Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-12-11 14:13:18 +0000, Huge said:

On 2007-12-11, Frank Erskine wrote:

Is it really just a question of payback? I thought the whole idea was
to save dwindling resources of gas and oil.

Oh, dear. The price of a commodity is information about the
availability of
that commodity, as well as the means of exchange. If oil/gas/WHY is so
cheap
that it isn't worth seeking alternatives, then it simply isn't worth
doing.

Obviously, in the long term, the price of fossil fuel will rise and
seeking
alternatives will become economic, at which point it will be done.

This is (one of the reasons) why markets are superior to command
economies; the
flow of information conveyed by the prices of things.

I was just on a flight lasting 3hrs and there was nothing in English to
read apart from today's copy of the Guardian.

Now I wouldn't normally give this rag house room let alone read it
because it is largely nonsense; however, there were several energy
related articles that caught my eye:

- Some nitwit in the leader section suggesting that the way to reduce
carbon emission would be to leave fossil fuel in the ground. He
didn't spell out the outcome, but one can figure that this is the only
way to drive up prices and hence eventually allow alternative energy to
pay.

- A discussion about the Chinese opening up yet more coal fired power
stations because they can't do anything else quickly enough to meet the
demands of their economy

- An article admitting that alternative energy generation over the next
two decades could not meet significant demand and correcting the
ministerial announcement from late last week

- Shell and BP quietly selling off their alternative energy assets
because they can't be made to pay in less than geological time.

Unusual for the Guardian to get the facts essentially correct..