Quote:
Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy
While I agree with point one from a strategic perspective, you have to understand that these technologies are not yet very inexpensive. The only reason that they've become more viable recently is because oil prices are so high. Unless it is government mandated spending (see http://www.betterplace.com), or a great new technology emerges for cheap, that investment isn't going to happen until oil prices spike again. |
Few issues there, SGW. First off, I disagree about alternative fuels, solar cells made its big push because of the dot com crash and silicon suppliers were dumping Si for cheap. I heard an interesting concept coming out of a company in Isreal about using organic photosynthesis rather then silicon semiconductors to harvest energy from sunlight as well. What solar cells need is a small push for an avalanche effect to make them cheap IMO as they are using pretty standard CMOS process fabrication techniques now. Solar panals are still pretty pricey, but something like an Obama plan could drop prices and the ball gets rolling there. I've seen alot of wind farms around Canada as well as the USA, and then the contraversal biofuels. Heck, even plasma fusion, although thats definately long term. What does all this science mean in economic terms? I guess thats anyone's guess.
Nevertheless, I don't see Oil rising as fast as when it went from $100-150 if Obama is serious about pushing this idea of going green.