There was an article yesterday, I read it off a link from Yahoo so I'm not sure where it originated, that discussed the fact that economic growth is not resulting in the same amount of oil usage increase as it once did. In fact it predicted that we are coming to a point where overall oil usage will stop increasing and start declining. Now, the only thing about the article that I would question is the time frames.
There is no doubt that the world is leaving the oil age and moving on. Oil will remain plentiful and it is possible that as a reaction to this, prices will drop significantly and lead to short term trend reversal. However, I think the world has finally taken the Who to heart and "won't get fooled again". The use of alternative energy is growing and as it grows it starts to become more affordable. Further, more and more of our brightest will start to consider ways to improve the delivery technology.
The way major changes happen in most things follows a fairly predictable pattern. The beginnings of the change are very small changes in trend. Using these early indicators to predict the timing of the change is almost always wrong because the trends accelerate. Had you considered how long it would take everyone to have cell phones based on the early rate of adoption you would have predicted a much smaller number for 2010 than actually have them. As alternative fuel vehicles, heating systems, etc become more used they will becomes cheaper and more available leading to a spiral of adoption. It is happening and happening faster than most expect.
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