Problem Solving
June 23, 2004 - Week 40 - Problem Solving
BY DR. BRUNO J. KEITH
And the winner (on November 2) is _________________ Whoever declares our independence this coming July 4 like so: Either candidate for the Presidency can do this the obvious way, the inexpensive way & with the concurrent, almost instant, solution of all our internal difficulties. Our warlike incumbent can become our salvation in spite of himself this simple, most effective and rewarding way:
By executive order, he could offer from his warchest 25% pay for 25% of the cost of the first 100 million newly erected solar cells, solar collectors & solar batteries & ask state governments to equal the federal share, so that enterprising home owners, farmers and possessors of land may share the remainder of expenses with their power companies.
The like cost-sharing must be offered for 100 million windmills. State & Federal governments must share expenditures for 1000 more water turbines next to those already existing at our many dams. Proven inventors of less expensive, more productive & environmentally prettier turbines, wind motors & solar equipment should earn rewards up to $100 million, according to merit.
If our warm-hearted good earth can forget its pollution by fossil fuel, we can make towns over 20,000 inhabitants & big cities models of clean breathing space by disallowing the use of oil-dependent automobiles from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. For school & shopping needs, families could then use small beach-buggy-like cars with only an electric-battery-operated drive while a modest electric railway runs along mainstreets and to all essential public & private meeting places. The roofs of railway cars & its sides must be solar collections; likewise partitions to keep noise away from housing must gather solar power.
At all stations, huge underground parking spaces must be fitted out with electric plug-ins, so the batteries of cars can be recharged while their owners go about their business whether at day or night. That system can be expanded in all directions as soon as the years add ever newer & more efficient users of solar, wind & water power.
It is no great problem for some young genius to invent also a light if larger family transport using clean water for fuel. I remember how magnesium boride disassociates hydrogen from oxygen. Strong explosion - resistant plastics or light metals can lead back the reunited gases into the watertank, so that a small watertank needs no frequent refill. Can our government reward the certified inventor of such useful contraption with another $100 million?
Even if trucks, buses & SUVS run on water, the biggies shouldn't be allowed as murder weapons in the streets while children and innocent consumers want to be safe from shock, fear, real drunk or police races. Nothing big or fast allowed during daytime, please.
The great reward for each & all would be jobs, jobs & nothing but jobs & more peaceful pursuits. We wouldn't be afraid of Mexicans to fill possible vacancies. From untutored heads & hands to computer-driven minds everyone could & would participate in the new game of life, in the improvement of public manners & education. Within such planning & executing, all that can be done, & must be achieved, arises the real Wirtschaftswunder, based on the religion of the heart that unites all in place of dogmas of cults which divide us & all mankind.
We would no longer have to argue about a world's best health insurance for all humans & fearless doctors & greatest clinics & hospitals. We might even learn again to trust our fellow man & forego the need of spying on eachother. We would then love to protect Nature even if we don't expect the lion to associate with a lamb, and the rat, cockroach & mosquito need not be considered domestic animals.