If we spent $100 billion a year on alternative fuel and energy research, what could we achieve?

Question

This is approximatly how much we spend each year in Iraq currently.

Answer 1

"NOTHING" because it won't be use for alternative fuel but for the friend of my friend condition. Just the paperwork will show the word alternative fuel.. Just don't forget that alternative energy is not in the mind of some corporation but in someone basement. see: www.santanaeffect.com and learn about this subject.

Answer 2

wow it really has jumped up that much? last year I could have sworn it was estimated at a billion a week or something like that, either way I don't think we are spending all that money in Iraq or on our troops for that matter, I think it is lining the pockets of greedy politicians and government officials, but don't worry, it will eventually come to that, after they have used up this resource completely and they will have the monopoly on the next one as well, whatever it is

Answer 3

We could probably turn most of the Dakotas into wind farms, which is about the same as, something like, 6 nuclear power plants.  We could also figure out an Eco way to use tidal energy.  I read somewhere that if we used tidal dams for 3% of the East coast, we could close 2 nuclear power plants.

Answer 4

well it seems like now even with the few billions invested in alternative powered cars we have made substantial progress, so increasing this by a factor of 10+ should have a great result. we could probably design a car that would run on water or air, and then we could even bring our country out from debt by marketing this car to other countries.

Answer 5

A car that doesn't pollute , it would cost so much you would need to take a second mortgage on your house to afford :))

Answer 6

Then we would have no money left for our Iraq operations.   Probably a good thing.  I'm guessing we would achieve some amazing advances in car efficiency and better solar technology.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of the country's energy needs is in the power plants, not in the vehicles.  I just don't see $100billion/year enough to get us off of our dependency on oil and coal for our electricity.  

(My opinion:  go nuclear.  If we replaced all coal and oil-fired power plants with nuclear, our carbon dioxide footprint would be reduced an enormous amount)

Answer 7

Spending government money on this kind of research seems to just lead to new ways to stall, and to secretly line the oil companies' pockets. The best alternative fuel vehicles seem to be coming from private research. Examples:

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http://zapworld.com/zapworld.aspx?id=456...

http://phoenixmotorcars.com/models/fleet...

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The ZAP-X electric car sports 644 horsepower - 155mph top speed. It travels 350 miles on a charge - its batteries charge in only 10 minutes. And the batteries will last 10 to 20 years. The Phoenix EV uses the same battery technology, and is being sold and built right now for fleet use.

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What we need is for the government and oil companies to get out of the way, and let these vehicles on the roads.

Answer 8

We could raise the tax credit on hybrids by $500 each, selling an extra 100,000 cars a year for only 50 million.  Then you still have 99.95 billion to spend in Iraq, yet 100,000 more hybrids on the road a year over 5 years would reduce demand for oil more than what we import from Iraq.  Then we could spend the extra 99.9 billion on education or something  better than military security of Middle East Oil.  Buy a hybrid!