Reply To: Brain: dualism of consciousness.

[zapkitty]

dennisp wrote:
This is one reason I think it makes sense to use FF to power technologies that make hydrocarbon fuels from CO2. Instead of putting the oil companies out of business with electric cars, we give them a way to stay in business despite “peak oil.”

… and we should subsidize the pollution and inefficiency of hydrocarbon fuels at great expense to the public and the public health and welfare just so the <1% can maintain their grip on power?

In the hope that they might deign to allow us to have a few of the benefits of aneutronic fusion… but only on their terms?

dennisp wrote: We still use their refineries, pipelines, and gas stations. The only people out of business are the ones who do nothing but pump oil out of the ground (or mine coal).

They are already very addicted to corporate welfare and this plan won’t help them with their problem. The <1% literally pay money to encourage culture war shrieking about "the welfare state" while blithely ignoring the fact that their own corporate footstools are always eyebrow-deep in the government trough.

And there is the 10,000,000,000 ton elephant in the room: CO2

Not only will new emissions need to be cut but total CO2 content is going to have to be driven down sharply just to mitigate the damage already underway and the deaths and disruptions that will result from it. While coal is the larger part of it, petroleum fuels will have to go as well.

Even just sustaining the petroleum-based part of the CO2 load isn’t an option we can afford anymore.