This Week's Clue: Winning The War Against Oil

Following is the essay you can designate as Volume 10, Number 33  of This Week's Clue, based on the e-mail newsletter I have produced since March, 1997. It would be the issue of August 20.

Enjoy.

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There is only one way to win the War Against Oil.

Unleash Moore's Law.

The benefits of Moore's Law have been imprisoned for five years now, due to deliberate government policies aimed at protecting monopolies.

You can argue about the why all day. The facts are crystal clear.

• Spectrum has been sold to Bell companies that hoard it, and charge for each action you take using it.
• The phone network is a set of local monopolies, most controlled by two companies. There is no competition.
• The Internet backbone has become the same way, as the duopolists have purchased MCI and the old AT&T.
• Cable is also a series of local monopolies, led by Comcast.

The plain fact is that consumers have no choice in Internet service. As a result these companies have had their way with us. Despite the fact that DWDM makes moving data interstate ever-cheaper, prices remain high. WiFi backhaul is restricted, making the new standards of this decade, 802.11g and 802.11n, worthless. Wired bandwidth is sold as TV, and only TV. ADSL and cable modem speeds are stuck in the 20th century.

Right now there is plenty of Internet bandwidth for everyone if it were only unleashed. Ordinary copper phone lines can run at 8 MBps. Wireless speeds can run at 100 Mbps and more. Fiber is so abundant most of it is unlit.

This government-driven constriction on Moore's Law has serious knock-on effects.

• There is no innovation in wireless. The iPhone has been a disaster for users.
• Video windows remain tiny, and most video files are very short.
• PCs are no different than they were 8 years ago, and prices are falling.

The whole tech sector is impacted when Moore's Law is halted by government. All types of innovation -- in hardware, chips, software and services -- slows to a crawl. With a corresponding reduction in economic growth.

Now, with The War Against Oil looming as an absolute imperative, however, the stakes have risen. They are now life-and-death.

Because progress has been slowed in this decade, we have a whole host of Cassandras getting away with saying, it's too late, we can't afford this, let's not do anything. Groups like the coal industry's Balanced Energy are committing treason, not just against this country but against all mankind.

Yet their arguments seem compelling. Ethanol is a bad idea. Today's windmills are eyesores. Solar panels aren't efficient enough to be of much use. And until we can produce electricity far in excess to the needs of the present grid, hydrogen is impossible.

The answer is innovation. Despite everything, innovators are working hard. I have no idea whether Fred Sundermann's underwater turbine (above) makes sense or not. I do know we need to find out. The same is true with all sorts of other ideas.

But it takes faster networking to make all this happen. Fast, cheap networks which allow ordinary people like Sundermann to model their ideas, in design and in action. Fast cheap networks which make capital more accessible. Fast cheap networks that get more people involved in innovation, and that let everyone get education through a firehose if they want, free.

Without fast, cheap networks only well-paid academic researchers like Mike Wong (right) can innovate. We need more than that. We need to stimulate and empower a whole generation for the task at hand. 

Unleashing Moore's Law makes it all possible. Faster networks will bring demand for faster servers, faster clients, and faster handheld devices. Faster networks will create remote modeling services, engineering as SaaS, and innovation unimagined today.

Stuff like Facebook and Myspace and YouTube is fun. But these are video games. These are minor tweaks to existing solutions. All they do is prove there is demand for innovation. They remain restricted in what they can do like everything else.

Here is what we need to do to Win the War Against Oil:

1. Liberate spectrum. More unlicensed frequencies defined by equipment.
    
2. Liberate the wires. Break up the Bells.
3. Demand competition among all carriers.

These are relatively simple steps that could be taken right now, if our government were willing. Maybe, if you're reading this outside the U.S. you can convince your government to take them, and get a jump on us.

Beyond this we need new priorities. Support for research. Support for education. Support for science. This starts with more attention paid to people like Dean Kamen in the schools,  and less attention paid to athletes, entertainers, politicians and anyone who makes their living on TV.

We need new heroes, new priorities, and a new focus on the future, which is coming at us like an onrushing train. Anyone who protests, whether they do it in the name of God, or mammon, or political inertia, must become our enemy. Lud must be driven out of the marketplace of ideas.

Time is short and growing shorter.  A new generation must rise, and be given power. The Greatest Generation was followed in America by the Greediest Generation. They must be cast out.

That's all it takes to win the War Against Oil. Demand innovation with every fiber of your being. Make it your highest political goal, your highest economic goal, and your highest social goal. Call out those who, for any reason, seek to resist science, engineering and progress.

Your life is on the line.