Re: ENERGY: Singularity on hold?

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Jun 13 2003 - 11:14:19 MDT

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    On Fri, Jun 13, 2003 at 08:36:05AM -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
    >
    > Now what is interesting about this is that if Simmons is
    > correct the world may hit the energy supply wall hard in
    > the not-so-distant future. If so that may significantly
    > delay the singularity ramp-up (significantly higher energy
    > prices mean less funding available for govt. grants, private
    > investors, etc.).

    And why would energy prices go up? It is a bit like the raw material
    price issue of the 70's where Simon trounced Ehrlich - when a
    commodity becomes scarce people have a strong incentive to find a
    replacement. Oil is an easy source of energy and carbon compounds,
    but there are clearly many ways of replacing these which at present
    are uneconomical to develop deeply.

    My prediction is that oil will run out but energy prices remain
    stable. Let's see what happens.

    -- 
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
    asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
    GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
    


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