[Please respond to Vortex!] Edmund Storms wrote:
>> 2. To discourage the development of alternative energy source. >> >> See the book "The Prize" for details. > >Yes, these are the arguments of the past. The question is do they still >apply. No, they do not, because there is now a permanent, worldwide shortage of oil. The problem can only be fixed the way the whale oil shortage was fixed, by finding a replacement resource. >>> After all, this would mean you would also get less selling to China . > >That is exactly my point. If they lower the price to help Bush, they >also get less from China. China is not hurting and would gladly pay the >price. Yup. Good point. >> and sell it as quickly as they can, before someone invents a cheaper >> alternative. Sooner or later, it will be worth nothing. > >Yes, eventually this will be true, but not in the life time of anyone >living today. In spite of a wish for a better attitude, the present >energy industries will fight any effort to change the present source of >energy at every turn. This reminds me of what businessmen said back in 1980: IBM will always dominate the computer industry, and Mother Bell will always dominate the phone business. They thought of IBM as a force of nature. They said that even the Justice Dept. anti-trust lawsuits could not hurt these two behemoths, so what chance do other business have? By the year 2000, IBM was a shell of its former self, and AT&T was gone. You may be right that "oil will not be replaced in the life time of anyone living today" but if history is any guide, it may also be replaced by 2015. Change sometimes moves though industry much faster than people anticipate. Oil based transportation is one of the obsolete industries on record. It was overdue for a change back in 1960. It has "vulnerable" written all over it. If GM does not start making hybrid cars it will be bankrupt in a few years. Energy industries and the like are powerful and wealthy, but they can be defeated by market forces or the public. They can be defeated overnight, and bankrupted in a few years. Back in 1900 the railroads owned the Congress and more or less ran the nation to their own advantage. People said they were all-powerful and impossible to control Then in 1908 Ford began manufacturing the Model T and by the late 1920s every railroad was on the skids. Their political power evaporated. They never recovered. If someone invents a better battery today, and Toyota, Mitsubishi or the Chinese Cherry automobile company starts selling viable electric cars, the oil industry will be defunct in 5 or 10 years. The Chinese plan to start selling $6,000 automobiles in the U.S. If they sell electric cars and hybrids for one-third the cost of Ford and GM cars, how long do you suppose Ford and GM will survive? They will gone as quickly as Data General and DEC vanished after personal computers were introduced. I have some books of predictions from the late 19th century. People then thought we would still be using sailing ships in the year 2000, and horse transportation, and a host of other things that were gone by 1920. They also predicted that race war was inevitable and that all U.S. native Americans and black people would be killed off by the year 2000. This kind of prediction was printed in a matter-of-fact way in major newspapers back then. It wasn't pessimistic; people thought that killing other races was a good idea, just as they thought we should exterminate the buffalo. They said it would improve the nation. H. G. Wells and many other prominent people advocated race genocide. People tend to make dire predictions about the future, and to expect the worst, or the most dramatic outcome. We did not commit genocide after all, and perhaps now, in this era, we will avoid a depression and global warming and the other horrible things we fear. Perhaps in 20 years we will make oil obsolete, even without cold fusion. Technically this would not be difficult. I am sure that we can avoid these things, if only we have the will and the wisdom to act. Our ancestors were wise enough to stop the Indian wars after Wounded Knee, and to stop killing off buffalo and whales, so maybe we will also act wisely. - Jed
