Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson makes a pointed observation here, but I wonder how true it is.
I grant that some of us need to be scientifically literate. Without that, our civilization could not keep up with things like vaccines against pandemics, while creating all other medical breakthroughs. we wouldn’t have effective anti-ballistic missiles, climate change mitigation solutions, a deeper understanding of the cosmos around us, and the entire ensemble of IT and communications technologies that make our lives ever more productive.
Keep in mind, however that anything of importance that’s happening in science in the 21st Century is happening at the outermost fringes of incredible levels of specificity. What I learned about physics in college 50 years ago no more qualifies me to understand theoretical physics today than it enables me to fly to the moon in my Prius.
Another thing I would grant is that the 99.999% of us who are not “scientifically literate” in any meaningful way should respect the value of science, and reject QAnon-style beliefs, e.g., the flat Earth, the notion that COVID is a government plot, that global warming is a hoax, that Bill Gates is trying to enslave the population, etc.
Renewable Energy
Explore Commercial Heat Pump Warranties: What Cyanergy Offers?
Renewable Energy
Handing the Keys to the Kingdom over to the Chinese
When I argue for environmental responsibility and the decarbonization of the grid, I often say:
I know there are people who believe, perhaps because this is what they’re told by Donald Trump, that climate change is a hoax. But are there people who don’t believe in cancer? In the importance of our country’s investing in the industry that is destined the dominate the 21st Century?
Trump will be gone soon. Maybe you and I will be gone (in a different sense) before the effects of this administration’s folly in the EV and cleantech industry are fully felt.
But it’s inevitable, unless we turn this around, and soon.
Renewable Energy
Small, Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs)
In preparation for my first book, “Renewable Energy – Facts and Fantasies,” I interviewed Ray Lane, then managing partner of Kleiner Perkins, one of the world’s great venture capital firms, who told me about his stance with his prospects, “You build the first one. I’ll invest in the next 20. Then we’ll take the thing public and use that cash to build the next 5000.”
I’m 99+% sure that the “first one” of these will never be built, i,e., installing these VAWTs at the base of functioning wind farms. The concept is asinine, as it defies the laws of fluid dynamics.

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