I'm fine with that but just dumping money on a problem doesn't always result in a solution. You could throw a trillion or ten trillion dollars into a "Manhattan Project" style effort and it won't magically produce new battery technology, or materials, et cetera any more than "building a wall" would stop illegal immigration even if you spent the funds to build said wall. Folks like
@fskimospy will need to come to terms with the fact of things like that no amount of R&D money is probably going to result in a vehicle powered by non-fossil fuels that actually meets the needs and use cases of the poor and middle class at a cost they can afford in the next couple decades. Or that solar power generation would still need to be supplemented by fossil fuel baseload generation for the foreseeable future. Moving from a low percentage of "renewable energy" things to a larger but still minority share of the energy mix is easier (say 5% to 15%), scaling from 15% to 80% is an entirely different story and I think most vastly underestimate the scope of what they think can be accomplished - if was as easy as they think the market would have already moved way faster to make the switch.
The main problem isn't technology but IP. I've been following the developments of technology in this field for many years and it turns out that companies quietly acquire the IP of more promising innovation and bury it. Then court battles start like Apple/Samsung and most times we see nothing. Find a promising technology, sell it and become rich, the buyer chooses not to implement because it's profitable to pay lawyers or to protect one's existing investments from competing technologies.
Regarding electric vehicles there is much improvement that needs to be done and much which can and again the IP people are waiting to pounce and others to kill and bury.
Well screw em.
Back to vehicles, we don't need to radically redesign them. Instead, phase out (in a hurry) their fuel source where possible and substitute biologically produced alternatives. There are organisms which exist that produce the equivalent of fossil fuel by taking carbon from the atmosphere and use the sun as power resulting in a zero carbon burden. The entire infrastructure for distribution exists, no trillions of investment needed for that. What it requires is a huge investment in something which would limit opportunities for companies who would then be forced to reinvent themselves.
The nice thing is that little profit need be made by government investment lowering the costs of fuel and providing a key item for commerce to be plentiful, reliable, and free of world political nonsense driving up prices when the King of Oilvania farts.
Note this isn't "someday in the distant future", this is here and now and only one possibility, but provided benefits to the economy even if government funded.
One gallon or 100 trillion, this fuel produces only what it takes from the environment and to which it returns.
Renewables can cut net production of CO2 and we lower our impact on ourselves, because that's what this is really about. The environment is secondary to most people, but put them in a room, raise the temp and lower the oxygen and suddenly it's the most important thing there is. Globally that's a sign that we're already dead.
Facebook
Twitter