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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: axial who wrote (27687)	8/6/2008 2:36:12 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

At some point, oil will cost $500/bbl - and then, the cost of hauling fill for new dams, steel for transmission towers, concrete for new reactors and so on, begins to strain the capital resources of those who need new capacity. Oil won't get that expensive (esp. in real terms) over night, or in a year or two. It will become more expensive over time. As it becomes more expensive alternatives will make more sense and will be used more, its not like we will start when oil is $500/bbl. Letting the market adjust mostly by itself, will be slower than throwing around massive subsidies, but that's a feature not a bug. Slower is less expensive (even with the transportation cost going up, and even before considering time value of money), and its more likely to result in a superior result than a rushed, massively subsidized, crash effort. Technology gets better over time. Bad ideas can be weeded out by small pilot projects or even before they reach that level. Market discipline works better at weeding out bad ideas for energy production, than the political process. For so many reasons, relatively slow, and market based, is better than heavily subsidized and rushed.

To: axial who wrote (27687)	8/6/2008 2:42:03 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

One reason I've been having a bit of difficulty catching the rhythm of this discussion, despite its enlightening and enjoyable flow, is my constant awareness (obsession?) of the fact that no nation is an hermetically-sealed entity, especially when it comes to energy, communications and air & water quality, to name a just a few borderless quality considerations that come to mind. Consider international transportation, for one. To whose bottom line is jet fuel on international routes assigned? How about oceangoing freighters and tankers and luxury liners carrying containerized-goods, oil and passengers, respectively? And what of the multi-billion-dollar casinos, factories and industrial parks being erected by Western powers in emerging nations all over the globe, and, increasingly, by emerging powers who are themselves reaching beyond their own borders and doing the same, as well? Trans-border pipelines and electric grids just add to this complexity. The list is long. The kind of accounting leakage implied above may very well have been considered too slight to matter thirty years ago, but such is no longer the case (in real terms, despite its usually being glossed over in the actual accounting of these types of metrics) and stands to become even more pronounced with the passing of time. When and where does one draw the proverbial line in the sand? Or has that already been done? A system of international carbon credits begins to address this matter on some levels, but the latter won't do much to dispel these more fundamental debates over energy independence, whether total or otherwise. Thoughts? ------