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Samizdata quote of the day

· Science & Technology · Slogans & Quotations

The world’s energy problem seems to have been solved, but governments do not seem to have noticed.

– Madsen Pirie

August 10th, 2012 |

10 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Alan K. Henderson
    August 11, 2012 at 6:48 am

    But it’s all right now, in fact, it’s a gas…

  • Michael Jennings
    August 11, 2012 at 10:33 am

    The world in aggregate never had energy problems, at least not in the sense of a shortage. The trouble was that most of the cheap energy was located in a small number of places, which made certain almost randomly chosen people to be rich and influential.

    If we can now lose that, we will have made progress.

  • CaptDMO
    August 11, 2012 at 1:34 pm

    Wait. Wasn’t there something or other about that in Atlas Shrugged?

    Has everyone here heard of Yucca Mountain?
    It’s in the gambling/entertainment/Union Labor/Gub’mint servant “convention” center State of the U.S., of which (est.) 90% is “gub’mint land.
    Founded by Organized Crime, and funded by (convicted) criminal “bankers” (the laws have since been changed), it’s in the State “represented” by the
    US Senate Speaker(D). An astonishing amount of water, and energy have to be pumped in from other“National Treasure” taxpayer projects.

    The nuclear (including “medical”) waste disposal site. Once construction finished, at an ASTONISHING taxpayer cost, by AFL-CIO “supervised” labor, it was boarded up.
    Under our current executive branch, construction has (kinda) begun on “new” atomic power plants. Hope they’re allowed to actually operate at capacity. Guess they’ll have to “sequester” their used material the same way those “old-inefficent”, power plants do.

    “Passive”, progressive, “clean”, “free” power, schemes have almost immediately begun to demonstrate their “unintended” consequences, as has the purchase/transfer of “carbon credits” scheme. More are on the way.

  • PersonFromPorlock
    August 11, 2012 at 2:06 pm

    “Solved” may be a little strong: there’s still a lack of distribution systems and end-using devices. But that’s the sort of problem that the unfettered market is good at solving. The real problem is that those fettering the market right now are going to deluge us with horror stories about fracking and natural gas which will be widely and uncritically published by the mainstream media.

    Still, that can only slow things down: the knowledge that we’re otherwise doomed to constrained lives in dim, chilly rooms will concentrate the public mind wonderfully.

    And who knows? Maybe Rossi will turn out not to be a charlatan after all. ;^)

  • mdc
    August 11, 2012 at 5:36 pm

    Scarcity never was a problem, since even if the politicians were right that prices would inexorably rise, they’d eventually reach the point where the market would build their preferred solutions anyway.

    Shale doesn’t do anything about the CO2 issue.

  • Rob
    August 11, 2012 at 9:53 pm

    Do/did they want to notice?

  • Richard Thomas
    August 11, 2012 at 10:51 pm

    Cheap energy brought us fantastic technology and an information economy that based on an objective analysis, the vast majority of what we are using is quite simply wasted. Any impending shortage would simply mean an adjustment to use energy with a little more care and should not cause concerns of significant impacts to our lifestyles.

  • Jerry
    August 14, 2012 at 12:04 am

    There is no CO2 issue.
    It’s another scam by the scare mongers who’s sole purpose is find ‘issues’ with which to scare the masses into coughing up money ( those that HAVE money ) to buy ‘solutions’ that are neither needed nor would work if they were needed.
    Alar
    Passive smoke
    Asbestos
    Global warming (OOPS my apologies – Climate change – that way the mongers are covered either way !! )
    The millennium but

    The list is endless and CO2 is just the latest chapter.

  • Jerry
    August 14, 2012 at 12:06 am

    ‘The millennium but’
    Um, how about
    The millennium bug

    Although, now that I think about it

    ‘The millennium butt’ might work !!

  • 'Nuke' Gray
    August 14, 2012 at 3:51 am

    Where are the votes in a solved problem? Especially if private enterprise did the solving?

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