Originally posted by: BrownTown
Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Enough to send solar to Apollo priority. A trillion for Iraq for what? And you look at me as though I lacked seriousness. Solar could already have been a done deal with intelligent will.
This is something I see alot where people are saying we need an "Apollo like" effort to develop some new technology. And of course it is true, with that type of funding and mandate ANY technology (nuclear, solar, whatever) will get considerably better. However, you cannot simply develop around the laws of physics, and the problem is that there are many fundamental problems with solar power that will severely limit its use. Also, the same amount of money spent on nuclear power could much more easily solve the problems. Heck, money isn't even the biggest issue, the real problem is political will. If politicians just approve Yucca mountain then we sill be able to store the waste for thousands of years safely and you biggest objection will be solved. Also, on the money aspect, that could be used to subsidies breeder reactors (the technology is already there, its simply the price keeping it down), as well as reprocessing (which is also political will). Also, concerning using the money wasted in Iraq, I'm pretty sure you will find that more or less nobody here actually supports the war in Iraq, so again I personally would love to have seen the money go towards energy independence. Even if it all went to solar, thats a much better use than spending a trillion dollars jsut to piss half the world off.
EDIT: as for solar, I am still not very sure that photovoltaic is the way to go, the complexity of this process and the costs involved (not to mention hazardous chemicals) are considerable. I like the idea of concentrated solar heating much better where mirrors focus the light onto a small point in order to generate heat for a much more conventional power plant process.