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US Funding Five Game-Changing Energy Projects
coondoggie writes "Taking aim at developing some progressive energy technologies the US Department of Energy said it will write a $130 million check to develop five areas, including plants engineered to replace oil, thermal power storage, rare earth alternatives and what it calls the energy equivalent of an Internet router."
Amen to this. Democrats think we can balance the budget by taxing more, and spending more. Republicans think we can balance the budget by cutting welfare programs, while ignoring the biggest welfare program of them all, the US military. These indicate that there will be no possible political solution. An economic solution will happen, but people might not like it. I am not even sure that taxing more and spending less will work, because there is no political will to do so. Science is and always will be a back-burner issue, sadly.
A potentially truly game-changing technology is Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor). This was a technology developed during the Cold War that uses thorium to breed uranium for nuclear fission in order to generate electricity. It has most of the advantages and almost none of the disadvantages of traditional nuclear power generation. The technology has been tested and a reactor was build and run at Oakridge National Labs for a number of years. Unfortunately it wasn't developed initially due to the emphasis on building weapons - the thorium fuel cycle isn't ideal for nuclear weapons - and the technology faded into obscurity. Recently, however, a group of engineers, scientists, and concerned individuals has taken a serious interest in this technology and is advocating restarting research on LFTR with the goal of developing a commercially viable reactor. You can find more information at http://energyfromthorium.com/.