If cheap, renewable energy was developed, the value of oil'ngas holdings would tank

[burythehatchet]

Find the cheerleader, save the world.

[aquart]

1. IIRC, Edison invented the lightbulb to spite the gas company.

We need another annoyed inventor.

[slackmaster]

2. I agree in general, but those oil'ngas holdings represent a lot of valuable resources

Intellectual capital and money that could be channelled toward the development of alternative energy.

Yes, we need a cheerleader to lead us that way, as JFK led us to the Moon. That would solve most of our most serious problems.

[suziedemocrat]

3. And in WWII, when we needed synthetic rubber - we found a way to make it .

Link: http://acswebcontent.acs.org/landmarks/landmarks/rbb/index.html

When the natural rubber supply from Southeast Asia was cut off at the beginning of World War II, the United States and its allies faced the loss of a strategic material. With U.S. Government sponsorship, a consortium of companies involved in rubber research and production united in a unique spirit of technical cooperation and dedication to produce a general purpose synthetic rubber, GR-S (Government Rubber-Styrene), on a commercial scale. In Akron and other U.S. locations, these companies, in collaboration with a network of researchers in government, academic, and industrial laboratories, developed and manufactured in record time enough synthetic rubber to meet the needs of the U.S. and its allies during World War II.