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Strategies & Market Trends : Heinz Blasnik- Views You Can Use -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: EL KABONG!!! who wrote (2745)	6/26/2003 5:36:07 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4905

hi KJC, i think i mentioned the "exogenous shock" w/r/t peak oil, in reference to the lala-land idea of 1.3 billion Chinese becoming yuppies... By way of example, suppose I came up with some new invention tomorrow, that with a low cost retrofit, everyone in the world could run their cars efficiently and cleanly on simple tap water, with no environmental impacts or harmful by-products. well, suppose i became a mutant like in X-men 2. i could control the whole world and everybody in it like the Jean-Luc Picard dude, as long as there wasn't some other X-men dude causing me to become deluded. or what if somebody invented a technology so we could fly like Neo in the Matrix (or better yet, all get paid 15% of the gross like the actor)? there are a lot of what-ifs in the world... or suppose somebody invents a machine that turns water into ice at room temperature. everybody'd die. wait, Vonnegut already did that, called it Ice 9. by following the logic of the oil optimists, i could say that the chaos Ice 9 would cause shows how everybody in the world has a "vested interest" in the non-development of Ice 9. and then i could use this supposed vested interest as a pseudo-proof that Ice 9 will be invented anyway due to the triumph of humanity or some other compelling reason. Vonnegut said he met a crystallogist at a party and asked him if Ice 9 were possible. the scientist thought hard about it for a while and said: "Impossible". Vonnegut smartly kept his idea in the realm of humorous fiction. as for turning water into wine or gasoline or whatever: good luck. however, i suspect it may be more promising as the lead character in a work of fiction than in a patent application.

To: EL KABONG!!! who wrote (2745)	6/26/2003 5:53:31 PM
From: yard_man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4905

it's the thesis in the middle, I don't buy -- big oil and NG cos killing energy saving or innovative ideas ... No I think simple economics explains the lion's share of the reason no innovations have come along -- that's why I said you hit the nail on the head. Something that is economic in the energy arena will not be able to be stopped ... Change will be incremental, not because big execs pow-wow and slow stuff down -- but because there is no killer innovation or other source waiting in the wings that blows away fossil fuels.