Brian H wrote:

texas is right to some extent — where war is caused by desperation or actual imposed inequality. This is the minority of cases, of course. Try coming up with examples. There aren’t many.

Coming up with examples where competition for resources was the underlying cause for war? Um, WWII pacific theater (Japan attacking the U.S. largely out of desperation from the embargoes set on it by America). Both Gulf Wars (do you really think we would be involved in the Middle East if we didn’t need the oil?). The current “cold war” brewing with China at the moment. The attempted assisted coup in Venezuela not too long ago. And that’s just in the past 60 or so years that we personally were involved in. Leaders might rally the troops with calls of service to a higher power or whatever…but in the end it’s usually about money or its equivalent in natural resources. Extremely cheap power mitigates that to a very large extent. As I said, exceptions to every rule but history is chock-full of examples of this.

A huge breakthrough in solar power would also be welcomed (I don’t see that one must exist to the total exclusion of the other)..though that obviously has a capped limit in the amount of power per square meter that falls on the earth. Every watt helps though! Especially given the very real possibilities of the decades it might take for FF to be fully commercialized and socially accepted….solar and other renewables can prove valuable in the mean time.