Generosity, Challenges, Pitfalls, or Opportunities

This is not a political statement, but since it involves people, some may consider the impact of this discussion to be political.

Let's all take a deep breath, and think about the world we find before us, all around us.

What a wealth of resources the Earth provides, given we do not lack the motivation, drive, and energy to go seek the resources, gather them, harvest them, and nurture them if need be to the final product.

Materials science has never been more advanced than right now, and this field is rapidly moving forward with noticed milestones almost every day, clearly every week. The applications for this covers the full spectrum of mankind's use of materials, both peaceful, and non-peaceful.

Conversion of energy to electric power has never, ever had so many options to choose from, each with its own merits, some drawbacks, but none with insurmountable issues. Not a single one. I ask you now, how determined are we in the engineering community to make the best technology available in the marketplace. I am sure I am about to hear about market forces preventing this or that disruptive energy technology from coming in and sweeping the competition from the field. It really takes a series of events, just like in Henry Ford's day. ICE was just being explored well. Next, there was horrible stuff left over from making kerosine, (we call it gasoline now, not sure it even had a name back then, and was mostly just being poured out). Somewhere in this time frame came the use of carbon black to make rubber last longer (less wear). The list of key developments that led to the automobile revolution is not short, but it is not that long.

If we look at the horizon now, there are advances in nuclear reactor design (new is old is new once again, and yesterday's waste could well be tomorrow's fuel), modular reactor designs may finally make nuclear fission more competitive in the market, solar keeps improving, costs coming down, wind energy sector is just exploding here in West Texas, yet we keep finding more and better natural gas wells. America is so doggone blessed, we really might get "tired of winning".

But right now we have another challenge right under our very nose. The 4th largest city in America is in the stranglehold of the vast flooding left over from the category 4 Harvey overloading of the entire SE Texas corridor with up to 50" of rain. Not to mention the levees are overflowing, and bayous are way past full, and literally tens of thousands of good folks are out of their homes. What will be our answer?

I see us resting on the edge of making a breakthrough in handling of storm surges, flood zone engineering, inland water pumping, and many other ideas that have merely sat on back burners for far too long. Let's pull out those plans, put Texans, and Americans back to work (who cares what party or union you do or don't belong to right now). We got stuff to do. Either lead (and they are), follow (and we are), or get out of the way (we did - and the Cajun Navy came right on through).

This isn't the first or last time the Louisianians came to save Texas. I am sure Santa Ana remembers something about that as well. It won't be the last time, and we Texans will not forget your loyalty, service, and help in time of trouble, we will be there for you always.

We look forward down the paths we have chosen, seeing generosity, challenges, pitfalls (yes we see them and can avoid), and the Golden Opportunities to come out far better, far stronger, and far wiser, I hope.