Nice article Nicholas

It's only been recently that we've been able to develop economically feasible alternative fuels. We've got some hydrogen-powered buses over here in Perth now. Maybe this will be the stimulus companies need to start mass-producing some alternative-fuel engines for the mainstream public.

Nicholas Gruen writes:

“But in the long term, though the pain you’re feeling at the petrol bowser might feel like a problem, it’s actually part of the solution - for our economy and very probably our planet.”

Yes, but…….that pain has got to be enough to get people and governments to really start implementing alternatives, but not so much as to lead to businesses becoming unviable, basic foodstuffs and commodities becoming too expensive or not being transported to outlets at all, and inflation increasing so that the value of the dollar becomes quite rapidly eroded at the same time as basic necessities become a lot more expensive. That is when society really starts to implode. There is little likelihood of fuel prices remaining high but not too high for long enough for real change to be implemented, but not for really dangerous discomfort to be imposed on the community.

Price increases are unlikely to progress smoothly. They will come in fits and bursts and have massive social impacts – that’s my prediction.

Gruen lambasts Paul Ehrlich. A might unfairly I reckon. Ehrlich’s principles regarding population growth and resource stress are pretty sound. It is just his timelines that have been unfortunately (woops, I mean fortunately) underestimated. And as for Julian Simon’s challenge for Paul Ehrlich to name 5 commodities that will increase in price, it is perfectly understandable that each one has decreased as more effort and better technologies have been put towards their procurement. It remains to be seen whether they do indeed increase in price dramatically as demand approaches supply capability as is currently happening with fossil fuels, and indeed as fossil fuel prices increase which will have huge effects on mining, agriculture and manufacturing. I bet they do, which was the scenario foreseen by Ehrlich.