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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6022)	3/12/2009 7:18:28 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Should we invest big bucks adopting alternatives NOW BEFORE those future technological advances have been made that we can count on to make alternatives more economical? Why? If those tech advancements can be counted on, wouldn't it be more sensible to wait till they've occurred to invest our capital? <Sigh>. You know the answer, it's about economies of scale and flow of capital. Don't be obtuse. Actually lots of technological advancements in exploration and drilling have been made in recent decades and continue to be made which makes new reserves exploitable and changes the economics of production. Directional drilling and fracing have made a whole of US gas reserves exploitable that weren't before those developments. At a very high cost... and growing higher as the oil gets more remote.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (6022)	3/12/2009 8:46:18 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

YOu should know the answer to that. Innovation and scaling cost money. You invest in R&D and scalable manufacturing precisely to lower prices and increase features. Without investment the industry goes nowhere. That's the same for every industry. The proper role of government in industries that have high barriers to entry and minimal competition is to lower the barriers to entry for new entrants and to streamline regulation. That is exactly what Obama is doing. In the energy industry, we have very high barriers to entry to get cost competitive electrical power plants and we have an industry that is dominated by two energy sources: oil and coal. So the government's involvement to spur competition among and diversity of energy sources is entirely proper and most economists will tell you is exactly the right way for government to partner with industry.