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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solid who wrote (10179)	1/15/2001 1:32:21 AM
From: axial	Respond to of 12823

Hi, Solid - Thanks for the article; it was a good read, with some perceptive comments. Actually the whole discussion about energy started over at the NFCTF, here - Message 15082831 - and then did a bit of thread-hopping. I posted on energy, in part, because there is a strange parallel to some upstream posts by Frank, on the question of fiber glut. Frank made the point that one may well be sitting next door, so to speak, to all the fiber one could need: but that possibility was no guarantee that one could use it. In the midst of plenty, one may have nothing. Despite the posts that say there is ample fossil fuel to be recovered, I am unconvinced that they are all susceptible of recovery. Shale deposits are easily recoverable, when the energy required comes at $20 or $30 a barrel. The only variables then are the lead time to install the recovery plants, and the infrastructure to get it to refineries and consumers. Ah, but when oil is @100/bbl, they say, it's cost effective. Voila! Not so fast. The underlying assumption here is that economies and production, the whole Gross National Product, have continued to keep pace, and wages with it, as the price of energy escalates. Well, energy equals work, when it is used. When the cost for that "work" begins to exceed the ability of the customer to pay for it, you begin to experience contraction. Right now, the world has lots of cheap 'labor'. But when, to draw on the shale banks example again, the energy 'labor' cost is $100/bbl - the amount of capital resources you need to develop and use them has more than tripled: more likely, quadrupled or quintupled. At some point, the ability of the 'customer' to pay for that development begins to fail. The demand on a country's resources, in terms of capex and opex, increases wildly. IMO, a whole lot of people have not thought this thing out. Anyway, I continue to believe that we should develop a continental energy strategy, a strategy to minimize the effects of spot shortages, and to fund a comprehensive study of energy. That study should rival the human genome study in its completeness. I believe we are making serious errors in our thinking. I'll append a link, on the Third Oil Shock, that I read last year. It is a little dated, but still holds true. I highly recommend it: it is a literate and detailed examination of many of the current problems, and the conclusions are none too pretty, though not immediately disastrous. But examination of the statistics on what a $50/bbl price means, and by extension, $100/bbl, gives pause for thought. iie.com Regards, Jim