J
jroswald2001
Guest
Oil prices just hit 70 dollars a barrel and the world is basically running out of oil. Investment in solar technology and geothermal energy, both potentially massive sources of clean, renewable energy, seems to be paltry. There seems to be a lack of political will in empowering areas like Iceland or the silicon and sun-rich saharan Africa, who may yet turn out to be our saviours in this respect. Oil companies should do more to develop these sources of energy. <br />There is much talk about fusion as a possible way out of the problem, but the problems of plasma containment seem to be thwarting progress in this area, and we ae not likely to see an operational reactor for at least 3 decades. Why dont we try developing things in steps? An obvious intermediate to a fusion reactor would be a fusion drive, where requirements for plasma containment are known to be reduced. I firmly believe that innovation in this area may also help us in acquiring the goal of developing a fusion power station. It might also allow us to talk practically of exploiting other (non renewable) energy resources from the solar system, since space transportation capabilities would dramatically increase in the event that such a drive were developed. We have to work on this together, we simply can not afford to continue to rely on oil....it will lead ultimately to wars over ever dwindling energy resources.