It’s the cost of energy, stupid!
“There is a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day,” The Carousel of Progress, Walt Disney World.
About 22 years ago, (to the month, in fact), Dr. J. awoke in a cold sweat at about 3 AM. He ran downstairs, opened his notebook and realized he had an essay to write for a college honors program application for his state university that needed to go out in the mail that day. The prize, a full ride to the state university. If this wasn’t done, his college guidance counselor would give him the evil eye, but not much else as it did not affect admission status.
The question was, “What invention has had the greatest impact on the 20th Century, or will have the greatest impact on the next century?” If Dr. J. knew the answer to the latter question he’d be a billionaire, so he went with a non-answer answer. Dr. J. said the next cheap energy source, be it fusion, matter/antimatter, a major refinement in acquisition of currently available sources, or something as insane as being able to plug into trees; cheaper, more readily available energy would revolutionize society as fire, fossil fuels and fission did in 5000 BC, 18th and 19th century, and mid 20th century. It didn’t matter what the energy source was, it just had to be cheap, plentiful and easy. With that would come invention and innovation.
Dr. J.’s old man woke up, and asked him why he was flailing away at his Apple //e at 3:30 AM, but then shook his head and went back to bed. His guidance counselor shook her head, knowing it was his ‘finest’ 3:30 AM, caffeine fueled work, given the unconventional nature of the essay and said, “At least you have no intention in going to the state university…”
Long story short, Dr. J. got the full ride, which made his guidance counselor chuckle, and his old man scowl as the old man knew, Dr. J. would still make him fork over tuition for Ivy University, as was his plan since 2nd grade…
Why is Dr. J. writing about high school essays?
Besides a fit of nostalgia, Dr. J. was reminded of this moment from his youth because of an article written by Peter Thiel at NRO.
He takes on the same issue, through a lens of hindsight. He is suggesting the that expensive energy is why there has been a slowing in technological progress. Please do not convuse not that evil eugenic totalitarian tyrannical Progress that we are currently yoked with for progress.
He writes:
The official explanation for the slowdown in travel centers on the high cost of fuel, which points to the much larger failure in energy innovation. Real oil prices today exceed those of the Carter catastrophe of 1979–80. Nixon’s 1974 call for full energy independence by 1980 has given way to Obama’s 2011 call for one-third oil independence by 2020. Even before Fukushima, the nuclear industry and its 1954 promise of “electrical energy too cheap to meter” had long since been defeated by environmentalism and nuclear-proliferation concerns. One cannot in good conscience encourage an undergraduate in 2011 to study nuclear engineering as a career. “Clean tech” has become a euphemism for “energy too expensive to afford,” and in Silicon Valley it has also become an increasingly toxic term for near-certain ways to lose money. Without dramatic breakthroughs, the alternative to more-expensive oil may turn out to be not cleaner and much-more-expensive wind, algae, or solar, but rather less-expensive and dirtier coal.
He continues:
The single most important economic development in recent times has been the broad stagnation of real wages and incomes since 1973, the year when oil prices quadrupled. To a first approximation, the progress in computers and the failure in energy appear to have roughly canceled each other out. Like Alice in the Red Queen’s race, we (and our computers) have been forced to run faster and faster to stay in the same place.
One of Dr. J.’s favorite books is Through the Looking Glass, wherein Alice meets the Red Queen (not to be confused with the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland).
He really nails the issues at hand. If we want a brighter future, we need cheaper energy. Any energy policy looking to cap energy use is only designed to drag us back to the Stone Age.
So go read it!
