PG reader Steve writes:

I studied physics a long time ago, probably about the same time Dr. Chu was doing his undergrad stuff. I don’t think the physics has changed much since then, and Chu does know his physics. He euphemistically talks of breakthroughs he knows just aren’t there. Spend $8 million, $8 billion, $8 trillion, it won’t matter. However, with that kind of money I’m sure someone will be able to purchase a consensus among a big enough group of academics claiming as fact that it will indeed be possible to rewrite the second law of thermodynamics, and that it will just be a matter of a few more years and a few (hundred?) billion more dollars for the research.

I was at an investing conference where one of the panelists basically said: all this talk about electric cars and solar panels and such is great, but what we’re talking about here is “a 50-year solution, not a five-year one.”

Just in time for Malia Obama’s inauguration.