Future Global Energy Prosperity: The Terawatt Challenge

Recently, I watched a humorous news segment on CNN about the U.S. election, specifically about the Blue States and Red States. In this piece, CNN correspondent Jeanne Moos was touring New York City, interviewing people in downtown Manhattan. Many of them felt rather dis-enfranchised from the rest of the country, while some actually felt much more affinity for Canada than for what the United States seems to have become for them. After the interviews, up popped this map of the North American continent, with all the Blue States in blue, all the Red States in red, and all of Canada in blue. Written across the top of Canada was " The United States of Canada " and written across the red section of the United States, it said, " Jesusland. " It was funny, of course, but it also had a serious side. I have just finished reading a book called The Faith of George W. Bush by Stephen Mansfield (Strang Communications/Penguin Group, New York, 2003). I found it to be an excellent book, and I recommend it for those who want to gain some insight into why the folks in Jesusland voted for this man, and to learn about what motivates him. " A Charge to Keep " Relative to that, about a year ago I was in the Oval Office, along with a number of other people, when President Bush signed the nanotechnology bill. Most of us expected the event to be something like a five-minute photo-op—sign the bill, shake hands, and leave. Instead, the door closed and for about half an hour the president chatted with us. So here was my great opportunity to talk to the president, and I could not think of a thing to say! But something else noteworthy happened. As Mr. Bush walked around the Oval Office, pointing out items of interest, he focused on a painting by W.H.D. Koerner, titled A Charge to Keep, and remarked that he had a personal connection to this painting. The subject of the work is a lone horseman riding western saddle up over a difficult hill, probably someplace out in Texas. The horseman is actually a Methodist circuit rider, and the whole notion is that this rider is on a mission to go out and do good work, specifically , to spread religion and belief in God across the early Western frontier. The more I think …