"Before I pose the question, I think all of us would easily accept the fact that all politicians like to be heros, and go down in history as such.  If there were an easy answer to the energy question, do you really believe that every president since the early 1970s - Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bushes I and II, and now Obama wouldn't jump on it and become forever known as the president who solved one of the biggest issues of the last 100 years, maybe other than WW II?"

Jerry, they may have liked to be the big hero, but they do not have the dictatorial power needed to fight the rest of the Pols and business men who have vested interest in not developing these technologies like they should have, 44 years ago.  For example, if hydrogen cell technology would have been perfected within the last 44 years when the first one was put in GM's Electro Van, Big Oil would have lost hundreds of billions in gasoline profits.  Knowing this, they would have used their influence every step of the way to slow down or stop the development of the technology. They would have funded the re-election campaigns of every Pol who would have gone on record opposing the program, and there would have been plenty who would have done so just to get the funding to get elected.  Big Oil would have used their incredible economic power to influence any company that was involved in the development of the technology, through incentives to go in another direction, buy outs, take overs through stock purchase, or the promise of major contracts to the CEOs of the companies.  Misleading media ads could have been purchased in an attempt to sway public opinion with false "facts".  Media TV & radio  mouthpieces could have been economically influenced to bad mouth the technology.  The list of ways they could have halted the program is endless.  When you have unlimited wealth, you can seriously influence the development of anything that threatens the continuation of that wealth. No USA President could change that, no matter how much he wanted to be a hero. He would have had to turn against the entire political system that got him elected, and they would have ground him up like meat as soon as he started making waves, unless some fool shot him first.  It is far too complex a problem and he does not have that kind of power to effectively fight it.

Gort and Charon -

Charon used the same language I was about to.  Hydrogen isn't the "magic bullet". Gort, there are no "magic bullets".  Your post sounds as if hydrogen was the singular answer, and thru a conspiracy, it was not developed.  Just not true.  It it were the answer, hundreds of entreprenuers would have been on it like flies on manure.

If large companies have so much power to defeat the little guy who is on to something, why then didn't IBM and NCR eliminate Apple and Microsoft when they were just budding operations conducted out of garages and spare bedrooms?

I remember when NCR was the really dominant player in Dayton , Ohio where my parents lived right after WW II.  NCR is only a shadow of its former self today.

Tom Edison tried to squash George Westinghouse's development of AC current, and convince the country that DC was better.  Well, we all know that all commercial electricity is now in the form of AC current.

The railroad magnates of the late 1800s and early 1900s tried to squash the budding airline industry thru the late 1920s and 1930s.  But once airplanes became safe and reliable, airline travel quickly surpassed rail, and the great railroad companies of history are now hauling no people.  Same for the great ocean liner companies - they now operate only a few crusie ships, as they and all of teir money couldn't stop te advance of aviation, and in a day when aviation was just a bunch of little guys with an idea.

That's the same story with all of these magic bullet scenarios - stomped under by a conspiracy that didn't exist.  It's the same whether the subject is the infamous "100 mpg carburetor" that Detroit supposedly conspired to keep under wraps, or whether it's the hydrogen fuel cell.  None work.

Easy stuff for tabloid headlines, and that's all it is - tabloid headlines.

But it's all too easy to fall for these fictions, and just blame everything on conspiracies that never were, and still aren't.

At the risk of repeating myself, “solar farms in space beaming electricity via microwave to ground stations!”
We know how. We have the technology in place. We just don't have the political will to brake the hold of the oil lobbies.
At a time when we should be putting America to work building a high-tech “electric” future; we are slashing the space program, and laying the groundwork for yet another “oil”war in Iran.
And the rich get richer.

Jerry Eichenberger wrote on 05/13/10 at 11:13:53:




Jerry, I don't think you read my post very well.  I did not say "large companies", nor "the little guy", nor "magic bullets".  I specified Big Oil with its incredible geopolitical power and wealth being able to influence General Motors and the political system in this country in a multitude of ways, preying on the greed or political ambitions of the politicians and businesses, in order to maintain and or increase its profits.

As for hydrogen being the magic bullet and the "singular answer" to our energy problems,  I never said or inferred that either.  Come on, Jerry!

As for Hydrogen fuel cell technology being a dead end or, "none work", tell that to all the companies doing the R&D in an effort to make it practical and who have installed it in cars.  Furthermore, had it been fully explored for the past 44 years after GM built the Electrovan, who knows what technology would have done with it.  You never know the end result until you've exhausted all avenues, and industry clearly does not believe they have since they are still developing it.  Only the engineers involved in the current development of this technology are in a position to judge the viability of it, not Joe Q. Public.

And Jerry, comparing the 100MPG carburetor story with Hydrogen fuel cell technology is just plain silly.

Jerry Eichenberger wrote on 05/13/10 at 11:45:58:

No we'll just go over there and kick their A$$ and get it for free and let the American taxpayer foot the bill.  Thats Haliburtons plan. Is it just me or everywhere there is a screwed up mess thingy Cheney and Haliburton are right in the middle of it.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/oil-spill-map.htm

map of how the oil slick might grow/spread

no, haliburton and the oil companies get the free oil and keep charging the same, (or more if they can get away with it, and they can) that's the theory anyway, but energy was a big part of why we went to iraq, it wasn't WMDs, Iraq wasn't a threat to us then, now with us occupying them and terrorists camps growing there. . .