On May 19, 12:41=A0am, son of a bitch
wrote:
> > Let's specify. Are you claiming that if everyone who commutes had an
> > electric-only vehicle that the world would be bankrupt?
>
> > Fran
>
> Pretty much, the worlds economy runs on oil.
That's a broad statement describing the currrent state of play. It
really doesn't say anything about the specifics of your claim. If, as
a matter of practice all commuters were capable of switching to
electric-only vehicles, then it would be because a sufficient number
had been manufacured and sold, which would imply that the finace and
the resources to do this had been found, and most people were
convinced that these vehicles were viable, etc ... You don't specify a
timeline for this so assuming phased conversion over say, 15-20 years,
this would be plausible
So by definition, the world would not be bankrupt, but differently
organised. Indeed, since the next 15 years will see increasing
pressure on world oil supplies, a scenario in which this same time
frame saw increeasingly rapid conversion to EVs would almost certainly
make for less economic disruption.
> Oil companies, Petrol Stations, Oil Tankers, Delivery Trucks,
> Oil Platforms, Oil Fields, Governments Dependence, the number of People
> involved world wide. All depend on Oil to keep the money flowing.
But they'd get other jobs because in no practical scenario is it
likely that this would happen this side of about 15 years. 30 billion
barrels of annual demand doesn't disappear in a flash. Their skills
are highly portable.
The broader problem with your paradigm is it's 'ponzi' aspect. While
it may seem that 'oil' gives people wealth, this is only because it
has a use value. Its central role in contemprary industrial society is
a kind of leverage that those with the skills to harvest it and
produce it exercise in relation to those who need it to exercise the
leverage they have against those who need their products and services
and so on ...
If oil were a useless material, nobody would be mining it or carting
it about so that people could have jobs. If, tomorrow, I devised a
procedure that could summon dispatchable energy from quartz or blue
metal or other common materials in sufficient volume to meet
everyone's energy needs in a way that was non-polluting, the price of
coal, oil, uranium and so forth would crash and the labour of those
working in these fields and related fields would become redundant, but
in the end, the world's people would be immeasurably richer, because
our energy would be free, and the people rendered redundant could find
something else that paid an income to do with their time.
Fran
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