My take is that, the rising costs will cause a break to new technologies. It didn’t make sense to do ethanol financially 10 years ago. Adding a few thousand to the cost of a car to improve fuel efficiency didn’t make much sense when gas was only $0.70/gallon and average gas usage would be $3640 over 5 years (assuming 20/gal per week).

I expect in technology in the solar and battery sectors to be able to move us off oil dependency for fuel, which will dramatically drop the cost of oil. Drastically evaporated demand won’t support massive increase in price once there is a reasonable alternative. In the past, the oil companies recognized this very clearly, but today they seem to be greedier, and forgetting the new competition that they are creating.

We’re in the verge of a food crisis on a global basis. Who thought Biodiesel and Ethanol where great ideas? About 6 months ago I shared some thoughts on that with good old Jim L. and we agreed that it is not a good solution; land, as you state , is a finite resource, and if land usage has to compete between energy and food we’ll be in deep trouble.

I am believe in Utopias and I know that we are smart enough to get our collective act together and find solutions to our problems. Lets just hope that everyone realizes it is time to get responsible and think in terms of a global town and not just the eternal “me, myself and I”