Five Dollar Gas

Excellent post, Paul. I suspect that the lack of value you mentioned will
reverse with the onset of higher oil prices. As you mentioned, it is not a
renewable resource, and demand is most definitely increasing at a very quick
rate. So, there will be much more incentive for alternative solutions in the
intermediate future.

Harkening back to days of yore and the Tango/Fernhout battles on distributed
energy: I drew the conclusion that renewable sources are not nearly capable
of supplanting the dependence on fossil fuels now, and even less so in the
future when demands are vastly increased. Radical new solutions are needed
to solve the problem, and I fear that whenever that word is used to describe
situations and environments, attendant social problems arise quickly, i.e.,
conflict. I suppose that we will see quite a bit of that before real answers
to the energy quandry are reached.

I found your mention of the 'subsidization' of the energy issues an
interesting perspective, and one that I hadn't really thought of. However,
though I regard your point about governmental regulation as valid, I still
don't believe that we will see anything much beyond what is already being
done, mostly because 'ramping' up governmental involvement has the
paradoxical effect of increasing its inefficiency and undesirable side
effects.

So, $5 dollar gallons of gas should produce all kinds of motivation to come
up with greater efficiencies, more use of renewable and alternatives, and
possibly bold and innovative new technologies or applications of the old.
IMHO, price will drive the solution. I just hope it is fast enough to avoid
most of the problems.

Val