On 17-Jul-06, at 1:07 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
On Mon, Jul 17, 2006 at 12:13:02PM +0100, Ashish Gulhati wrote:
Peak oil is the purest rubbish. Propaganda created, as usual, to
promote an
atmosphere of fear and put more power in the hands of tyrants.
No, it's classic economics. No one will commit massive funds
for infrastructure if the price is volatile.
By definition, if we're running low on energy, the price per unit is
going
to go up, dramatically. Plenty of profit there without state meddling.
If you look at how oil is made from oil shale
You mean, of course, only how it is currently made. New tech and
market pressures have this uncanny way of coming up with more
efficient and cheaper ways to make stuff, y'know.
Also, oil shale is just one example energy source (as is oil itself).
There are plenty of others.
I agree -- just expect the free market to deliver the goods.
You need to artificially (by regulations, taxes) fix the
For one, once you start "artificially" (i.e. coercively) start
"fixing" stuff,
that is no longer a "free" market in any sense. For another, it's
totally
unnecessary and wrong-headed.
Private companies are perfectly capable of looking into the future
far more realistically than the state, and of working on tech that will
give them a competitive edge many years in the future. Most major
tech progress so far has happened this way.
Another place where state comes handy (free market doesn't
do long-short R&D at all well) is sinking funds into new
sources, like synmethanol, biomass synfuels, fuel cells,
water electrolysis, electric vehicles, liquid hydrogen
jets, and similiar.
In (somebody's wrongheaded) theory, maybe. In (somebody's
wrongheaded) theory communism is really neat for the peasants,
too.
In practice, almost all useful new tech is privately invented. With
some notable exceptions, such as WMDs. In practice, the state with
too much looted cash is good for only, as you put it:
Of course, instead you've got porkbarrel, random wars,
etc.
Cheers
#!
