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Nucular Hydrogen Economy
Mark Baard writes "The hydrogen economy will at least in part be based on nukes. The DOE will build a pilot high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor (HTGR), which theoretically can co-generate electricity and hydrogen, side by side, inside a cheap modular unit."
I could, but where's the fun in that? Reactionary, off-the-cuff jabs are the norm in comments!
Ok, 200 million limits you to about 10-20 of the richest people on earth, or millions of small investors who put in a small share of the risk. I'm astonished that for both projects there isn't some small investor interface (perhaps an ASP?) that would allow low transaction cost investments of $1 and up. I know that every time somebody ran a story they'd get a boost in investment with a steady stream from the committed (perhaps via small payroll deductions that go into the investment fund).
You don't need high-cost salesman making big pitches to get large checks anymore but nobody seems to have figured that lesson out. If I could punch in a credit card number and auto-invest $25 a month I would do it. But nobody's giving me that option now are they?
On the space elevator side, I was projecting the discovery after an orbital mining capability was developed. Orbital mining means that you don't have to have 3 years of building *after* the original cable is rocket launched and fed out via a spool but rather you can get the high strength cable built in orbit from the first production run.