The Apollo Moon Project This Time for Green Energy Development

Filed in archive Base Effort on August 12, 2006

According Sir Martin Rees, president of the British Royal Society, the most prestigious scientific institute, a program with the single-minded commitment such as that of the US Apollo program is needed to address the expected 50% rise in energy needs and the 25% increase in Carbon Dioxide emissions in the next 25 years. Professor Rees believes that an exploration of alternative energy sources with heightened tenacity is needed. What will be the cost of this aggressive position? Professor Rees indicated at least 10 times of the funding requirement that goes into nuclear fusion research, about 15 Billion Us Dollars a year!

Sir Martin says "The Apollo project, like the Manhattan project, is an example where a goal was given a high priority and showed things can be done much more rapidly than would have happened in the normal course of events. The scale of funds needed is small in proportion to the scale of the problem and the trillions of dollars now being spent on energy. A carbon tax on companies generating the most greenhouse gas could be used to fund the project. "Private companies themselves won't provide an adequate research effort even for technologies that may turn out to be the most important ones, because they're still furthest from market."

Finally, Sir Martin Rees gives everybody a chance to participate by saying, "We know what is happening to the climate and we need a concerted sharing of the problem throughout the whole of industry. Why should it be borne wholly by government when there are these companies making huge profits out of all of us?"
I agree fully. Do you?