I can see that one. :)

(Incidentally, when we got our car two years ago I mentioned that one of my requirements was a decent mileage, so we have a six-seat crossover that gets at least 23 miles to the gallon. I don’t see why people have accepted less than 20 mpg… that just seems silly to me.)

B. Durbin’s last blog post..Resucito

In the very long run, there’s the heat death of the universe to worry about, but that’s mind-bogglingly far away.

As supply dwindles, prices will go up making alternative options more attractive.

Julian Simon argued that the most renewable resource of all is human creativity. In fact, no resources are “natural.” I don’t think American Indians found petroleum useful, probably the dark, thick, smelly stuff that bubbled up in watering holes was more of a nuisance. Petroleum did not become a resource until it was combined with human creativity and used to satisfy our needs and desires.

So, as oil continues to go up in price, so does the financial incentive to put human ingenuity to work and come up with an efficient alternative.

Am I overly optimistic?

Frankly, I’d much rather see this done than some silly CO2 cap&trade corporate welfare scheme. (Not that I’m into AGW, but reducing oil imports is a good thing by itself, and much of the dollar weakness is due to us buying oil.)

Gas needs to stay expensive, and over time – it’ll take decades – habits and infrastructure will change.

Voluntary conservation is a nice thing, but it won’t do much for very long. China and India are consuming far more and growing in consumption far more rapidly than we can conserve.

foobarista’s last blog post..Annoying “faux-official” sales pitches

Depends where you live. In areas with good transit systems (Like SF– where I live, and DC– where I lived for a bit of last year), driving can be the less convenient, slower option.

Let me tell you how much more I enjoy my commute to work now that I can use that time to read…

Goodness knows, however, that convincing the average person that they can have alternative fuel only at the cost of paying more at the pump is pretty tough. It’s an example, one of many, where people say they’re for something until they have to face the reality behind it. Which is why surveys of what people say they want are only of limited value. Why yes, I want absolutely free and abundant energy, but if you tell me I can have it by squishing babies’ heads with a winepress, maybe I don’t actually want that…

Whether we’re in a bubble or not, conservation will cut demand and lead to a decrease in prices. If we’re not in a bubble, the mechanism is obvious. And if we are, then a surplus of oil will accumulate in the hands of speculators who know they’ll have to get rid of it eventually, accellerating the process of the bubble bursting.

I’ve often thought the same was true of the Personal Computer. You know, a lot of people made large personal fortunes on that revolution, but having been there to witness it all, it looks to me like a lot, lot more people never got rich, or more than moderately successful, and some went bust spectacularly. No one knows names like Adam Osborne or Jack Tramiel anymore. Yet no one can deny that on the whole that revolution was successful.