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It's time to save/exploit petroleum for its chemical properties instead of burning it in IC engines. It's too valuable to continue wasting. Rhetorical question - "Why isn't the US Govt heavilly invested in fusion research?" Where is the next "Manhattan Project" or moon shot? We used to be able to mobilize innovative/imaginative science. What happened? Tokamak plasma containment (pioneered by the Russians, for Christ's sake) has been a reality since the mid-50s yet the US only has three active research facilities. Everything else was shut down or dismantled for lack of funding/interest. Most high-energy physics research is now conducted elsewhere (the Europeans seem to be doing most of it). Nuclear fusion is the only technology that actually creates energy. Everything else just "converts" stored energy (sun - fusion) into something useable. Do the math - we're trying to increase efficiencies of conversions, not create more. Ethanol, biodiesel, petroleum, etc. are all net losses. The more steps in the conversion, the greater the loss.
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A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
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