Scientific methods.

[davywavy]

You might not have heard of Augustus the Strong. He was Elector of Saxony (and later King of Poland and Duke of Lithuania) in the late 16 and early 1700's. His nickname was due to his impressive physical strength - he liked to show off by breaking horseshoes with his bare hands, and he was noted for his ability at the sport of fox-tossing (in which, yes, you grab a fox and hurl it as high in the air as you possibly can, with unfortunate consequences for the fox when it lands. I suppose anything passed for entertainment before television). Augustus was also quite incredibly rich and was desperate to increase his wealth further by using alchemy to turn base metal into gold.
Perhaps ironically, he spent a large slice of his fortune trying achieve this goal and, to his dying day, believed that magically creating more gold was possible and he would succeed if he only spent a little more money on researching it.

Anyway, I couldn't help but notice yesterday that Peter Tatchell (of all people) was being quoted as saying that the only reason tidal energy systems aren't economically viable is because not enough public money has been spent on research.

For some reason that reminded me of Augustus. Can't think why.

Comments

[will-sample.livejournal.com]

We can loan you our Caligula to perform drone strikes on the surf.....

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

I don't know exactly what his claim was, but there's the shadow of a legitimate point behind it. A lot of basic research that's too nascent or obscure to yield immediate commercial benefits often has to be funded publicly. Tidal energy was prematurely declared non-viable in the 1970s, resulting in widespread lack of further research into it.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'm more suggesting that "if we spend more on this research it will deliver the results we want" runs contrary to how the scientific method works. It might, it might not, but the result is not guaranteed.

[(Anonymous)]

Tidal power makes sense on paper with only 1 duff assumption - that the turbine will last 25 years without expensive maintenance and will operate at full power during that period.

Only they don't. Yet another subsidy vacuum I'm afraid.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Knowing a chap in the tidal power development trade, as I understand it, it goes something like this:

1. we have a product which theoretically should be a real money-spinner. All our projections and tests shows a positive output of energy and cash... but it will cost £10 mil to get it tested.

2. Government grants are not available for that level of expenditure and you can't double them up.

3. Why invest privately in something that costs that much to test when 'proven' (if less efficient) green power sources are available and benefit from all the same government/tax benefits as any other green power? A £5mil investment might net you a patentable advantage in existing green energy.

The issue appears not to be that more money needs to be spent to get a different result, but that the experiments are more expensive than the green power research system is set up to handle and presents an unreasonably large risk to investors