Good summary of the basics of energy economics, with shout-outs to Hyman Minsky and Kenneth Boulding, and high praise for Jamie Galbraith.
GMO Quarterly Letter Third Quarter 2014
The Beginning of the End of the Fossil Fuel Revolution (From Golden Goose to Cooked Goose)
Jeremy Grantham
Pretty good summary about the reality-facts of the situation with oil (and to a lesser extent commodities in general).
ReplyDeleteWe are in a race against entropy basically, in one hand we have technological progress and sound policy (or the lack thereof) and in the other we have resource depletion.
This are the facts, is up to us to accept them and act upon them. Is very possible collapse is the option we take because of lack of vision and/or individual psychopaths with too much control.
We need increasing levels of energy supply to maintain increasing civilization complexity, we need at least constant supply at a certain level to avoid a bigger meta-equilibrium collapse due to entropy (muddle through as he puts it), this at given population levels ofc.
We are not doing quite enough as this would mean responsible politicians (and citizens) and sound policies, and not 'free markets'. Bets are off about how all this will evolve (for the best or for the worst).
Judging from the price of energy, it is business as usual. How can there be a market solution if prices are wrong?
ReplyDeleteBob Toyota just rolled out a deal on a new FCV where they provide the fuel (energy) as part of the deal.... fix the price for the consumer.... similar to Tesla. .. if they were smart they would go after the energy revenues as part of the car deal.... cut out the oil people. But they aren't going to give it away...
ReplyDeleteThis is like " Apple pay".... once you get your device in the possession of the customer you go after everything that can be associated with it...
ReplyDeleteRaising the price of gasoline would help the Fuel Cell Vehicle market. For those who prefer policy driven initiatives, how about the phasing out of gasoline? Some engines could be converted to run on propane, some replaced by diesel engines (which offer more flexibility in terms of fuel), and the rest of the market would head towards electric, hybrid and fuel cell technology.
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