dirty coal - clean & green future?, page-5

Dex

Rant..I think not,just plain commonsense.

The economist stated recently that twenty years ago,
North America,Europe and Japan produced almost all of
the world's science.They spent the most,published the
most and patented the most.

What they produced fed back into their industrial,
military and medical complexes to push forward
innovation,productivity,POWER,health and prosperity.

In 1990 they carried out more than 95% of the world's
research and development [R&D].By 2007 that figure was
76%.The United Nations Educational,Scientific and
Cultural Organization's [UNESCO] report paints a waning
West and a rising East and South,mirroring the economic
shifts going on in the wider world.

One measure of this is gross domestic expenditure on
R&D.In five years Asia's share of the total rose from
27% to 32%.The share of national wealth spent on R&D
is also useful.In 2007 Japan spent 3.4% of its GDP on
R&D,America 2.7%, the European Union collectively 1.8%
and China 1.4%.

China plans to push on to 2.5% and Obama would like to
nudge America up to 3%.China is on the verge of over-
taking both the U.S and the EU in the quantity of its
scientists.Each had roughly 1.5m researches out of a
global total of 7.2 m in 2007.

The number of scientists per million people remains
relatively low in China.India,second only to China in
the size of its population,has only a tenth as many
researches.

One indicator of prowess is how much a country's
researchers publish.

As an individual country,America still leads the world
by some distance.Yet America's share of world publications
at 28% in 2007,is slipping.In 2002 it was 31%.The EU's
collective share also fell,from 40% to 37%,whereas China's
has more than doubled to 10% and Brazil grew by 60%,from
1.7% of the world's output to 2.7%.

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Where is Queensland's R&D percentage ??...

Cougars re-ignition at Kingaroy would breath new life
into the Queensland Govt's ailing intellect.Anna Bligh
dangling the Nuclear carrot recently,is a desperate
attempt to be seen as "moving forward" in a sea of
absolute confusion over future power generation in
Queensland.

Perhaps Bligh needs to read Alex Klimenko's article
published on 24th June 2009 about the collective wisdom,
development and use of UCG...

"Unless a principally new source of energy is miraculously
discovered,mankind will have to burn more coal or curb
its energy appetites".....

Julia Gillard could wave the financial wand and create
by "quantitative easing"..a few billion to alleviate our
coming power chaos.Mr Klimenko and others could then
"update" their knowledge on UCG via Cougars contribution
and encourage the western world to think like Asia does,
before its too bloody late.

HM.