A lot of those are bunk, but it is a fact that while business talks a good talk about innovation and competition it all comes a far second to maximising profit and maintaining the status quo.
THE ORIGINAL ELECTRIC CAR: UNPLUGGED - In my view it was both an R&D cost issue and an energy cost issue. Same thing has been happening for years with alternative fuels. The previous generation started using propane, natural gas, vegetable oils and whatever else when gas prices get high. then when gas prices drop, funding for these other things disappears as does the people who want them. If products can't reach economies of scale, they fail. Though, oil money certainly played their part(s).
THE DEATH OF THE AMERICAN STREETCAR - Public transportation..a social program that allows for social mobility? There is a pretty obvious guess as to who killed that one.
THE 99-MPG CAR - the Volkswagen lupo special-edition" more like 78 mpg (good enough for me). It is a real product that was available with a lot of caveats.
FREE ENERGY - Just no, sorry. There may have been some theories hypothesis (or promises), does not mean they were real, are real or can be real. I like free stuff myself. When I was in elementary school there was something of a popular insult. It was "your so stupid, you'd pay for bottled water". Stopped hearing that one by high school. Still drank from tap cuz I've always been cheap.
MIRACLE CANCER CURE - No opinion. Dammit Jim, I'm not a doctor
WATER-POWERED VEHICLES - That's a lot of water pressure required. Remind me, how much does water compress? where's the tank? not sure what to make of this one. don't see info. just like unicorns!
CHRONOVISOR - LMFAO
RIFE DEVICES - Okay, maybe. But if he thought cancer was a virus and not a mutation, I think it safe to assume that he wasn't entirely sure what he was doing. Even more so since the rest of the people in the world at that time(and many now), were trying to wrap their heads around Einsteins theories(right and wrong ones). So, idk what to say, hindsight is 20/20 i guess
.CLOUDBUSTER - bad idea. even though it's different See China's recent, and I believe stopped, doings to manipulate weather. China's found it to be pretty disastrous. Properties/farmers would want more and more rain, change the type of chops they grow to more profitable one, and to hell with the people after them. Plus increasing the sizes of deserts down the line, is a pretty obvious crap move from a larger picture perspective. So of course some people still want to do it.
OVERUNITY GENERATOR - YAY mythbusters covered that one!
COLD/HOT FUSHION - Actually people are still working in this. they never stopped. guess it's pretty hard to do ;/
There has been some success too, it's just nowhere near ready yet.
MAGNETOFUNK AND HIMMELKOMPASS - I hope not. I like the magnetic field the way it is. It would have to affect a pretty large area . That really wouldn't stop people at night who can identify the star polaris, which resides directly(pretty much) above the north pole. But yeah, no idea.
A SAFER CIGARETTE - hmmm, well...we know that's true in part, and e-cigarettes are having their own problems now... I'll bite and say sure. Not going to look into it...it's in the past with the same bad guys.
TENS - no idea
THE PHOEBUS CARTEL - rich people wanting monopolies. see comcast aol time warner for more current revelations.
THE CORAL CASTLE - He did it for kicks so people would talk crazy.
HEMP BIO-FUEL - Fuel, no. better than corn...sure. the concept of farming fuel is idiotic to begin with. if people were growing hemp for fuel, it would have the same issues. the data is cherry picked. what happens when you add the use of tractors and fertilizers to grow more hemp? and taking into account diesel to ship your hemp fuel by truck around the country? pretty much the same thing. they both suck cause your still burning fuel. I can believe it's better than corn, but to me it's still not good enough.
According to the several letters I sent to companies to fund the products research, a self-propelled electromagnetic generator "wouldn't be viable with today's technology".
Yeah, the same technology that I based off those flashlights that you shake to charge the battery.
Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that in the case of a rupture, it would become a MAC, and even if it didn't break it would create enough of a magnetic field oscillation that it might ignite the atmosphere, but those risks must be mentioned.
In a TV program a Solar Energy scientist said that Solar Plants (at their best) are just twice as expensive as Coal Plants to produce the same amount of energy. But because of this they're not popular and widely used.