Reply #5: I'm very 'gung-ho' on research - very much so -

[JohnWxy]

for ressearch. Now when you talk about support for expanding the market share of a product it gets a little more complicated. As you know if a technology is a worthy one, because of market forces and inefficiencies when you can't reach a decent scale of production there are certainly instances where it makes for good public policy to help 'boost' a technology to commercial viability with some public support of capital expansion by helping with market penetration (i.e. help make the price more competitive so people buy it).

ONce the industry gets its sales volume up then we should be able to cut 'em loose and let them make it on their own (this, by the way, is the source of much consternation over subsidies to oil - a very mature industry).

I don't really know if the PVCs (you're talking about Photo-Voltaics I'm assuming) are in a position to really get on their own after some support by the Government. Now, this particular technology of course has a lot of appeal as it is completely non-polluting (although I don't really know about the manufacturing process - I'm not really knowledgeaable about PV technology except that it is still quite expensive). So I can understand the appeal.

Frankly I don't know enough to comment (although, what the hell, I will anyway) I suspect the money probably could be better spent helping wind power get going faster. this is not to say aggressive research shouldn't be continued in Photo-voltaics but there seems to still be considerable fundamental design tinkering ahead. (for example ther eis acompany Energy Conversion Devices which manufactures a photo-voltaic which looks like roof shingles. It's pliable and can even be nailed to your roof and it still works. In fact it produces more power in dimmer sunlight (cloudy days) than the traditional box solar panels.http://www.ovonic.com/sol_srv/3_1_solar_sol/solar_solutions.htm) I guess I am not totally against it, this is a technology I think, that has considerable trial an error efforts ahead and I'm not against accelerating that process - but it's possible, at this stage, to over-due that. It's my impression, this technology has quite a way to go before becoming commercially viable or even worth the extra cost due to environmental benefits.

Now supporting ethanol which is a proven superior fuel to gasoline, and which can really benefit society with support to bring it to more efficient production volume - that is a well placed investment. That is the pay-off is worth it and the pay off will come right away as soon as the ethanol production increases. Also, INcreasing availability will be met with widespread acceptance. I think if people could FIND it you'd have no trouble selling it. (HOwever, GM and Ford would help the situation a lot if they would build their FFVs to take advantage of the higher octane of ethanol (105 vs 92-93 for high test gas)). Then their FFVs would get just as good as mileage on Ethanol 85 as they do on Gasoline (SAAB 9-5 Bio Power does this with turbo charging. BTW GM OWNS Saab and they were consulted with by Saab engineers when they were designing the 9-5 BioPower)

Of course the other nice thing about ehtanol is you can make it more available even as 10% ethanol (called gasohol) and everybody can start reducing our demand and for fossil fuel (and usage) and THEY DON'T HAVE TO BUY A EXPENSIVE NEW CAR TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT. Every dollar that ceases to go for imported oil and is instead spent on a renewable domesticly sourced fuel is worth MORE than 1 dollar to the economy. We would be strengthening our economy and our security too at the same time for every gallon of oil we replaced with ethanol.

Now will ethanol replace ALL the oil - NO - (or "Probably not" would be the best answer) but that is no rationale for not even taking advantage of a technology that will certainly help and help significantly. As I hve pionted out in other postings resaearch which looks promising is proceeding to make fuel cells that use hydrocarbons to provide the hydrogen. I think this is the way we will see fuel cells come to fruition. Ethanol is superior to gasoline in this regard too. But automobile apps are 10 yrs or more away. But when (and if) this comes to pass fuel cells will be 2 to 3 times as efficient and ICEs and then we've got some real progress being made (on reducing fossil fuel use for transportation anyway).