Re: this Yahoo article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080831/ap_on_go_co/disappearing_tax_breaks
It always amazes me that companies which have been developing alternative energy technologies for OVER 25 YEARS, with tax credits and other government subsidies to make them a low-cost technologically superior reality, continue to demand special breaks and considerations even though they STILL have not proven to deliver on their promise.
If I had created the ultimate alternative energy, lets say, a Mr. Fusion thing like in the fictional "Back to Future" series, which takes garbage or any other material, and it produces a waste by-product of water, and it only cost 00 to manufacturer with a retail price well under a few thousand, there would be no need to get government subsidies because myself and my investors would be gazillionaires within 2 years!
The issue is, and remains, that every single alternative energy idea that we’ve been pursuing for the past 25 YEARS, including wind, solar, and ethanol, have not caught on because they are PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE.
And the excuse is always, "Yeah, but we need more money to make it cheaper." Nonsense. If, after 25 YEARS, you still haven’t figured out a way to improve the technology, IT’S A DEAD END.
This is because the alternative energy debate is fundamentally flawed. Every single alternative was missing, from the very beginning, the very essential element to make it practical and successful.
"Can we find an alternative energy resource that is less polluting, more abundant, and SIGNIFICANTLY AND SUBSTANTIALLY CHEAPER than existing resources?"
Consider PC technology. It was IMMEDIATELY substantially cheaper than its mainframe alternatives. This is why it took off as a computing power alternative. No government tax credits were needed. No subsidizing was required. Competitors popped up left and right to invest heavilly in making it better and better.
And in the same period of time that we have been pursuing these alternative energies, PC technology has evolved enormously.
And if we were still using computers with 256Kb of memory and floppy disks and dot matrix printers, and it turns out they were more expensive than mainframe computers, do you think ANYONE would be saying, "All IBM, Apple, Dell, HP, Intel and AMD need is more money from the government." ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Innovation is wonderful. But it has to be practical.
Any alternative energy source MUST be a substantially CHEAPER alternative FIRST and FOREMOST. Otherwise, we can throw trillions into the technology and it will never be accepted.
Private funding has already grown weary of the failures of these alternative energies to deliver on their promises.
Meanwhile, there are newer alternative energy ideas such as Fusion and Hydrogen that show great promise… but they are now in their infancy of development. In the meantime, we should take advantage of the cheaper resources we ALREADY have, and use those as a cost/value challenge for viable alternative energies.
Or should we continue to pursue and fund alternatives that no one will want to pay for?
