10-12-2011, 07:02 PM
From today's "Morning Joe" show on MSNBC.
Oil industry/Government accept 1,100 gallons/minute as acceptable rate for cleaning up an oil spill (like last year in the Gulf).
Technology has not progressed for the last 20 years.
X-Prize, and Wendy Schmidt (Mrs. Google) announced a prize for any team that could do better.
The winner is in, and their approach picks up 4,720 Gallons per minute! Their prize? $1.4 M.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/ns/m.../#44873039
That works out to about 1.6% of what the oil & gas companies pay every day to the US Treasury. (according to http://energytomorrow.org/economy/earnin...#/type/all). So much for R&D.
You would think industry would always be looking for newer and better ways to conduct business, one of which would be to clean up the messes you make. But, obviously, this is not so.
This is a perfect demonstration of what is wrong with US Business right now. Can you imagine Steve Jobs pitching 20 year old technology in his newest computers?
"Today, I want to introduce the new Powerbook 140. This baby is fast! It's got a Motorola 68030 processor running at 16 Mhtz. It can take up to 8 Megs of RAM. It's got a 9.8" monochrome screen, a built in modem so you can plug it right into your phone jack at home, or at work, and it blows the competition outta the water when it runs on OS 7.5!"
To quote Fox Mulder, "The answers are out there." You just have to actually want to look for them!
You want to get America off foreign oil? Have the Secretary of Transportation announce the "Earnhardt Prize". Design a replacement engine for 80% of American vehicles that gets 100 MPG with the power of a V6. It doesn't run on gasoline and doesn't pollute.
The Prize? $10M - tax free.
I'm betting that by Labor Day 2012 we have a winner.
Oil industry/Government accept 1,100 gallons/minute as acceptable rate for cleaning up an oil spill (like last year in the Gulf).
Technology has not progressed for the last 20 years.
X-Prize, and Wendy Schmidt (Mrs. Google) announced a prize for any team that could do better.
The winner is in, and their approach picks up 4,720 Gallons per minute! Their prize? $1.4 M.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036789/ns/m.../#44873039
That works out to about 1.6% of what the oil & gas companies pay every day to the US Treasury. (according to http://energytomorrow.org/economy/earnin...#/type/all). So much for R&D.
You would think industry would always be looking for newer and better ways to conduct business, one of which would be to clean up the messes you make. But, obviously, this is not so.
This is a perfect demonstration of what is wrong with US Business right now. Can you imagine Steve Jobs pitching 20 year old technology in his newest computers?
"Today, I want to introduce the new Powerbook 140. This baby is fast! It's got a Motorola 68030 processor running at 16 Mhtz. It can take up to 8 Megs of RAM. It's got a 9.8" monochrome screen, a built in modem so you can plug it right into your phone jack at home, or at work, and it blows the competition outta the water when it runs on OS 7.5!"
To quote Fox Mulder, "The answers are out there." You just have to actually want to look for them!
You want to get America off foreign oil? Have the Secretary of Transportation announce the "Earnhardt Prize". Design a replacement engine for 80% of American vehicles that gets 100 MPG with the power of a V6. It doesn't run on gasoline and doesn't pollute.
The Prize? $10M - tax free.
I'm betting that by Labor Day 2012 we have a winner.