You are right, there are encouraging developments.
Now look how long it has taken---fully 30 years since the last oil shock.
By contrast, developing, building, deploying the entire internet infrastructure on a global scale took about 5 years.
The difference?
$$$$$$$$---economic incentive.
Each of the examples you noted show that the technologic hurdles are not at all insurmountable, but there is a problem, the same one that the deployment of the internet faced: practical issues, and economy of scale.
Again, these are solvable, no question in my mind. Will they be? No. Not unless there is incentive to do so.
I don't know the exact figures... but I believe something like 40% of our petroleum usage is for cars and trucks and so forth. So another problem is replacing other petroleum products and uses with non-petroleum sources. All this will take time, committment, and money, and the incentive is just not there.
But it sounds like you believe there is no reason to tap the oil reserves, since we can make synthetic oil, and since we have technologies that can replace the internal combustion engine. That being the case, the arguments about national security are a red herring, and I agree with you.
T |
