Reply To: Iconography

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote: Who’s going to be left holding the bag when cheap, clean, plentiful energy revalues the prices of metals, glass, plastics, and various securities, such as stocks and bonds? Without a clearcut advantage to invest in the new, we’re going to be stuck with the current despite the rhetoric. (call ITER for more details…).

IOW, it may take 20 to 40 years to educate a more sophisticated class of investor, while providing a transitional gradient in that time frame.

It will be much faster and more chaotic than that, thanks to the operation of “competitive advantage”. Any fabricator or jurisdiction that gets a head start on producing with cheap energy will be able to sweep other suppliers etc. off the board, unless they pile on and emulate the technology. Messy, but it gets the job done. And I can see no way of avoiding it other than burying the tech at an early stage. Even that might not be enough, if “its time has come”.