At 10:33 22/12/02 -0600, Bruce Leier wrote: <<<< Harry, I do not know of any energy technology that did not get its start and/or a big boost through subsidies of some kind. Oil certainly did. And nuclear really did, too. Do you say those subsidies were "bad"? Or is it only new subsidies that are "bad"? What has changed other than who are the economic royalists? WWHGsay? >>>>
Oil certainly did not get a start through government subsidies. In the modern era, it began with a group of private investors in late 1854 who engaged a brilliant Yale chemist, Prof Silliman, to look into the properties of the black stuff which oozed out of the ground in many places. Once Silliman's report was written, the group raised the money and the first oil company was founded -- the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. All without a cent of government subsidy. The nuclear industry has certainly required vast government subsidies because it has been a hopelessly uneconomic proposition from the start. In terms of ongoing costs it may, in fact, become economic in a decade or two for a brief period as oil and gas prices start to rise but it would still need vast government subsidies because private investors can never afford to cover the costs of cleaning up afterwards. The privatised nuclear industry in the UK, launched without having to pay a penny towards its original development costs, has recently gone bankrupt for the second time. And it will continue likewise as long as it operates. Only second and third-rate chemists and engineers commit themselves to a career in the nuclear energy industry. Keith Hudson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://scribe.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
