A lot of the problems with alternatives though are technological and I just don’t think the general public appreciates the issues involved. Merely throwing more money at it, as helpful as that may be, won’t necessarily speed things up. Think of say the darling of the 90′s – hydrogen power. It was always a bit of a pipe dream due to the limited supply of catalysts (which is why it’s really not widely available despite the hyping by the media)

Gluts can be good for consumers but short term gluts can actually make things worse. You’ll have capital invested and then have an artificial decrease in prices due to over-investment. Instead of just having a few companies survive sometimes you just end up with skittish investors and no one investing for years. That’s less of an issue in oil development due to the size of the companies apt to develop such resources. (They can avoid to go idle for 8 years) However for other sorts of energy or energy transport that can be a real huge issue. If we need the technological infrastructure for an inevitable change over a glut could be devastating.

Why? Do you disbelieve in the science of global warming?

Not trying to be snide, just wondering. The obvious result of an oil glut in my mind is that price would go down, and much more would be used. I’m happy there’s no oil glut. It seems like to be happy about a glut, you’d have to either disbelieve in climate change, or believe the results would be benign.

Women read books. Men read T-shirts.

“The Righteous Mind. ” I worry about authors who feel compelled to let us know in a heading that the introduction gives us an overview of the book. While this isn’t always the case, this conclusion should follow without having to hit the reader over the head with it.