Remember, Bill, the energy study is future research and has not yet saved money for anybody in this inglorious material world. But it is a small step for the UofL honchos (they have momentarily taken their minds off big-time athletics) who crave money only somewhat less than Bernie Madoff. You’re right, though, that they will be stokin’ the dollar fires for a new pigskin coach quite soon. It will be burn, baby, burn in Belknap.

After all, Ramsey and Jurich got to find a way to get the prestige back at the program especially after the Porkmeister scandal.

The earth is breaking. Is the world coming to an end? We must at least give UofL credit for attempting something in its energy study effort:
SEEKING TO SAVE MONEY FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE SHUMAKER AND RAMSEY TOOK OFFICE.

The problem with Cap & Trade is that unless you place every economy (yes that includes China & India) under the same threat of the stick, then the jobs and industry will flee to those economies.

While we may cut pollution in this country, we are just outsourcing it, along with our jobs, to countries that are more likely to pollute.

As an environmental scientist, I can tell you that the majority of the real contamination goes from non-point sources, and not point sources like factories and power plants.

I will admit that I am a global warming skeptic from simply a scientific basis, the goal of reducing carbon-based fuels should be done for many other reasons aside from global warming alone.

The Japanese are ahead of us in realizing that the short-term solution lies in small package nuclear energy plants that would power smaller areas.

We are surrounded by fissionable materials related to industry and health care industries and people don’t think twice about it. The presence of large reactors belching out ominous plumes of harmless steam, give the public the jitters. Meanwhile, most oncology treatment centers have substantial quantities of nuclear materials.

Everything should be on the table for discussion, kitchen grease and other non-scalable solutions excluded.

However you can’t expect the same level of progress in technologies associated with carbon footprint reduction and energy conservation. The only thing “green” about an army is some of the camouflage. They consume enormous energy, generate enormous waste, and they aren’t bashful about it.

Although you could make the case that a tank engine consuming less fuel would be more efficient because of longer range, not much useful work has been done in the area. Usually figuring out how to kill the most people from the greatest distance with the least risk is a much higher priority for military-driven research.

But there has to be balance. Private industry tends to stay with innovation along established lines. Take an existing concept, refine it, tweak it, eek a few more pennies out of it. That can help to a point. But true quantum leaps in technology come from basically two paths: Purely accidental discoveries (Krazy Glue, Post-It notes, etc) where someone makes a mistake and it becomes a huge leap. These things can happen in private industry or academia.

The second way to make a jump is to try something completely far-fetched and test it for viability using the scientific method. This is a very slow method, but we’ve had numerous successes here.

Both approaches are important. But what is far more important regardless of the source is a brutally honest evaluation of whatever solution pops out.

That is why I am a proponent of the government offering a huge financial award for achievement of a goal (ie. a cleaner home fuel cell that would work in Cleveland, OH) to anyone who can develop that technology.

We have diluted the government money allocated to alternative energy research so much by dribbling it all throughout academia, that we have gotten few results.

The goal of academic research is to ensure the funding of that research as long as possible. The goal of private industry is to achieve a solution as quickly as possible, so you can sell it to recoup the costs of the research.

It’s not surprising that by differing our innovation to the Universities and research institutions, we are not tremendously further along than we were 30 years ago.

The most rapid innovation has come in the automotive and heating a cooling industries because those private corporations were financially motivated to get products to market quickly to meat the demand for lower consuption products.

Few people are interested in cradle-to-grave analysis of these problems. They just want to look out in the driveway at their little electric car and feel like they’re doing something. It’s just not that simple.