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Originally Posted by Northendzone
I can't help but think that if the govt pours money into this type of research it is doomed to not work, or just provide a buch of guys with great paying jobs.
I would think that some small company will perhaps come across something. my first thought was that if you could make a motor to power a vehicle that runs on something such as power gel then the next issue is distributing the motors to vehicle manufactures and getting a distribution network for the power gel.
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I will never understand this false idea that government funded science work is this cushy high paid work. The opposite is true, private sector research pays better, in fact some of the greatest contributions to our world come from big investments in technology and science by governments.
Just a few that come to mind:
1. The internet - Early investments into ARPANET and NSFNET and most of the early computing was Government funded, this laid the massive groundwork of computing today.
2. Rail systems, road systems.
3. Bio investment, agriculture, research science, etc..
4. Side benefits from investments in Military, NASA, that ended up with breakthroughs and benefits to consumers, to medical science, etc..
I mean there is a very real benefit to large government investments in science and technology. Sweden has been doing awesome things with increasing their investments while others are cutting theirs.
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Since the global financial crisis, Sweden has lived in an alternative universe of science funding. While austerity policies have kept research funding levels flat in much of Europe since 2008, Sweden's public science budget has increased by 5 billion Swedish kronor (US$786 million) over the past 5 years with a rise of another 4 billion kronor to come over the next 5 years. And, as seemingly endless government budget battles have slowed US infrastructure investment, Sweden has seen a building boom. The country has constructed a national high-throughput life-sciences laboratory; begun building new clinical-research laboratories and a hospital; and broken ground on a powerful synchrotron light source and a neutron source.
Now Sweden is increasing international recruitment, backed by public and private money, to fill its facilities and fulfil ambitious research agendas. The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation in Stockholm has been the biggest non-government player in infrastructure investment and international science hiring. Last year, the foundation introduced the Wallenberg Academy Fellows programme to recruit and fund 300 young scientists over 10 years, aiming for 30–50% of the fellows to come from outside Sweden.
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http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/sci...38/nj7473-711a
What always gets me is this idea that investment into these fields is so opposed often by conservatives, like this is some major waste of money. The benefits to Canada by becoming a leader in research and technology pays for itself in numerous ways, there is a VAST amount of money to be made by growing these sectors and its inevitable we will have to move away from our reliance on oil, gas and mining to some degree.
Hell even big oil says we need to invest more in STEM: