitalists will fund the creation of a small company. If that company proves itself to have a profitable market what then happens is it gets accumulated by a larger company that you are familiar with. However, that larger company didn’t take part in the original development, they acquire it AFTER it has gone through perhaps 5-10 years of work.

Only after a product has hit the market do you become aware of it though, and then you attribute the creation of that product or technology to the company. However, that analysis fails to account for the source.

The internet is another great example. Companies like Cisco and Juniper now are heavily invested in developing new networking technologies. However, the original internet was developed as a result of government funding and academic research. It was known as ARPANET and was funded by the DoD and the work was performed by academics.

Only after the initial kinks were worked out and it became a viable commercial venture did industry step in and now industry handles almost everything with relation to the internet. To forget the role of government funding and academic research into the initial development of the internet is to completely misunderstand how it came to be.

It’s not like the Cisco CEO woke up one day and said to himself “you know what would be an awesome idea… a way to connect all the computers and have them communicate over some kind of network”. That simply isn’t how it happened.

“No I don't -- but you are a proponent of solar and wind. You are also proposing spending my money to do that research. That is where I get offended.”
I’m not simply a proponent of solar and wind. I am a proponent of a diversified energy portfolio. I’m also a fan of nuclear energy.

The problem with your opinion on energy policy is that it is an uninformed opinion. I am a proponent of solar and wind research because I understand that within 10 years that technology will be hitting prime time.

If you don’t understand how solar energy works, what makes you think your opinion on the subject of solar energy is well informed enough to reject it?

“The government should not be in research or energy development, or many other things.”

I guess the government should not have been researching the development of the internet either… and yet you seem to have no problem at all using it now that it is everywhere.

I suspect the same will be true for you with regard to for solar energy in about 10 years.

Why do you support government funded research by making use of the internet?

That bares almost no resemblance at all to the technology that currently functions within your dvd player.

That would be "bears" oh brilliant one.

Conan the Grammarian,

Sorry for the error, you are absolutely right.

It is more important to me to get the informational content correct.

Since you are looking to correct grammar here, let me note that you missed this gem earlier, amongst gems by others in this conversation:

"Did you go to colle"

Or are you only interested in correcting the grammar of someone who has some level knowledge about the actual subject?

I don't mind having my grammar corrected, what I mind is that you are doing it selectively.

I'm an equal opportunity fact checker.

Jebus. Glad I didn't stop by earlier. Orion, and all this time I thought it was Onion, you write too much. Please be brief as possible if you want us old farts to read your stuff.

Fixed the water line for the horses again tonight. Fifth time this winter. I need a windmill so I was wondering if you could fix me up Onion?

Methinks Onion is an engineer - he is that boring. Dude, I think Crid didn't finish spelling colle, well because see the next sentence. See, no sense of humor, you're an engineer.

Dave B,

Just to be fair... I tried to keep my posts brief earlier and was told that I wasn't offering enough information.

People here can't have it both ways.

If you don't want the info, then you have to accept what I say at face value and not argue with me over it.

If someone wants to disagree without any factual basis for the disagreement then I have two choices:

1 - Just tell them they are wrong and offer no evidence.

2 - Explain why they are wrong and offer the facts and reasons why.

Option 2 requires lots of information.

This is precisely why I asked this question earlier:

"How does a solar cell work?"

Because when people don't know fuck all about how technologies function and spout very adamant positions with regard to those technologies it takes LOTS of explaining to get them up to speed.

That's why it takes years to learn about all of this.

Someone doesn't become an expert in something by reading a few news articles.

Just to be fair, it isn't me that is boring. Discussing technical facts is generally boring. But there isn't any other way to cut through issues pertaining to energy policy.

The facts related to energy policy are "boring". However without the facts peoples opinions on the matter are worthless.

This is precisely why our energy policy is so screwed up, people who know nothing and don't want to know anything are deciding the fate of our country.

We could do with a few more "boring" people at the helm.

We could do with a few more "boring" people at the helm.

Depends.

"How does a solar cell work?"

Don't know.

Furthermore, solar energy and wind energy are perfectly legitimate research targets

Not on my dime.

Those people (noted in Amy's post) are paid too much. Do you disagree?

"This is precisely why our energy policy is so screwed up, people who know nothing and don't want to know anything are deciding the fate of our country.?

Our energy policy is screwed up because we don't do enough to find, drill and refine oil. My belief is everything else will work its own way out.

Dave B Asks:

"Those people (noted in Amy's post) are paid too much. Do you disagree?"

I do agree. Amy is on target with that assertion.

However, those people aren't the ones in the trenches doing the work.

The postdoctoral researchers who actually do the research are probably paid between 50 and 70K (this is just my guess, I don't know the exact numbers for the NREL facility).

These are people who are highly qualified, some of the best and brightest our nation has to offer. That type of salary isn't outrageous for a PhD.

The directors of those institutions are being paid wildly too much in this case.

"Our energy policy is screwed up because we don't do enough to find, drill and refine oil. My belief is everything else will work its own way out."

On what basis do you make this claim?

What if my response to your contention was simply "Not on my dime"?

Would that statement convince you of anything?

Here is the point, it isn't "your" dime. It is "our" communal dime.

You aren't paying for it... we are all paying for it. Hence we all have a say, we all have a vote.

That it isn't being done the way you like suggests that more people want it done differently than you do. Their collective dimes count more than your one dime counts.

We live in a democracy, and sometimes it stinks that everyone else doesn't want to do things the way we want to.

However you need a more convincing argument than "Not on my dime"... or when I said that to you did it suddenly convince you that drilling wasn't the best answer?

Just having faith that everything will work its way out is a BS response too. Decisions have to be made to resolve problems.

Tossing your hands in the air and saying "it'll all just work out" doesn't solve anything.

If things ultimately do work out it will be because people made decisions, with any luck they will make the right ones.

Oil is a stop gap measure, it simply cannot be a long term solution to our energy economy. Believing otherwise is extremely shortsighted and isn't supported by the facts.

This old man on his way to bed. More tomorrow.

What if my response to your contention was simply "Not on my dime"?

Would that statement convince you of anything?

Oil is not on your dime. No. Don't be obtuse.

"Oil is not on your dime. No. Don't be obtuse."

I'm not being obtuse:

The present estimate for US government oil subsidies is over 10 billion dollars.

That's actually over 300 dimes per citizen.

So why are you so up in arms about the financial costs of fundamental research, but are apparently completely in the dark about the fact that you are financially supporting a profitable industry?

At least for the first you get something back (i.e. we learn something we didn't know).

The subsidy goes into the pocket of private industry which presumably doesn't need the financial support.

Isn't is possible that you might not know as much about the prevailing issues here as you think you do?

6:40pm was 1400 words. Were they worth it? Someone let me know.

We live in a democracy, and sometimes it stinks that everyone else doesn't want to do things the way we want to. -- Orion at February 24, 2013 10:41 PM

No, we don't. We live in a representative republic. You put that in another post as well. Democracy means that the mob rules and we have to ask permission to do something. A republic means the people grant the government the powers to make certain laws. The federal government is outsized and extra-constitutional at this point, and needs to be cut back severely.

democracy: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority

republic: a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.

The present estimate for US government oil subsidies is over 10 billion dollars. -- Orion at February 24, 2013 11:49 PM

Are you referring to these subsidies?

In the United States, the federal government has paid US$74 billion for energy subsidies to support R&D for nuclear power ($50 billion) and fossil fuels ($24 billion) from 1973 to 2003. During this same timeframe, renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency received a total of US$26 billion. It has been suggested that a subsidy shift would help to level the playing field and support growing energy sectors, namely solar power, wind power, and biofuels.[8] However, many of the "subsidies" available to the oil and gas industries are general business opportunity credits, available to all US businesses (particularly, the foreign tax credit mentioned above). The value of industry-specific subsidies in 2006 was estimated by the Texas State Comptroller to be just $3.06 billion - a fraction of the amount claimed by the Environmental Law Institute.[9] The balance of federal subsides, which the comptroller valued at $7.4 billion, came from shared credits and deductions, and oil defense (spending on the SPR, energy infrastructure security, etc.)

Orion, in college, a few years ago, I was involved with our Engineering college's Solar Car team. At the time, the efficiency of the highest end solar cells was beginning to approach 25% (I believe U of Michigan, got to 27 or 28% at peak, and they throw $1 Million a year and multiple Doctoral students at it too). Colleges have helped some with the efficiency, but most of the returns they seemed to get were the result of better materials science at the solar cell manufacturers rather than any kind of significant breakthrough.

Orion,
The fact that you think wind and solar could ever be effective replacements for oil and natural gas tells me that you know squat about actual energy generation and more importantly transmission. You may know all there is to know about how solar cells operate, but obviously know nothing about energy markets. How about you answer Crid's first question? The more "energy" you expend avoiding the question makes me me even more curious to know the answer. I know when you are sitting in your dorm room the answers to all the world's problems seem so easy, but really once you start working for a living you will find the real world totally different.

> once you start working for a living you will find
> the real world totally different.

Thanks; my certain perception from his first comments was that this was not a real-world guy. Choking an argument to death is not the same as answering it.

I wonder...

Perhaps if Raddy makes it in here, he would know how much the Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory makes. Considering their Budget is $1.65 Billion he must make 5x as much as this character at NREL, right?

Ultimately the scandal here is that it's a money hole, and nobody knows where it is going... but then, that same argument has been used with a number of the national labs.

Importantly, the fact that the security guys think something secret is going on there is laughable, it's not that kind of research. The researcher should have been escorted to their PR office, or at least been given a contact, it is a PUBLIC institution, and should be responsive.

These questions are FAR MORE important to ask as a basis for inquiry, and THEN after the transparency that isn't there is cleared up, THEN we can talk about is it worthwhile research.

Also, Orion, just THINK about how many post docs, and others could be paid if the big bosses salaries were in line?

Here we have another problem. Doing a bit more research confirmed that the big bosses AREN'T civil servants, they work for a management company... which makes the pay thing a bunch more suspect.

I also find Orion's arguments about people with doctorates curious... I work with hundreds of engineers and scientists, and very few of them have PhD after their name.

I have heard in the rounds, and in particular with a friend that just went back for the MS... that the PhD is needlessly expensive for the bump in salary, and in the long run doesn't pay in the industry.

Sounds an aweful lot like the grousing of someone who got the degree, and isn't really being compensated for it.

That's the only reason I can see for the arguments about what all is going on in solar, when the market is this depressed, and companies are going bankrupt or laying off all over. Even the Chinese have such an overcapacity, they are cutting back.

Here's your final question Orion.

IFF someone makes a breakthrough in printable solar panels at NREL that are cheap and easy to make... who will actually make a profit on that anyway?
The scientist who discovers it, but has signed away any patentable rights to his work? Or the corporation that figures out how to make solar cells in the far east like rolls of paper towels?

Is that actually what you are railing against?

> he would know how much the Director of
> Oak Ridge National Laboratory makes.

Wonderful question. 10 minutes of Google revealed nothing.

I don't mind having my grammar corrected, what I mind is that you are doing it selectively.

You're the one making claims to exceptional knowledge and expertise - beyond that of us mere mortals.

"Oil is a stop gap measure, it simply cannot be a long term solution to our energy economy. Believing otherwise is extremely shortsighted and isn't supported by the facts."

That is just a breathtakinly stupid statement.

"It is "our" communal dime."

Take your nutsack back to the commune. I think you must have missed some econ classes.

"Just having faith that everything will work its way out is a BS response too. Decisions have to be made to resolve problems."

Now you got me wondering your age Onion. Not only do you think that is what I meant, you think government is necessary to resolve problems.

"The present estimate for US government oil subsidies is over 10 billion dollars."

Please give brief explanation of the subsidies. Oh yes, and don't include those given to all industries. Oh, and lastly, tell us the net between how much tax they pay and subsidies.

"Isn't is possible that you might not know as much about the prevailing issues here as you think you do?"

Back at you.

Conan Says:

"You're the one making claims to exceptional knowledge and expertise - beyond that of us mere mortals."

Um... no.

I claim that the people advocating very adamant positions on this issue don't know much about the relevant issues involved.

I am not claiming "exceptional knowledge and expertise" beyond that of "mere mortals".

If you were talking to a cardiac surgeon would you toss a fit if they informed you what you were saying about heart health was ill informed and wrong?

Many of you are way out of your depth here. Your opinions are far too strong given such a lack of knowledge in this area.

"Many of you are way out of your depth here. Your opinions are far too strong given such a lack of knowledge in this area."

hehe. Why don't you just go ahead and embarrass us with your indepth knowledge without your foolish opinions I noted above.

One last question before you go away. Do you know anything about Adam Smith?

spqr2008 Says:

"Orion, in college, a few years ago, I was involved with our Engineering college's Solar Car team. At the time, the efficiency of the highest end solar cells was beginning to approach 25% (I believe U of Michigan, got to 27 or 28% at peak, and they throw $1 Million a year and multiple Doctoral students at it too). Colleges have helped some with the efficiency, but most of the returns they seemed to get were the result of better materials science at the solar cell manufacturers rather than any kind of significant breakthrough."

Finally... someone here who actually has some knowledge to go along with what they are saying.

In response to what you are saying let me go through a few factors.

The type of cells that would be used for a solar vehicle are not the type of cells that would be very useful for energy generation.

The reason for this is that in that application each cell has to function at high conversion efficiency so as to keep the weight down. This makes each individual cell very expensive because they are composed of single crystal silicon.

Most commercial cells now use what it known as poly-silicon... it is polycrystalline and has lower conversion efficiency per unit area but is MUCH less expensive to produce.

To make solar competitive in the market it isn't conversion efficiency that really needs to be optimized. It is the cost per watt that calculated over the lifetime of the cell.

This means for energy generation we want cells that are cheap per percent conversion and we want them to last as long as possible.

When you talk about most of the advances being from better material science at the manufacturers you are simply reiterating my previous point that silicon based PV (photovoltaic) technology is mostly beyond the basic research stage. There is some work dealing with tandem cells and solar concentrators in order to better optimize conversion efficiency, but this type of application will probably find use only in niche areas where efficiency and space are at a premium. Cells like that have achieved conversion efficiencies as high as 45% (quite a bit higher than the 25% you saw coming from the market place).

Beyond this however, the basic research deals with moving away from silicon and into other areas like thin films and OPV's (organic photovoltaics), people are also looking for ways to utilize plasmonic enhancement.

These types of emerging technologies don't beat silicon in terms of conversion efficiency. Where they win out is in terms of price. They are orders of magnitude cheaper to produce.

This kind of work wasn't exactly born in industry.

People here are talking too much out of their ass about things they know nothing about.

Your opinions are far too strong given such a lack of knowledge in this area.

Well, I think we're all waiting with baited breath for your knowledge, here. Tell us about the "relevant issues" involved. And none of that "it's too lengthy, you wouldn't understand" shit.

From having worked with many scientists, I learned that first, they went to school. Some of them got PhDs. Some their BSs, some BAs, MAs, and some are just plain ol' Research Associates. The biotech companies I've worked for are PRIVATELY funded and MUCH research goes on. Vaccines, osteo-related meds, PAH meds, the list goes on and on. Involved with the research is TRAINING in certain techniques in research. The research is always developing in new directions, directly related to the RESEARCH, thus answering the charge that "Private companies do not fund academic research to any large extent". It's ALL academic, it doesn't have to be at an institution, although Yale is funding quite a bit of academic research, fueled by, would you believe, GOVERNMENT grants. And I know this for fact, because I helped edit some of the grant requests and submitted research.

Now, that said, I have NO idea about the research and "science training" requirements for solar and/or other energy resources. But I DO know a thing or two about academic and private company pharmaceutical funded research. And yes, government funds are applied for and granted on a pretty regular basis.

So, Onion, enlighten us. Because I believe that was the original question before you started the barrage of "how does a solar cell work" and "energy generation". But keep in mind that the original post is about how people who DON'T do the research are making scads more money than the people who actually DO do the research.

Okay, I just read your post above mine. Concisely written and I thank you for that.

Orion,
Wow! Way to assume facts not in evidence. Since you won't tell us about your work history let me tell you about mine. I was the business unit analyst for the largest natural gas pipeline in the United States. I worked with several other pipelines as well. My husband, the one with the PhD, (I only have a Masters degree), he has worked as an LNG analyst for one of the largest oil companies in the world for the last ten years. He works on one of the largest commodities trading floors in the US and we talk about these issues all the time as they effect our livelihood. I feel like we both pretty well understand power, LNG, and oil. Now that I've shown you mine, how about you show us yours? Oh, that's right bc what you do (college student) is too far above us small minded folks who live in the adult world.

Dave B. Asks:

"Why don't you just go ahead and embarrass us with your indepth knowledge without your foolish opinions I noted above."

Sure.

Photovoltaic cells function via the direct conversion of photons into electricity. This happens via the generation of an exciton within the photovoltaic medium. This electron-hole pair is then separated and collected at two different conductors.

One of these conductors must be transparent in order to permit the light to come into the cell. It is important to note here that transparency and conduction are not usually correlated so a great deal of work went into the development of transparent conductive oxides like ITO (indium tin oxide). Since indium is an expensive metal current work in that part of the field revolves around replacing ITO with cheaper transparent conductors.

Now the photovoltaic material is usually composed of a PN semiconductor junction (technically PiN is better, but for the sake of this discussion we'll just call it PN). What this refers to is how the semiconductor is doped. P-type semiconductor materials have a fermi energy close to the valence band. N-type semiconductor materials by contrast are doped to have a fermi energy close to the conduction band. Proper band alignment is critical in order to achieve high conversion efficiencies.

This is because the electrons and holes move within the potential created by the energy bands. High efficiency implies efficient exciton splitting. What must be avoided is so called recombination where the electron and hole basically "destroy" each other and no electricity is extracted from those charge carriers.

Now in addition to splitting excitons and collecting the charge carriers at the conductors there is also an issue of absorbance. This is a tricky factor because it is the bandgap of the material in question that dictates how much of the solar spectrum will be absorbed and converted into an exciton in the first place. Keep in mind that I haven't even discussed the issue of direct versus indirect bandgap materials (of which silicon is indirect which implies absorption efficiency compared to direct bandgap materials).

What I mean by direct versus indirect gap here is that the relative locations of the top of the valence band and the bottom of the conduction band. For direct bandgap semiconductors these locations are the same in k-space (otherwise known as momentum space). This means that for indirect bandgap semiconductors that in addition to a photon, a phonon is also required for absorption at the bandgap energy. This makes the process less efficient overall and hence silicon cells are relatively thick. Direct bandgap materials can be thinner and still absorb the light.

I could go on, but I'll stop here for now and simply say that I try not to get into technical jargon with people who aren't familiar with the field. However, when I do that and try to keep things at a level that will include everyone, I get accused of not having any expertise in what I'm talking about.

I'm not trying to be insulting when I say that the people here are talking about things they don't understand. I am simply recognizing the reality that people outside of scientific disciplines rarely comprehend the nuts and bolts involved. This stuff is complicated, and to be fair what I spoke about above is actually the simple stuff.

If you were talking to a cardiac surgeon would you toss a fit if they informed you what you were saying about heart health was ill informed and wrong?

If I were talking to a guy who refused tell me if he was, in fact, a cardiac surgeon or even what his training in cardiac surgery was, but kept telling me he knew far more about the subject than I ever would, who told me that everything that I was saying was wrong, I would take umbrage.

So, in answer to the original question, why don't you tell us how you got such superior knowledge of solar and wind energy (and the energy industry overall) and why we should acquiesce without question to your expertise.

What's your level and field of education and how many years of experience do you have studying and/or working in the field?

And, no, I'm not an energy specialist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

"Why don't you just go ahead and embarrass us with your indepth knowledge without your foolish opinions I noted above."

Sure.

Sorry dude, your boring spiel did not embarrass me.

"Oil is a stop gap measure, it simply cannot be a long term solution to our energy economy. Believing otherwise is extremely shortsighted and isn't supported by the facts."

That statement dude is imbarrassing for you. Perhaps you have too much of a specialty education and you somehow think it qualifies you to make such an uneducated statement. Embarrass me with your facts that support that statement.

Flynne Asks:

"Well, I think we're all waiting with baited breath for your knowledge, here. Tell us about the "relevant issues" involved. And none of that "it's too lengthy, you wouldn't understand" shit. "

I'd be happy to. In my above post I gave a very brief primer in how PV cells function. I excluded all math and tried to be as general as possible.

Now in terms of the specific work going on in the field today I'll touch on a few major themes.

Recognizing that silicon-based solar technologies are probably going to be too expensive to compete in the market place against fossil fuels, the most important factor is cost.

Cost can of course be reduced via economy of scale, but that isn't going to be enough.

Instead the material system itself needs to drop on a per watt basis. However, it's not quite as bad as one might think because one can make gains by moving away from the philosophy of centralized energy generation. We lose ~50% of out energy from transmission alone. This implies that energy generated on site gives you two times the bang for your buck. You can't realistically put a steam turbine in your basement, but you can put panels or a thin film on your roof or backyard.

Ok, great, we now understand some of the constraints. So how do we go about reducing cost?

Well we begin by moving away from silicon except for special applications (again, tandem cells with solar concentrators are really neat and may hold promise, but that isn't what I'll discuss in this post).

Shifting to thin film technologies means we don't have to rely upon the high production costs associated with silicon crystal manufacturing. One of the emerging technologies in that area is CIGS which is a direct bandgap material so it can be thin and still absorb the light. Materials like this can be deposited onto large areas at a greatly reduced cost as compared to silicon based technologies.

The problem with CIGS however is that many of the components are very toxic so it would be ideal if we didn't have to use it.

Another emerging technology are OPV's (organic photovoltaics). Now remember in my previous post when I talked about p-type and n-type semiconductor materials? Well the same idea applies to organics, but since they aren't composed of bulk crystals the idea of "doping" becomes a little less conventional.

Instead we need to focus more upon band alignments and offsets. We need to utilize band engineering ideas to get the electrons and holes to move the way we want them too. The other problem with organics is the intrinsic mobility of the charge carriers. Low mobility implies shorter diffusion lengths for the charge carriers which means that the excitons don't separate as efficiently. In order to improve charge separation in organic films a great deal of work has gone into engineering the morphology of the films. For some time the "gold standard" was the bulk heterojunction cell and the model system was a combination of P3HT (this is a thiophene based polymer) and PCBM (this is a soluble derivative of carbon-60 otherwise known as a buckyball).

Efficiencies for cells like this hovered around the 6% mark for some time, so even though they were cheap they weren't quite good enough. The typical efficiency people talk about for OPVs that will be needed is ~10% (better is always welcome). More recently however, new organic materials have been developed that have much higher degrees of crystalinity which implies better mobility which implies better charge separation. Cells made with these new materials are already over 10%.

The problems that remain here are lifetime issues. Organic cells just don't last long enough to be reliable yet. As a result people have been exploring strategies to improve lifetime.

Keep in mind that I haven't even discussed dye-sensatized cells or the potential of plasmon enhanced cells.

Needless to say, people are trying all sorts of clever things to resolve the remaining issues. As such when I hear people suggest that nothing is happening it sounds very much to me like children who assume that food just magically appears in the refrigerator. New technologies don’t magically appear out of thin air. The technologies you enjoy today often times started in some laboratory funded by government money 10-20 years ago.

It is sad that so few here seem to recognize this.

Dave B says:

"Sorry dude, your boring spiel did not embarrass me."

Let'e be fair here Dave. I'm the only one here to demonstrate one iota of technical knowledge related to the field in question.

That you and others are utterly impervious to facts isn't my problem and it isn't my fault.

However, feel free to keep talking out of your ass about things you don't understand.

Fascinating stuff. But did you even finish reading my post, before you posted? Because, yeah, I went a little further, and asked what all that had to do with the fact the people who DON'T do the research are making more money than those who do. This whole thing started with the FUNDING issue, not the "creating energy" issue.

I'm the only one here to demonstrate one iota of technical knowledge related to the field in question.

Ori, you've demonstrated textbook knowledge.

Now tell us about your experience applying that textbook knowledge in the non-academic world.

Show us you're not a pseudo-intellectual ninth-grader upbraiding his elders in an effort to mask his own feelings of inferiority.

Flynne,

On that point I agree with you 100% and have said as much multiple times.

The original topic is one I completely agree with.

This conversation was diverted by the following off-topic comment by Jim P.:

"This R&D should be done by and paid for by private companies."

My comment was directly related to this when I said:

"How exactly do any of you suppose scientists get trained if not by government funded research?"

Because Jim's statement implies that scientists in industry should be performing all the research... but he failed to understand where those scientists got trained before they were hired by industry.

Those industrial scientists come out of universities and are funded by government sponsored research.

Then crid started in with this:

"And what on Earth makes you think that "academic research" can do for solar energy?"

If these two stuck to the topic of overpayment of the NREL directors we wouldn't be on this tangent.

They simply do not comprehend how research happens and so I tried to correct their misinformation.

Conan Says:

"Ori, you've demonstrated textbook knowledge."

Except some of the more focused things I am talking about isn't exactly in text books yet. It is in published literature. It is things you learn at technical meetings and conferences.

"Show us you're not a pseudo-intellectual ninth-grader upbraiding his elders in an effort to mask his own feelings of inferiority."

Why exactly must I show you anything?... what have you shown me?

In other words, you live in utter ignorance on this subject and I have to keep proving things to you?

Go fuck yourself. I've don't enough proving so far. Now you prove to me that you know anything on this subject to warrant a seat at the table.

Goodness gracious. You've got some balls... I've got to keep proving myself to jump through one hoop after another and all you do is sit there and get to be the judge?

You know nothing about this subject, so do us all a favor and be quiet and listen... maybe you'll learn something.

Again, the defensive posture to deflect the question.

You've shown us nothing but some technical knowledge you could get from textbooks or articles - demonstrating an avid interest in and some knowledge of the topic, but not demonstrating any sustained or applied expertise.

I'm done here, dude. Until you learn how to establish your bona fides in a debate, you will have very little credibility, on this or any other topic.

Later.

What Coney sed.

Conan Says:

"Again, the defensive posture to deflect the question."

It isn't a defensive posture.

It is a recognition that you are going to continually shift the goal posts on your demands.

First you demand technical expertise... remember when you said this: "You're the one making claims to exceptional knowledge and expertise"

So I back up that contention and now it's about proving that my expertise extends into some other area because apparently my "knowledge" is all textbook.

Except it isn't textbook knowledge, you would know this if you knew anything about the field. Nothing I can say here can possibly convince you I know anything from personal experience if you can just invoke the existence of some imaginary "textbook" that enumerates the information I've just provided.

You don't even have the decency of saying what textbook you are talking about... you're just convinced that one exists therefore I have to "prove" that my knowledge didn't come out of this book you've conjured up.

So let's say I jump through the next hoop and demonstrate that I have industrial experience... you'll simply invoke a new hoop and shift the goals posts once more. Never once will you have to back up your position no matter how much information and knowledge I provide.

It is a neat trick to keep the burden of proof on me while you apparently have to prove nothing.

And when all other hoops are exhausted you'll invoke this final hoop:

"Show us you're not a pseudo-intellectual ninth-grader upbraiding his elders"

And contend that since you believe you are my "elder" that you know more about apparently everything.

Guess what... I don't care how old you are. You aren't wrong because you are old. You are wrong because you don't know anything about this particular subject.

That is why I won't play your stupid games. Because it isn't about convincing you of anything, it is about you trying to manipulate me to jump through your stupid hoops.

"Until you learn how to establish your bona fides in a debate, you will have very little credibility, on this or any other topic."

Right... because my degree or where I work or how much I earn, or how old I am has anything whatsoever to do with the facts relevant to this conversation.

And yet... neither you nor anyone else here has demonstrated jack squat.

What you don't like is that you know that you are ignorant on this topic, hence your only mode of argument is to try and convince yourself that everyone else involved is as ignorant as you are.

Here is a clue for you about why I don't go flashing credentials... because I know how that is perceived... or need I remind you that people here view it as "dick swinging".

You can't have it both ways.

If someone flaunts their knowledge they are a engaging in an internet pissing contest... yet if they try and just talk about the facts without flashing credentials they have failed to establish their "bona fides".

Again I say... go fuck yourself.

It's just a series of cheap rhetorical tricks such that people who know nothing about a topic can shout down people who bring real information and knowledge to the table.

Let's face it, you wouldn't know a textbook based fact from a non textbook based fact when it comes to emerging solar technologies if it jumped up and bit you on the ass.

Hey Onion, you have shown me nothing about your knowledge about oil. Actually you have, and that would be your lack thereof. Keep deflecting pissant.

Onion said: ""Oil is a stop gap measure, it simply cannot be a long term solution to our energy economy. Believing otherwise is extremely shortsighted and isn't supported by the facts."

Can you support by facts dickweed? Quit your fucking deflecting or just follow your own advice and go fuck yourself. Jebus.

Dave B,

I'm not deflecting, I've provided more information here than everyone else combined.

As for my previous statement:

"Oil is a stop gap measure, it simply cannot be a long term solution to our energy economy. Believing otherwise is extremely shortsighted and isn't supported by the facts."

What do you presume I mean when I say "long term"?

Do you think I mean 5 years?... 10 years?... 20 years?... 50 years?

I'll go into more depth once I know we are on the same page.

SwissArmyD Says:

"Also, Orion, just THINK about how many post docs, and others could be paid if the big bosses salaries were in line?"

I do think about that. And you are 100% on target here.

The big bosses salary here seems completely out of line.

Please don't let the argument going on here make you believe that I disagree with the original point.

I disagree with a series of tangential points that were brought up later.

"I have heard in the rounds, and in particular with a friend that just went back for the MS... that the PhD is needlessly expensive for the bump in salary, and in the long run doesn't pay in the industry."

Your friend is getting ripped off then. Scientists and engineers who pursue a PhD don't pay for their degree.

They work as teaching assistants or research assistants or obtain external or internal fellowships to pay for the tuition as they perform their thesis research.

None of it is an out of pocket expense. You basically work for the university to earn the degree.

"IFF someone makes a breakthrough in printable solar panels at NREL that are cheap and easy to make... who will actually make a profit on that anyway?
The scientist who discovers it, but has signed away any patentable rights to his work?"

That isn't exactly how it works. The PI (or principle investigator) and the inventors involved in the discovery file for a patent. That patent can then either be licensed to private industry, or instead venture capital can be acquired to develop a start-up company that licenses the intellectual property and continues with the development of a marketable product based upon the discovery.

"I'm not deflecting, I've provided more information here than everyone else combined."

You are a moron Orion. Information for information sake like you put forward has what value and to who?

Orion said: "The present estimate for US government oil subsidies is over 10 billion dollars."

I asked "Please give brief explanation of the subsidies. Oh yes, and don't include those given to all industries. Oh, and lastly, tell us the net between how much tax they pay and subsidies."

Orion response - crickets. Not your expertise hun. What is the present estimate for US government wind and solar subsidies in billion of dollars? What is the return to date?

Orion said: "Oil is a stop gap measure, it simply cannot be a long term solution to our energy economy. Believing otherwise is extremely shortsighted and isn't supported by the facts."

I said "That is just a breathtakinly stupid statement."

Orion opines: "I'll go into more depth once I know we are on the same page."

Dude, you'd be stumbling over your dick with puke if I said "Solar and wind are at best a stop gap measure. They simply cannot be a long term solution to our energy economy. Believing otherwise is extremely shortsighted and isn't supported by the facts. Only morons would support such fantasy by throwing money away." Our oil based economy came into existence long before I was born. Our oil based economy will be here long after I am dead. Nuts like you have been preaching the end of oil just like bums preaching the coming end times for longer than I've lived. We (as humans, not government) will casually move from oil to the next energy source when the times comes but morons like you will continue to preach the sky is falling. Did your family bet on buggys?

Dave B,

"Information for information sake like you put forward has what value and to who?"

This is why you are full of shit.

You and several others specifically asked me to provide technical information... and then once it was provided you respond that it was just offered for "information sake".

"I asked "Please give brief explanation of the subsidies. Oh yes, and don't include those given to all industries. Oh, and lastly, tell us the net between how much tax they pay and subsidies.""

In case you haven't noticed I've been asked many things by many people. That I wasn't able to get to each and every single question in the span of the day doesn't mean I've purposefully ignored you.

There are limits to my time and I certainly didn't ignore anything purposefully. I'm sorry if you feel that I neglected you and your specific concerns. I hope you realize that I was also fielding questions from about 7 other people and that I have other things to do beyond answering your questions on an internet blog. I can only answer your questions when free moments periodically present themselves (this is incidentally why I also don't grammar check or edit everything I write). Time is a real constraint.

Please keep in mind that you failed to answer this VERY simple question of mine:

"What do you presume I mean when I say "long term"?"

You failed to even provide an answer that takes one word... yet you bitch and moan that I neglected your question that requires much more in depth discussion.

On that basis alone I've been remarkably more successful in fielding questions than you have.

If you want some comprehensive information regarding energy subsidies here is a useful link:

http://www.energyandcapital.com/report/the-truth-about-energy-subsidies/491

Please note that in specific reference to your claim that we should be putting more money into searching for more oil:

"Oil and Gas Exploration & Development Expensing ($7,100,000,000)"

That is over 7 billion dollars of tax payers money for that effort alone. That is tax payer money being used to subsidize one of the most profitable industries we have... and yet apparently even that isn't enough for you and apparently it doesn't count as "our dimes".

As for this objection:

"Oh, and lastly, tell us the net between how much tax they pay and subsidies."

This is completely immaterial for the following reasons. The reason it is a subsidy is that it socializes the expense of oil and gas exploration amongst all American citizens as opposed to allowing market forces to drive up oil prices for those who actually purchase the products made with the oil.

Why exactly should a person who lives in a city and walks to work subsidize your or anyone elses gas prices at the pump with their tax dollars?

Shouldn't the consumer be responsible to pay for it in a free market economy?

However this part all gets lost in the conversation when you talk about "net tax versus subsidies"... the point is that the subsidy socializes the expense of oil.

Why should anyone be forced to pay for that if you shouldn't be forced to pay for fundamental research?

Or I guess everyone should subsidize your personal oil expenses, but you shouldn't shell out one dime for anything you don't want to support.

You can't have it both ways Dave. You want socialism when it helps your piggy bank, but demand complete free market economy when it extracts something from your piggy bank.

You should be fully responsible for your oil and gas costs if you are going to play these "not on my dime" antics.

"What is the present estimate for US government wind and solar subsidies in billion of dollars? What is the return to date?"

I'm not a necessarily a fan of government backed wind and solar subsidies.

I am advocating for basic research funded by the government.

These are NOT the same thing.

It is comments like this that prompt me to say you don't understand the nuances of the conversation.

Government funded research that seeks to solve problems associated with emerging energy technologies is NOT the same thing as funding Solyndra... that is a private company.

People here seem to have a serious problem understanding the difference between these two disparate things.

There is no specific monetary return on basic research. The return is the knowledge gained by virtue of the research. The government has a vested interest in funding this sort of thing, not because they get a very easy to track return on investment, but because out of this basic research new industries emerge that create new jobs and bring in new tax revenue. Tracking that relationship is difficult because they are separated in time.

A perfect example is the internet.

ARPANET (the precursor to the internet) was being worked on in government funded research facilities as far back as the 1960's. Decades of work proceeded before the emergence of internet home access.

And now we have entire industries devoted to the internet from Cisco to Google.

How would someone answer the following question in 1982?

"What is the present estimate for US government computer networking investment in billion of dollars? What is the return to date?"

The returns on basic research show up decades after the investment has been made.

Your question is hence silly and suffers from a severe misunderstanding about how new technologies emerge from government funded basic research.

Keep in mind that there are also bound to be duds... not all basic research ends up being a winner. It is kind of like the old marketing statement "I know half of my marketing budget is being wasted, I just don't know which half".

It is impossible to tell exactly which energy technology will take off... hence we fund many promising avenues and continually adjust course as we learn more.

"Our oil based economy came into existence long before I was born. Our oil based economy will be here long after I am dead."

I don't know how old you are, nor do I know when you will be dead.

The problem is that children born today will not die at a time when a completely oil based economy is viable.

This is the reality we have to contend with.

It isn't all about you. That you might be dead in 10 or 20 years doesn't help the child born today who has an 90 year time frame to contend with.

That is what I mean by long-term by the way.

Oil is a finite resource... it will not and cannot last forever. The time horizon for finding alternatives isn't on the order of 50 years.

That you will be dead by then is little comfort for the people who will be alive and having to handle the issues related to developing an energy economy that is well diversified. Oil alone isn't sufficient even for a 30 year time frame.

Oil will be PART of the picture for the foreseeable future... but it simply cannot completely dominate the picture like it does now for the foreseeable future either.

That is what I mean when I say "Oil is a stop gap measure, it simply cannot be a long term solution to our energy economy."

Oil is a finite resource and demand increases with population size and the development of nations like India and China only increase world wide demand.

The most optimistic estimates to date are that peak oil will be reached by 2020... that is 7 years from now. If we don't invest now in developing supplemental technologies, how do you propose to fill the gap in energy generation?

Hope and prayers don't generate electricity.

That is what I mean when I say "Oil is a stop gap measure, it simply cannot be a long term solution to our energy economy." -- Orion at February 25, 2013 7:19 PM

An American Oil Find That Holds More Than All of OPEC

7:19pm = 1295 words

Worth it? Someone let me know.

Jim P.,

Did you happen to read this part?

"This tantalizing bonanza, however, remains just out of reach, at least for now. The cost of extracting the Green River oil at the moment would be higher than what it could be sold for."

Solar and wind energy is ALREADY cheaper than this source of oil.

Energy is all about economics.

The price of oil is only going up as the available reserves become more and more difficult to tap and extract.

The price of solar is constantly getting cheaper.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/12/daily-chart-19

The is the reality of the situation.

The cheap oil is what matters in this equation. The expensive oil doesn't compete with the alternatives on a price basis.

Crid,

You can't have it both ways.

You can't demand in depth explanations for me to demonstrate every point I make and then bitch and moan that they are long.

You have two reasonable options:

1 - accept what I say at face value and don't argue
2 - demand that I support every contention I make and then keep your complaints about the length of those explanations to yourself

These are not simple issues. There is nuance and depth here.

Orion, the problem you have is this. You know the science, but somehow it eludes you that solar is not profitable, and the companies remarked upon WAY upthread now, are poster children for failure. The top companies in the game are Chinese, and even they had to pull back after flooding the market.

Their conditions are easier, because of a certain, shall we say, carefree attitude, about the toxic waste produced by making PV panels...

So where ARE the breakthroughs going to be made in PRODUCTIONS of solar cells, when just putting in a road in the US requires years of environmental impact statements?

You talk about licensing, and so forth, but how long does the technique take to migrate to a country with cheaper wages and fewer controls?

Thus making every dollar of taxes invested in the original tech, a bleedtrhough to a foreign country.

You are hyperactively touchy about what you know about the science. Bravo.

You have stated several times that you agree that the non-technical guys at the top of NREL make too much money for what is going on there...

And that is precisely the question here.

With DOE suffering a number of black eyes over their failed loan schemes, and other irregularities in the corporate market, and this specific irregularity in one of their labs...

you get wrapped around the axle evangelizing people about how the next solar breakthrough is right-around-the-corner, and none of us plebes understand how it all works.

So? What ROI will make me rush out and re-roof my house with 3 tab shingles, and a complete conversion system and batteries, to make it all work... so that after the 10" of snow I just got will cover it all and...

whoops, no power generation.

So then I have to rely on wind... no, they're not turning because it's too windy. Didja know we had hurricane force winds with that last storm?

So BY LAW in Colorado, there has to be power generation ON LINE and ready to go if alternate energy isn't producing.

And suddenly all the wind and solar are considered OVERHEAD, because the powerplants have to be turning regardless, and I have to pay for them anyway.

I've been watching solar develop since my freshman science fair in 1980 where I went to the state championships with a house based solar steam turbine system, but lost to some mutant fruitflies, and it has ALWAYS been fits and starts... and worldwide solar has only existed because governments taxed EVERYONE to pay for some small number of people to play with it.

That's why FirstSolar had to reorganize and lay off 30% of their workforce... because European countries had to cut their tax incentives, and without them, people don't tend to lay out capital for solar.

This has nothing to do with your liking of Solar, or if peak oil is going to happen in 1970, oh wait 1999, naw, must be 2020...

when the oil consuming countries in the world suffer major demographic implosions, and contract [like China is, as fastest to contract], when we use oil/how we use oil/ and why, are all going to change.

Solar may be it in the long run, but is it now, or in 100 years?

That depends a lot on MANY other variables, it is NOT a linear model, and your way of doing things is not the ONLY way. It is not the most economical way, either.

If it was, you could build the proverbial mousetrap and the world would BEAT A PATH TO YOUR DOOR.

OTOH WHEN it is the best way to make electricity, if ever it is, then people WILL beat a path to the door.

The odds are that it will be the best when we have a constellation on orbit that produces power 24/7 and transfers that power to earth stations, but that's still entirely pin-in-the-sky.

And it will be, until suddenly it's not. And lotsa PhD.s, MS's, and dropout dreamers toil in their garages and breakrooms trying to figure it all out.

Imagine how many of them you could fund on $1million dollars a year.

SwissArmyD,

Thanks for the well thought out response. However, now that the science is essentially out of the bag and has been unpacked a bit we can actually get to brass tacks about the economics of the whole endeavor. When you say this:

“You know the science, but somehow it eludes you that solar is not profitable, and the companies remarked upon WAY upthread now, are poster children for failure. The top companies in the game are Chinese, and even they had to pull back after flooding the market.”

I would suggest that you haven’t really been listening to the crux of my argument… I also haven’t been overly explicit with some elements of my perspective here so I will try to be more clear now.

Some of the exploits in privatized solar companies have been phenomenal failures… but as I’ve said before and shall say it again, I am not overly enthused by the government support of those private companies. They should be able to stand or fall on their own merits.

I am advocating for the useful involvement of government funding in terms of basic research. This is an entirely different animal. Hence companies like Solyndra are a red herring when it comes to my perspective.

I’ve never said anything in support of that company, nor any other solar company that went belly up. Their business models weren’t appropriate.

By contrast, companies like First Solar have generated profits as demonstrated here:
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/24273

Companies like that one leverage thin film technology over more expensive silicon to drive down the costs of production. Please note that this company was not on Crid’s list… because they have a better business model than companies like Solyndra.

I’m actually quite familiar with the economics of the industry here (no, I am not a business expert, but I know enough to be aware that not all solar companies go belly up… some actually generate money).

However there are more fundamental reasons to object to the notion that solar energy is an utter economic failure.

“So where ARE the breakthroughs going to be made in PRODUCTIONS of solar cells, when just putting in a road in the US requires years of environmental impact statements?”

They are already happening actually. Now let me take you through an economic argument of why I put a time table of 10-20 years for economically viable integration of solar energy into the grid as a supplement for dwindling oil generation.

If you compare the historic prices of solar energy versus oil-based energy you notice an interesting economic trend.

In particular, since 1977 the price per watt of solar energy has dropped by a factor of 100. During that same time period the price per barrel of oil has increased by a factor of 6. All of these numbers are not adjusted for inflation such that we can compare apples to apples (when one adjusts for inflation the factor of the drop in price for solar goes up and the factor of the price for oil goes down… it is a mathematical wash).

Now, there is no reason to suspect that either of these economic trends will change. Solar energy will continue to get cheaper into the future and the price of oil will continue to go up.

Using this exponential relationship we note that in a 15 year time span that we should expect the price of solar energy to drop by another factor of 10 and the price of oil to go up by another factor of 3.

The critically important point here is that as it stands now, solar energy isn’t 30 times as expensive as oil-based energy. They are much closer than this… heck, even if you completely ignore the increase in the price of oil, the 10 fold reduction in solar cost alone will make it the more economic option.

All of this is going to happen on the 10-20 year time scale assuming we continue to tackle the relevant scientific and technological challenges.

Those are the numbers. Solar isn’t ready for prime time yet, but in the span of a couple of decades it is going to be. That isn’t fanciful thinking, that isn’t tree hugger zeal… that is just the economics of the situation.

The general population doesn’t see this in much the same way that the general population in the 1980’s couldn’t envision you and I having this conversation over a computer.

“You have stated several times that you agree that the non-technical guys at the top of NREL make too much money for what is going on there...
And that is precisely the question here.”

Correction… it *was* the question until someone said this:

“This R&D should be done by and paid for by private companies.”

Since when do we give people a free pass to say any bull shit thing they want to around here?

And if that comment was to be ignored, then why couldn’t my rebuttal be ignored?

Bullshit arguments made on this blog have always been countered by those who know better. That I then got steam rolled by a series of people who don’t know anything about the issues at hand but apparently agree with that wrong-headed assertion isn’t something I caused. The cause was the original incorrect assertion.

“you get wrapped around the axle evangelizing people about how the next solar breakthrough is right-around-the-corner, and none of us plebes understand how it all works.”

No… I get “wrapped around the axle” when someone says this: “And what on Earth makes you think that "academic research" can do for solar energy?” and then pitches a fit when I explain in gory detail what academic research does for solar energy.

I get “wrapped around the axle” because on the one hand they asked a question implying that government funding for basic research is useless in this area… and then when I answer their question and explain all the relevant scientific details they shit all over the explanation and I get complaints how all my knowledge is from a “textbook” and that I haven’t said anything useful because “Information for information sake like you put forward has what value and to who?”

In other words… it is perfectly fine to ask me a question… and if I fail to answer it fast enough I am “deflecting”… but if I take the time to answer it in detail then it isn’t even my knowledge or I am just shooting off my mouth with useless information… you know, the information that was demanded of me.

That isn’t the way to have a good faith conversation, now is it? I’m only “wrapped around the axel” because these schmucks are playing games instead of having a serious conversation.

“So? What ROI will make me rush out and re-roof my house with 3 tab shingles, and a complete conversion system and batteries, to make it all work... so that after the 10" of snow I just got will cover it all and...
whoops, no power generation.”

Nothing should make you rush to do anything today. Wait 7-15 years… that is all I have been saying, because that is when the economics will make it viable. Keep in mind this isn’t a recent adjustment in my perspective, go ahead and look at my post on the 24th where I said “I am a proponent of solar and wind research because I understand that within 10 years that technology will be hitting prime time.”, I’ve been consistent on this issue from the get go. Confusing my advocacy for fundamental research to imply that solar is ready right now is a strawman argument.

“That's why FirstSolar had to reorganize and lay off 30% of their workforce... because European countries had to cut their tax incentives, and without them, people don't tend to lay out capital for solar.”

Reorganization and lay offs are a part of economic reality given changing financial landscapes. This is true for all companies. IBM went through a restructuring several years back when they shifted more to consulting and services… that doesn’t mean they are a failure. After that restructure their profitability went up and their stock price soared. The important part with First Solar is that it isn’t being propped up by direct subsidies. If they can create a viable business model for the existing landscape more power to them, if not then they are a failure for their investors.

“Solar may be it in the long run, but is it now, or in 100 years?”

It will start supplementing oil in a noticeable way by the 10 year mark. The transition will be gradual, it isn’t going to be a situation where we use oil one year and convert totally to alternative energy the next. Also, I advocate a diversified energy portfolio… there is no silver bullet here. A collection of technologies will be required to meet future energy demand.

1525. And I can have whatever the fuck I want, "both ways" or 5.

Crid,

As I have told you many times before... it is easy for you to feel like you know everything when your opinion on every subject is completely impervious to little things like facts and evidence.

The sad reality is that you are living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

A person with no technical expertise, no scientific background, no academic credentials to speak of in this area... and yet you still feel that you know better than everyone else.

In case you don't know what that effect is, let me fill you in:

Dunning and Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

1 - tend to overestimate their own level of skill;
2 - fail to recognize genuine skill in others;
3 - fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;

It would be nice if you'd admit at this point that you are out of your depth on the subject of academic research and emerging energy technologies.

Orion:

Peter Drucker (look him up) described your position here as "the arrogance of the learned". You advance a particular expertise as some sort of evidence that you have a grasp on OTHER matters. this is fallacious. I really wish you'd apply the discipline you might in the study of something to the argument.

You beat Crid by miles on volume of post, without really defending the idea that the Feds should fund the people on topic. I suggest you emulate JimP for content per paragraph and Crid for prosaic grace. Further, here's a stumble:
"Can you seriously not tell the difference between government funded research taking place on a university campus to train new scientists… and note I’m not talking about undergraduate education here as your previous link was talking about. I am talking about training new scientists who perform research, publish papers, earn PhD’s and then enter into industry."
Ahem. Those ARE undergrads until they get hired, in that career path.

Further, your position, applied logically, would extend Federal funding to other research, as it implies that this is the only way anything of the sort happens. Uhh, nope. You want the government in the development of Viagra? Genetically modified corn? Gasoline engine design?
This is insane. It puts people who cannot be fired, who do NOT have to perform, in labs!

The whole point of this thread is the spending of Federal dollars without accountability for performance, and you missed that.

For SwissAD and Crid: I don't have the number for the Oak Ridge boys (haha, see what I did there) and I don't have the current info for the President of Savannah River Remediation today - but Federal contractors work on an "award fee" structure, where executives make a base rate and then are awarded bonuses for making milestones negotiated with Department of Energy officials. Years ago, when Westinghouse Savanah River Company was the sole contractor here, CEO Ambrose Schwallie got a little over $4 million one year for his part. I found this amusing, because the idiot then published a message to all that he was sitting back contemplating the award... the message was to people who weren't parties in that arrangement.
As you can see here, Ambrose is actually in the business of funneling Federal money today - the sort of thing Orion apparently advocates. When you watch the video, please note the difference between the images and what he says he does. It's pretty slick.

On topic: Federal involvement DOES have just one salient feature of which I am aware: it prevents copyright or patent law from hiding innovation.

Keep that in mind, as this argument swirls around
petty didnotdidtoo whining.

Radwaste Says:

"You advance a particular expertise as some sort of evidence that you have a grasp on OTHER matters."

No... actually I haven't.

When Jim made the following original claim:

"This R&D should be done by and paid for by private companies."

My particular expertise (i.e. having done research for both private industry AND research in academia) is directly relevant.

My point then as it is now is that basic research can and should be performed outside of the private sector.

The reason for this is that scientists don't simply appear in industry out of thin air. The very scientists who work in industry and perform all of that private sector research were trained at universities doing government funded research.

That is why my original approach was to ask the following question:

"How exactly do any of you suppose scientists get trained if not by government funded research?"

When people refer to R&D that takes place in the private sector being performed by highly trained experts in their respective fields it is ignorant to assume that they became experts by working in industry.

Industry hires people who already have expertise and then puts them to work in the areas of interest to them. Additional training then takes place as required for the specific details of the work.

"Ahem. Those ARE undergrads until they get hired, in that career path."

No... they aren't.

The people performing research at Universities and publishing papers are GRADUATE STUDENTS... undergrads are an entirely different set of people who don't have a degree. The graduate student population already have a college degree.

The undergrads are the ones who take classes. Few if any undergrads step foot into the lab space, fewer still get published on any work... and when they do it is typically with a graduate student mentor.

Goodness gracious. I've had enough... none of you seem to have any idea what you are talking about but feel completely at liberty to assert "facts" that are completely and utterly wrong.

Radwaste,

Just to get my point across... check out the following website:

http://www.mit.edu/

You see that little tab that says "admissions"?

You see below that how it says "undergrad" followed by "graduate".

The graduate tab is for masters and PhD students... those are the people who perform the overwhelming majority of laboratory work at the university level.

Radwaste,

Here's one final response to this part of what you said (I has to separate things a bit due to links).

When you say this:

"Further, your position, applied logically, would extend Federal funding to other research, as it implies that this is the only way anything of the sort happens. Uhh, nope. You want the government in the development of Viagra? Genetically modified corn? Gasoline engine design?
This is insane. It puts people who cannot be fired, who do NOT have to perform, in labs!"

You have completely missed the boat.

That isn't the "logical" end of my position.

The reason is because that isn't how research grants are funded. In particular there is a thing called a "call for proposals" that is put forth by the funding agency in question.

Neither the NSF, DoD, DoE, or NASA are going to put forth a call for proposals dealing with erectile dysfunction... maybe the NIH would, but that is an agency I know less about.

Just so you can get a better idea of how it works, please look at the following:

http://nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=EFRI

You see how the NSF puts forth a specific topic they are soliciting proposals for?

The government determines what research it would like done to further it's own goals... researchers then put together a comprehensive proposal including their ideas which they believe are relevant to meeting that government defined goal.

The funding agency then rates all of the proposals they receive based upon their merit of those ideas and only provides funding to the best ones that come across their desk.

It is a competition for the funds... so when you say they "don't have to perform" you also don't know what you are talking about.

You have to file reports detailing your progress or you risk losing the funding.

Your understanding of how this all works is way off base.

What horseshit.

Stamp in it some more, as you hold the position that no one else can POSSIBLY understand what you do, because you can write about a photocell.

I have no idea where, or even if, you work, but this is nuts. You've missed the entire story here.

Back to the topic:
History is PACKED with stories of innovation in the total absence of government notice because of a fundamental law of humanity: TRADE FUNDS GOVERNMENT. Trade doesn't actually have to have government at all.

When any public agent operates, it needs to show the ROI, which is possible even with space exploration. If it can't, it's screwing the public - even you, Orion.

There. Done.

Geez, the more I look at this thread, the uglier it is. I have no idea where anybody here works except for me (Savannah River Site) and Amy, so I'll point out that Federal grant procedure is spelled out nicely.

If anyone can take a lesson, take this one from this topic and the video I linked above: people with connections to the right officials can get tax money. Can you say, "ethanol"? How about "Climax Global Energy"?

If you like, Orion, come to SC and I'll introduce you to my 9-ball buddy Brian, retired procurement manager for this site. I suggest he might have some information for you on the actual handling of Federal money.

Radwaste,

This isn't about "no one understanding" these issues.

It is about very specific claims that people here keep getting wrong.

You for example demonstrated that you don't know the difference between an undergraduate student and a graduate student when you were in the process of "correcting" me.

You also made specific claims about how research gets funded which are just plain wrong.

There are LOTS of people who know about these things, I'm certainly not the only one by a long shot. The things you got wrong here are simple facts that any first year graduate student would know. This isn't specialized knowledge by a long shot.

Since you claim to work at ORNL why don't you strike up a conversation with a staff scientist the next time you get the chance and ask them if whether undergrads or graduate students perform most research in university labs (post docs also perform independent research but the number of them varies from university to university).

This is common knowledge amongst people who have personal experience with any of this.

You want to know what arrogance is?... it isn't someone who has personal experience with something correcting people who don't.

Arrogance is people who have zero personal experience with something correcting someone who does.

Since you can't be sure if I work anywhere I encourage you to speak to people at ORNL who have been through the process. They'll tell you the same information I'm telling you.

You and others have been far too quick to confidently assert "facts" when you know next to nothing about the subject at hand.

And then when you end up being demonstrably wrong, somehow the person who corrected you is the bad guy.

Take some personal responsibility here, you got your facts completely wrong. I didn't put those words in your mouth.

Radwaste,

Sorry for getting your employment wrong, I carried over an error stated by someone else earlier that stuck.

If you work along side any staff scientists at the Savannah River Site I still recommend validating what I've said with them.

Radwaste Says:

"When any public agent operates, it needs to show the ROI, which is possible even with space exploration. If it can't, it's screwing the public - even you, Orion."

It really isn't this simple.

The return on investment for basic research isn't realized for decades.

Someone earlier brought up Bell Labs as an example. I like this example for the following reason. It was investment in basic research at Bell Labs that resulted in the development of the first solid state transistor.

This discovery took place in 1947, however it had little technological utility at all because it was composed of Germanium which has a leaky native oxide.

It wasn't until Texas Instruments developed the first silicon-based transistor that this problem was resolved because SiO2 forms a uniform native oxide layer.

So where was the ROI for Bell Labs in all of this?

Their discovery for which the researchers won the noble prize was absolutely essential to the development of the microelectronics industry... but there isn't any ROI for Bell Labs because what was discovered wasn't commercially viable in the state it was originally developed.

That being said, the discovery itself is of incalculable benefit to all of mankind.

The cold economics relating to return on investment would suggest that Bell Labs should never have funded the work in the first place.

If that were true the world we currently live in might be very different indeed.

The same analysis would be true for the first laser, or the first lithium ion battery, etc...

Pretty much all of the technologies we take for granted today had very humble beginnings where their ultimate potential wasn't realized for decades. If we cut things off based purely upon ROI and nothing else all we will ever achieve are incremental improvements on existing technologies.

To develop fundamentally new things we have to travel down less certain pathways.

So no, I don't feel "screwed" when we spend money trying to learn new things. However we still have to be smart about how we allocate those funds.

Rad,
Save your breath. Orion is just an arrogant little prick who thinks because he has some advanced education he knows better than everyone else. People like this can't believe that living in a free society means that everyone gets an opinion, even if it is different from his. He believes that because he can copy the text from a book on how photo cells work, that we...the ones with actual experience, should defer to him. This is why people like him end up embracing fascism. Rule by technocrat.

Listen up son! I don't care what you are working on, you clearly don't understand energy markets or why your smug attitude is putting people off. You have alienated several people out here for no reason other than to prove you are smarter and you are not. We remain unconvinced. In fact, the more you type the worse it becomes. Let it go!

Onion said: "You can't have it both ways Dave. You want socialism when it helps your piggy bank, but demand complete free market economy when it extracts something from your piggy bank."

You are one dumb fuck. Besides that you do not know anything about me. Maybe you should listen more than you talk - and no I did not read your whole thing. I always read Crid because even when he is long winded he is interesting and usually in some context. I always read Radwaste because even though he is more sciency he is readable. Conan and Swiss, onion you would do well to emulate. All of these guys, and the women on this place, are smarter and more interesting than you. You could learn a lot from them. I know I have.

Where have I said socialism is ok - ever?

Look you numb nut onion. You are the verbose record holder (Crid can correct if I'm wrong). I don't presume to know what you mean by long term - why are you all of suddden secretive. Your statement was stupid without any presumption on my part. You have no fucking idea how much oil is available, and that includes the price to develop.

I'm sometimes the local curmudgeon. We've had the "peak" oil discussion here more than a few times. Are you Orion, as certain about "peak" oil as all of those who have come before you, many before I was born, in fact so certain, that you will kill yourself if you are wrong. I'm a young 67 years old. Do you realize how many sky falling predictions I've heard just in my lifetime. Add to that, if you are as educated as you claim, all the sky is falling predictions prior to my lifetime. My guess is you were born before the Population Bomb was written - you are a true believer.

At the time, major economic changes seem major. Placed in history, not so major - they just happened as a continuum of life. Can you tell me about the government that came along and made the world a better place for the future?

I wish I would have counted to 10 before I typed. What Sheep mommy said.

You can't have it both ways, too? Dood! He said *I* can't have it both ways! We're like brothers! Apparently nobody can have it both ways.

There are TWO ways, the one and the other, and BOTH can't be had! Bedrock principle.

But Raddy's trying to have it both ways. Let's all say it together:

You can't have it both ways, Raddy.

(56 words)

How?

(One word!)

Glad to see some things can be counted on. Did the free clinic have good news for you this time?

Back to the whistler:

"The return on investment for basic research isn't realized for decades."

Here is another example of Drucker's "arrogance of the learned". No one else realizes this, so it must be said.

Okay, I'll say it: Duh. Maybe you missed the part where I said the ROI could be shown for space exploration? Lower your nose - you can't see over it.

Kid, it's been done here. The rest is all about you, and you're so wrapped up that you can't recall or haven't read my history of debating the end of the Age of Oil with Crid - who apparently thinks it's forever. That's another story, off this topic too, but...

Do you even know what the topic is?

"I suggest he might have some information for you on the actual handling of Federal money."

Oh, wait - Brian can't tell us how a photocell works, so he must be a retard, too.

My bad.

I am beginning to become aware (stolen from NB) that Radwaste has a sense of humor. So cool.

The amount of sunlight is FINITE, Raddy! You can't have it both ways! Orio taught us this!

I realize you are joking crid, but technically sunlight is finite

"The amount of sunlight is FINITE, Raddy!"

Luj gets it. The upshot: You are not going to drive your turbo-diesel duallie wherever you want, cheaply, period - because it uses more energy than can be sustained. Cover it with photocells if you wish - magical, superconducting photocells charged by rainbows!

Enjoy it now, while you can. I'm sure there's no end to the clean water supply in southern California, either... New water supplies are being discovered all the time!

How much did the last tree on Easter Island cost?

Oh, pathetic bullshit. The FINITE argument was your proudest work, and you sure didn't concede it was "technical" when hosing the place with your Orion-style fearmongering.

Expertise! You guys should all hang, or even just hang out. You could smirk, blabber and lie to each other over beer, with eye contact. You'd all cream your jeans, kiss and go home. Such a brotherhood!