…or Apollo. I suffered through the president’s speech so you don’t have to.
The most egregious part of it was when he compared energy independence to Apollo. Here’s my response from the campaign:
He’s never met a problem that, in his mind, the “full power of the government” can’t solve.
It’s an understandable appeal, but it betrays a certain lack of understanding of the problem to think that we will solve it with a crash federal program, at least if it’s one modelled on Apollo.
Putting a man on the moon was a remarkable achievement, but it was a straightforward well-defined engineering challenge, and a problem susceptible to having huge bales of money thrown at it, which is exactly how it was done. At its height, the Apollo program consumed four percent of the federal budget (NASA is currently much less than one percent, and has been for many years). Considering how much larger the federal budget is today, with the addition and growth of many federal programs over the past forty years makes the amount of money spent on the endeavor even more remarkable.
But most of the other problems for which people have pled for a solution, using Apollo as an example, were, and are, less amenable to being solved by a massive public expenditure. We may in fact cure cancer, and have made great strides over the past four decades in doing so, but it’s a different kind of problem, involving science and research on the most complex machine ever built — the human body. It isn’t a problem for which one can simply set a goal and time table and put the engineers to work on it, as Apollo was. Similarly, ending world hunger and achieving world peace are socio-political problems, not technological ones (though technology has made great strides in improving food production, which makes the problem easier to solve for governments that are competent and not corrupt). So most of the uses of the phrase never really made much sense, often being non sequiturs.
It’s important to understand that landing a man on the moon (or developing atomic weaponry as in the Manhattan Project — another example used by proponents of a new federal energy program) was a technological achievement. Achieving “energy independence,” or ending the use of fossil fuels, are economic ones. And the former is not necessarily even a desirable goal, if by that one means only getting energy from domestic sources. Energy is, and should remain, part of the global economy and trade system if we want to continue to keep prices as low as possible and continue to provide economic growth.
Nothing has changed. My commentary remains true today.
[Wednesday morning update]
If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we stop the leak, Mr. President? That’s a much better Apollo analogy.
From a technical point of view, the Apollo project was straight forward Newtonian physics: i.e. Throw heavy rock in excess of 18k mph and use Moon’s gravity to get it there. Now, the courage of the astronauts that rode those 10 story sticks of dynamite was pretty incredible but the engineering wasn’t unheard of.
But to change solar electricity into a fiscally useful source of energy is a quantum mechanic problem. While we knew Newtonian physics for 400 years, we still haven’t figured out how molecules work.
We may well figure out a way to balance the budget before we make solar energy cost efficient.
When someone uses the Apollo program to justify a new federal program, they are really saying “If we can land a man on the moon, then …”
Well, we can’t land a man on the moon. Once the last Saturn V booster was made into a museum display, we lost that capability.
By 1990, we had lost the ability to manufacture new Saturn V boosters – the engineers had retired or gone onto other projects, the plans had been scattered, lost, or were irretrievable, and the cost to build new Saturn Vs was prohibitive.
The only way we could get a man on the moon in the near future is to use new man rated boosters and systems, but President Obama has canceled that program.
Mentioning the Manhattan Project makes me want to scream. In 1942 when the project began, the phenomenon of nuclear fission had been known for less than 10 years. At the time, Henri Becquerel’s 1896 discovery of radioactivity was less than 50 years in the past. A lot of brand new physics had been developed in the first 30 years of century XX. There was enormous intellectual headroom for important technological advances. And who knows? perhaps one day we will use those advances instead of regarding them as bad ju-ju.
The Manhattan Project was able to exploit the discovery of a previously unknown fundamental forces of the universe. Batteries are in a very different position. They were a century and a half old when the the first nuclear reactor was started, and are now two hundred years old. There are no new physical forces lurking out there to make batteries more useful.
Well, we can’t land a man on the moon. Once the last Saturn V booster was made into a museum display, we lost that capability.
Nonsense. We don’t need Saturn Vs to go to the moon, and we’ll be able to go much more affordably without them.
Don’t drink the Apollo Cargo Cult koolaid.
We may well figure out a way to balance the budget before we make solar energy cost efficient.
Or it might happen naturally without any government intervention. As I understand it, the cost per watt of peak generating power for solar cells (not including installation hardware) supposedly has dropped by half every eight or so years. If that continues for a while longer, then that probably will make solar power generation viable for a lot of places.
This is the other side of the coin. Even if we can reduce the renewable energy issue to a feasible Apollo-like program, it’s not clear to me that government funding buys anything that wouldn’t happen anyway. In that case, why the hurry? What do we gain by cutting a few years off of development that justifies the cost?
People overuse the Apollo analogy.
Apollo used 4.4% of the Federal Budget, or 1% of GDP, for almost 10 years.
A lot could be one with 1% of GDP for almost 10 years.
A lot could be one with 1% of GDP for almost 10 years.
And a hell of a lot more than that if it were left in the hands of entrepreneurs.
I have a secret idea, that I will share only with the readers of this site. If someone comes up with a way to get solar or wind power for less than the cost of existing energy sources, let’s let them get obscenely rich off it. Heck, let’s make it even better for the inventor: let’s throw gobs of cash at anyone who makes substantial strides in that direction. Call it an “X-Prize” or something.
If we really feel the need to distort the economy, we could also give them some tax breaks, but if they’re already an improvement over existing (un-subsidized) sources, that shouldn’t be necessary.
Alternatively, we could be extremely stupid and arbitrarily cap various outputs of existing energy sources, swap them around, and call it an improvement. Hell, I should run for Congress.
“Or it might happen naturally without any government intervention. As I understand it, the cost per watt of peak generating power for solar cells (not including installation hardware) supposedly has dropped by half every eight or so years. If that continues for a while longer, then that probably will make solar power generation viable for a lot of places.
This is the other side of the coin. Even if we can reduce the renewable energy issue to a feasible Apollo-like program, it’s not clear to me that government funding buys anything that wouldn’t happen anyway. In that case, why the hurry? What do we gain by cutting a few years off of development that justifies the cost?”
Where is the example of govt lower the cost of anything.
You can’t say the shuttle program lowered to cost of getting into orbit.
No one says any govt has lower the cost of medical care- in the many countries it has been tried.
Do govt that make cars lower the cost of buying cars- anywhere.
They make shitty cars that aren’t worth anything- I am sure a govt could manage to “make” solar panels that were sub-standard.
We would speaking Russian if a govt was capable of lowering costs. What part of socialism doesn’t work is unclear?
No if govt could actually shorten the time by one month, I would favor it. And we also can have socialized farming and mining and everything else- why wouldn’t you favor it, if govt could actually lower the costs of anything?
Instead the govt merely lies about the costs, lies about it’s wonderfully efficient operations- and given enough time any wealth is lost, and we lining up in order to not get any food.
How could we have Fed Ex, if the govt could actually do a decent job at delivering mail?
If the govt could lower cost, we would already have colonies on moon decades ago, and be traveling to the nearest star system.
I disagree with Rand’s post in only one small particular; Energy independence. I think it would be very desirable, for economic and geopolitical reasons, to no longer have to ship hundreds of billions overseas to buy energy.
Of course, any solution has to be economically based, and that means at least coming close to the price of imported oil. As for wind and solar, I don’t consider them viable, due to price-per-kilowatt. If far cheaper solar cells come along, that would change, but for now, I feel they are fool’s gold.
My personal preferences, based on what I see of current and likely tech; Thorium nuclear reactors for electricity and coal-to-methanol for liquid fuel, plus expanded use of natural gas. Those could reduce the billions we flush down the toilet in the Middle East and elsewhere, and keeping that money here at home would be a huge benifit, but if, and only if, we come up with price competitive replacements.
Personally, I think the Apollo program is a perfect analogy to a government energy program; it’s an ideal way to create something that’s mostly for show, outlandishly expensive, and utterly unsustainable. 🙂
Anon, your figures are a little bit off. The peak annual Apollo expenditures were in 1966 at very close to $3 billion dollars, out of a 780 billion dollar GDP, which works out to 0.4%, not 1%. Moreover, this peak spending was short-lived, not a steady 10 year long phenomenon. Total Apollo spending over the entire Apollo program was 19.4 billion dollars or roughly 2.5% of a single year’s GDP.
Also note that NASA’s manned spaceflight budget has not seen the same highs that it did during Apollo but it was not in any sense cut to the bone, it was merely reduced by about 50% or so. In the years since 1980 NASA manned spaceflight has spent fully twice as much money as was invested in Apollo. A lot could be done with that indeed. But a lot can be squandered as well.
I suffered through the president’s speech so you don’t have to.
Oh, would that it were true.
What I can’t help pointing out is that Barack Hussein Obama would have been one of the leading Leftists who would have attacked Kennedy viciously as a racist for “wasting” all that money in competition with the superior Soviets instead of funnelling it to the victim pimps in the inner cities.
So it is hypocritical for this man to use that analogy when he would have been a enemy of the entire program.
What do we gain by cutting a few years off of development that justifies the cost?”
Would you similarly ask this of life extension research? Or work on CATS? Can technology ever really come too early?
There are a number of disruptive alternative energy technologies in the very early development phases that should be able to deliver electricity for significantly less than the cost of coal power. Accelerating their development would likely be a great economic win for any country that does so. Not that this is necessarily an easy thing for government to do (note NASA’s attempts at accelerating the development of CATS…). ARPA-E (styled on DARPA) has I think generally been a good thing.
Low cost alternative energy is I think largely a technology problem. If it were just an economic problem then one would throw large subsidies at it so as to bring about economies of scale and thereby economic viability (this obviously has not worked for conventional wind and solar power). Low cost was not a primary design constraint for Apollo (nor has it been for most alternative energy to date), if it had been, where would we be now?
We’ve known for decades how to lower the cost of energy, “so low you wouldn’t be able to meter it.” What needs to happen is all those that have used the courts to destroy this country should have the courts used against them. They should be held liable.
It’s absolutely insane. Politicians get away with saying and doing the worst things, yet they remain in office. We keep hoping for a sliver of rationality while swimming in an ocean of idiocy. Why is that?
Why are not the people, lead by the press, outraged when a president demagogues? They’re all guilty. Bush with his hydrogen economy for example. But this guy; look up demagogue in the dictionary and see his smiling face… complete with halo.
I’m still afraid that November will see taxpayers money and thugs steal another election cycle. We’ve allowed it to go on for so long it’s part of the fabric of the process.
We do need another Manhattan project… to discover sanity.
Don’t forget that rocket technological innovation goes back to what, the 1920s with Robert Goddard, and then later pre-WWII with Werner Von Braun. Then it got a real boost in WWII with V-2 technological investment, then post WWII US work in the 1940s & 1950s. Apollo built upon all those other, disparate innovations, it was not a 10 year plan built out of whole-clothe.
Dear Liar understands class warfare rhetoric, but not much else.
A large part of the problem with energy independence is in fact economics, and consists of two factors. First, in the short term, energy costs fluctuate wildly. If an alternative fuel plant is profitable at say, $3/gallon gas, the risk that gas will be $2.50/gallon will greatly discourage investment.
Second, in the long term, making fuel (which is what all alternative fuel schemes boil down to) will always be more expensive than just pumping it out of the ground. As alternative fuels become more common, the price of fossil fuels will fall. This will set up a viscious cycle of boom and bust.
Government can offer a solution to both those problems. The simplest and cleanest solution is to simply set a price floor on the undesired fuels via taxes. The somewhat more complicated solution is a carbon tax / cap-and-trade. Either way will work.
Just letting the free market run won’t. What will happen in that case is an asset crash. Prices will fluctuate and, as supplies finally run out, climb rapidly. But because the price fluctuations will have discouraged development of alternatives, there will be a very limited supply, leading to an energy crisis.
I’m sure that with (as Robin says), 2.5% of a year’s GDP and 10 years of work, that leak will be plugged.
Heck, probably for a lot less, and probably by August when they get the relief well done.
These haven’t worked because price-fixing energy is a widely unpopular policy — it hits the consumer where they live and invites repeal with the next election cycle by single-issue candidates. It is more correct to say that the problem is technological (at least with respect to fuel – energy production (esp. wrt fission) is mostly a political problem), but progress continues thanks to, not in spite of, “cheap” oil for reasons Carl Pham has mentioned previously.
The simplest and cleanest solution is to simply set a price floor on the undesired fuels via taxes. The somewhat more complicated solution is a carbon tax / cap-and-trade. Either way will work.
These haven’t worked because price-fixing energy is a widely unpopular policy — it hits the consumer where they live and invites repeal with the next election cycle by single-issue candidates. It is more correct to say that the problem is technological (at least with respect to fuel – energy production (esp. wrt fission) is mostly a political problem), but progress continues thanks to, not in spite of, “cheap” oil for reasons Carl Pham has mentioned previously.
They are unpopular because they are stupid.
What a govt should be doing is looking for vast quantities of cheap energy. In instead of trying make cheap energy more expensive. True, it doesn’t require much brain power to make something more expensive- just as it doesn’t require much effort to destroy things rather than make things.
Cheap energy is wealth, expensive energy is poverty- it is that simple.
The Lefties want everyone to be poorer. It again, is a simpler “solution” the their problem related to Equality. So they don’t mind if Cubans are dirt poor- as long as everyone is dirt poor.
They so twisted now- and it’s not just them- they have affected your minds, with years govt required brainwashing. That they would have been upset by the imagined prospect of getting really cheap energy from “cold fusion”.
They want to enslave you, understand this.
Liberty for the masses is a slogan [and they understand- that it’s merely a lie]. That is the last thing they want is for billions of humans to be free.
You probably think there is a shortage of resources on earth- that’s just proof of your being brainwashed. Or democracies are inefficient, and/or more wasteful of resources- more nuggets of proof of your past brainwashing.
You should not have learned anything in school- instead you should have been trained so that you educate yourself. Your education should begin once you leave school, not be “done” after finishing your schooling. I say this so one can have a hope of grasping the magnitude of how fucked up we are.
So the goal should be finding lots of cheap energy- not throwing up hands in surrender and saying this is not possible.
The way to end dependence of fossil fuel [which may or may not be something we should want] is having a energy source which is cheaper.
The only purpose of taxes is to provide a way support a govt AND to lower economic growth. Both supporting a govt and lowering economic growth are dubious in terms of good things to do.
But providing more funds to our current bloated government is not dubious, it’s crazy. Slowing economic growth is like driving your car slower- and we are facing wide open freeway and going 10 mph- we don’t need to go slower.
At least return to the 55 mph speed limit, and 65 mph if you are feeling cocky.
So, higher fuel taxes in Europe haven’t led to more economical cars then? Not even the ones that Ford are busy importing back to sell in the USA?
Gosh.
Next you’re going to tell me that high taxes on smoking have never made somebody quit.
So, higher fuel taxes in Europe haven’t led to more economical cars then?
Of course they have. What a stupid question.
Not that it has any relevance to the discussion.
Cheap energy is wealth, expensive energy is poverty- it is that simple.
Yes.
What a govt should be doing is looking for vast quantities of cheap energy.
No. There’s no need to look (Think Sean Connery in the untouchables, “Everybody knows where the booze is, Mr. Ness.”)
Governments role can be as watchdogs. They should be holding those people liable that have made litigation the main cost of energy. Energy, both electricity and fuel could each easily be a tenth the cost or perhaps much lower (we really don’t know because of all the layers of crap wackos have saddled us with.)
Well, I HAVE wondered why we couldn’t just put one of those 15 inch battleship cannons from WWII down there pointing into the BOP and fire it. Or how about a torpedo?
But how much thrust would a Saturn V develop 5,000 feet below the surface heading downward into a broken blowout preventer stack?
What bothers me is that I still don’t have a clear understanding of just how this happened other than by accident. The engineers on the BP crisis team don’t seem like screw ups to me. They remind me of the guys who figured out what went wrong with Apollo 13 and figured out the solution that saved the crew’s lives. Their efforts seem to have been reasonable. The difference is that they’re dealing with much larger pressure and maneuverability issues. By comparison, Apollo was relatively simple.
A counter query: If we could put man on the moon, why can’t we elect a president who understands his job and does it without months of contortions, whining, buck passing, blame-gaming and multi-polar mood shifts?
Expensive energy doesn’t have to mean poverty if you make good use of it. Taking cars as a case in point I completely fail to see why a 2-ton car getting 25mpg, with six feet of hood and three feet of (shallow) trunk, is superior to a 1-ton car getting 45mpg with a four-foot hood and two-foot (deep) trunk, both cars having the same interior space. Or what the problem is with insulating your house properly.
Many possible forms of alternative energy are a matter of technological development with no new science required. Wave, OTEC, district heat and power are three examples, and they all work. We know they all work because at least pilot-scale plants have been built – in the case of OTEC in the 1930s!
Of course, district heat and power might be too socialist for Americans. Much better to throw away gigawatts of low-temperature heat than to use it to heat people’s houses or local market gardeners’ greenhouses. (Power station cooling water is easily hot enough to use in central heating radiators.)
ken anthony – do you have anything to support your assertion that “litigation is the main cost of energy?”
flataffect – the hows and whys of the blowout are being investigated. The current allegation (which is not proven) is that BP did not put in the necessary backup systems, such as a secondary means of triggering the blowout preventer.
Not that it has any relevance to the discussion.
You don’t actually read these threads do you?
The way to end dependence of fossil fuel [which may or may not be something we should want] is having a energy source which is cheaper.
Missed that one.
You don’t happen to work in Microsoft support do you?
“The way to end dependence of fossil fuel [which may or may not be something we should want] is having a energy source which is cheaper.”
Missed that one.
You don’t happen to work in Microsoft support do you?
Rand’s statement here is one that most of the serious people in the alternative energy field would tend to agree with. Alternative energy cheaper than coal would seem a primary objective of Google for instance:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20071127_green.html