Hartcher writes about the current pressures on oil prices around the globe in an article titled;
"The pain of oil addiction hits home"
. However he contradicts himself late in the article, and exposes the conundrum of oil and petrol energy, its current high prices will only make it more plentiful on the world market. We cannot use capitalism to escape oil dependency as; one, capitalism makes scarcity abundant; and two, we currently have no other option.
Hatcher writes on external costs of oil;
In 1980, as the world struggled to overcome the oil price shock of the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter declared what would become known as the Carter Doctrine, declaring Persian Gulf oil to be a "vital interest" of the United States. He told Congress that Washington would use "any means necessary, including military force," to keep the oil flowing.Australia carries its own military cost for oil. Our Collins class submarines, Orion P3Cs and F111s are for projection of power across the North-West shelf, particularly where Australian and Indonesian oil conflicts may arise. Hatcher also writes;
Today the world oil market is sending this simple signal: the world is short of energy. This will force change on a world that is otherwise not terribly interested in giving up its addiction to cheap oil. The high oil price is already encouraging more exploration for energy around the world;There is the nub. Whether it is the coal sands in Canada, or some new engineering process which makes cracking some other form of oil cost-efficient, we are not replacing it. Higher prices won't translate to humanity moving away from the oil economy. It may if the cost of oil jumped by 1000%, but it isnt. At worst it will be 100%, which can be tempered by governments dropping some of their taxes on it. Capitalism commoditises the scarce. Whatever non-drilling form of oil we find will be turned into a cheap oil commodity. New engineering processes will ensure that the cost of production keeps dropping. New technologies will drop the price of distribution. We will be back to where we were in the nineties quick-smart; cheap oil as far as the eye can see. It will have to be a disruptive technology. Fund the scientists and engineers! Drop taxes on any startup which is in the non-oil energy market. Let people buy research bonds in decentralised energy projects. Anything. Otherwise we will just make oil cheap through new methods, and nothing will change, except salaries increasing to cover the cost of petrol at the pump. cam
