A New Role for the Government??

The fiscal conservative in me says the government has no role whatsoever in matters of technology. The pragmatist in me believes otherwise. Time has proven that federal highways, funded by gasoline and other such taxes, are more efficient than coast to coast toll roads. Thus, there is justification for government funding of new highway technologies. Government funding of new weapons technology and weapons research is practically mandatory, unless you want our arms manufacturers selling to the highest bidder, and that high bidder not always being the US. How would you have liked some manufacturer developing the atomic bomb, then selling it to Germany or Japan? Of course, by funding the research, you control what happens with it, and can even influence the direction of the research.

That being said, what is government’s role in space technology? The entire NASA program, up through Apollo-Soyuz was to beat the Soviets to the moon and prove America’s superiority. Once that was accomplished, NASA became a n organization without a mission. The shuttle was created to get to the space station, the space station was a place for the shuttle to go. Promises of technological benefits from micro-gravity experiments still ring hollow. Now with the new race to Mars and the Moon, be prepared for even more hollow promises.

The issue I find most interesting when it comes to government funded technology is in the field of energy. Other nations, most notably France, have shown that government controlled nuclear power generation can be safe, efficient and cost effective. They rely on standardization, uniformity of training and constant re-certification. They have perfected fuel re-processing, which minimizes nuclear waste. The hodge-podge of manufacturers in the US, the incompatibility between different reactor types, and the pressure of competition all contributed to the high costs associated with nuclear power in the US.

Besides nuclear based energy sources, is there a role for the US government in energy development? Unfortunately (that damn laissez faire guy is complaining again), the answer is yes. We still use way too much petroleum for transportation. Yes, we use it for heating also, but a transition to cheap nuclear electricity would allow a transition to electric heat. It’s transportation where oil is used. If the US government took the CAFÉ standards, and steadily increased them to 100 miles per gallon, or limited emissions to near zero, it would force internal combustion engines to a level of efficiency that is currently unattainable with conventional technologies. Our dependency on foreign oil could crumble in a matter of years, and with that, Islamic fundamentalism could go the way of the KKK, a shameful blot, but powerless. I’m still thinking this through a bit, more to follow…