Reply #22: It's not like it's a grand industrial secret. [View All]

[NNadir]

Energy technology is more informed by public attitudes than it is by technological feasibility. DME technology is well understood. DME is already an industrial compound used to make hair spray among other things. The matter is simply one of commitment, of seeing what we must do, then doing it.

It was much easier for my generation to pretend that this time would never come and to stay high on oil and gas than it was to invest. History, I suspect, will not forgive us for our orgy of drunkenness. Future generations will look back, shake their heads, and with perfect hindsight ask how we could not have seen what is clearly so obvious.

The role of government as I see it is simply to assure that the intellectual infrastructure of adaptability exists and, of course, to educate its citizenry of the options that exist so that they can make informed choices. Still the responsibility to be educated -and to educate others - lies with the citizens themselves who must, through public participation and discourse, understand the issues well enough to address them. Our government and our citizens have failed; they have failed themselves and they have failed future generations. In a way, George W. Bush is a perfect representation of exactly how pathetically deaf and deluded we are. Somehow the conversation is still mostly about war and religion and all this shit about energy is still going on. We seem to have not even discovered what is important to look at.

I think our last best shot may have been in 2000 when President-elected Gore was not seated in office, but as Macbeth remarked after setting out on his own course of doom, "What's done cannot be undone."

The governments of Asia have done an much better preparing for the DME world in particular and the energy needs of the future in general. I note that these same governments are making the largest industrial commitment to nuclear capacity in the world. Of the 75 nuclear reactors now under construction, ordered, or planned, the vast majority of them are in Asia. Asia will dominate the 21st century, and we, I'm afraid, will go the way of the Austrian-Hungarian empire.

In Asia, the piloting of the systems like those represented by DME has already been accomplished or is well under way. China for instance is not just talking about DME - they are already building industrial plants to do it.

In the West though, we've been ossified and frankly, endlessly been drinking Koolaid. We are still more involved with fantasy than with reality.

As much as I would like to say otherwise, I'm not optimistic for the future of our culture.