Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Actual left/right wing discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (3390)	10/23/2006 10:16:28 AM
From: cirrus	Respond to of 10087

That's an odd example. There was no reason for the government to mandate steam over internal combustion at the time... (would wood piles have been required every 25 miles???) ... any more than it needed to choose between piston and jet powered commercial aircraft in the 1950s. However, in the 50s and 60's the government billions were spent to improve and lengthen airport runways to accommodate jet aircraft - a good thing, don't you think? With hydrogen internal combustion engines ready for production in 2009 by Honda and BMW, and GM hydrogen fuel cells around the same time, using government funds to add a hydrogen infrastructure is pretty much the same concept. If you want petroleum based fuel you drive up to pump #1. Need hydrogen? Pump #2. The issue is is more than simple economics - OPEC is not a free market provider and is generally unfriendly to America. Opposing federal development of alternatives to OPEC is like saying that the government should not have developed alternatives to natural rubber when hostile Japanese armies took control of far eastern rubber plantations before WWII. A hundred years ago if the Federal government had had the hubris, and enough true believer voters to give it the political right, and executives of the Stanley Steamer company had known the right Senators and Congressmen to bribe, it might have selected steam power as the preferred and anointed technology of the future to drive our growing transportation needs. And development of the internal combustion engine would have been delayed decades.