infrastructuur: waarin

Ritholtz vroeg om commentaar waarin de VS zou moeten investeren, in welke infrastructuur.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09/crowd-query-infrastructure-spending/#comments

wat noemde men?
1.kerncentrales
2. onderwijs, R&D, vooral in groene zaken
3. snel internet
4. snelle en langzame treinen

verder
herstel bruggen, wegen, oude infrastructuur
ontginning zeldzame metalen
AAA+ universiteiten
stadsvernieuwing
water
batterijen
elektrische auto's
auto's op gas
ruimtevaart
Melkert banen

Ambiance Says:

September 2nd, 2010 at 10:28 pm
- Energy storage: This is the key hurdle to overcome for both renewables and electric vehicles. Put money into research of high temperature fuel cells, new battery technologies and super capacitors. Make a big push for the creation of a room temperature super conductor.

- Cross country high speed rail: I agree that a lot of small highspeed rail projects are overly expensive and benefit a select few people. What could bring costs down and help the nation as a whole is a dedicated push to true high speed cross country rail system built. Connect some major cities (St. Louis, D.C, NY, LA, Seattle) and then expand routes from there. The big challenge is getting the backbone of the system built.

- Water: This is especially bad in the Southwest (putting millions of people in arid brushland, was a bad choice logistically). Affordable desalinization should be a national priority.

- Light rail improvement: Just improving basic metro systems would go a long way, thankfully part of the stimulus money used in Northern Virginia went to expand the D.C metro system through Tyson’s corner and down to Dulles, this is a good investment of money that will reduce highway congestion and improve commerce in the region.

- Recycling innovation: I think this is a big one, we should be making bigger pushes to scavenge more materials out waste or garbage. There are some very promising technologies out there that could provide a relatively cost effective way to retrieve oil from a lot of waste materials (especially plastics). Likewise we could do a lot more to process sewage better and improve many coastal areas in the process.

- Agricultural renovation: We need to stop subsidizing corn industry products that are flat out unhealthy and of little to no value to actually feed people or animals. Do not subsidize corn production that goes into HFCS period, cheap sugar has lowered the quality of our food and causes a myriad of other health issues. Stop feeding corn byproducts to cows, they can’t properly digest and it leads to lower quality beef. We’d be in a much better position as a nation without this focus on cheap, low quality food. Redirect agricultural investment away from corn products towards hay and grasses. Break up the financing and non-disclosure setups many large food processors have developed with farmers, it’s the same kind of perpetual debt scheme that has been used many times in the past to keep people under thumb.

- Renewed nuclear push: I’d also say push for thorium and TWR nuclear research. It’s a solution that would not only benefit baseload electrical production, but one that would also make putting outposts in space much easier and cheaper.

- A push for Mars: Robert Zubrin has already done a lot of the footwork that proves this can be done in a cost effective manner. Right now NASA has largely lost it’s spirit of adventure and too overly focused on political implications. Strapping yourself into a rocket will always be relatively dangerous until the technology is perfected. Publicly we aren’t putting much money into good reusable launch systems (we’re losing the shuttle in favor of rockets again…). I don’t think many people have considered the implications of not having a good orbital system for experimentation and servicing satellites. Think about how much harder and expensive it’s going to do anything of merit once the ISS meets the end of it’s service life. We’ve been slowly sliding backwards in manned space exploration for decades now. Compared to the money we waste on wars and misguided subsidization a new shuttle system would be a paltry expense with some real chance for long term ROI. Companies like Lockheed can do more than build bombers, they can also design a new generation of space faring craft.