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Comment by thecoffman | Hacker News Reader

I do see where you're coming from - and I tentatively agree except on two points

if there is zero financial incentive to help out the Earth

I would argue that there's a HUGE financial incentive. The company/person that comes up with the "next big thing" in fuel sources is going to be incomprehensibly wealthy - I think that much is clear.

and it's cheaper to keep doing it

I think supply and demand almost guarantees that it will not always been cheaper. Maybe not on an acceptable timeline, but, its obvious that at some point it will become prohibitively expensive to continue to use fossil fuels.

I also feel like your rich people reference is sort of a catch-all FUD argument. Oh no, those terrible rich people are causing all the problems. There are plenty of people on this very forum that are probably rich by most standards. Surprisingly, that doesn't make them faceless evil monsters.

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>I would argue that there's a HUGE financial incentive. The company/person that comes up with the "next big thing" in fuel sources is going to be incomprehensibly wealthy - I think that much is clear.

the economical analysis shows that nuclear fusion energy wouldn't be cheaper than the price of coal's energy [4c/kwt], thus without government intervention like carbon emissions pricing and explicit forcing of phasing out of fossil fuels this type of energy is out of question. The arithmetic is similar for other alternative sources as well.

As supply of carbon based fuels dwindles, their price will go up. The fact that carbon based fuels are currently cheaper than any alternative backs my argument. As soon as they aren't cheaper - the market will shift.

>As soon as they aren't cheaper - the market will shift.

or there wouldn't be any market anymore. It is also possible that they will be cheaper for centuries to come - the amount of coal and oil reachable in the next 50-100 years just isn't known. And the higher the price, the less demand, thus the less the price - the free-market behavior which has kept the price of oil pretty stable since WWII. Instead of flying cars [more fuel consumption] people of San Francisco are biking. As a result we have civilization developed into Facebook instead of homes on Mars [the last statement is (C) of another HN commenter]

It is plain stupid for the human race to sit and wait until the price of oil will go up instead of stimulating development of new technologies [some of which can carry us at least to closest planets].

<i>I would argue that there's a HUGE financial incentive.</i> <i>I think supply and demand almost guarantees that it will not always been cheaper.</i>

And these two contradictory statements show that the free market cannot save the planet on its own.

How are those contradictory?

There's a huge financial incentive for discovering the next big thing precisely because carbon based fuels will not always be cheapest - One leads into to the other.

Also - if you surround text with asterisks you'll get italics.

Ah thanks. I guess what I mean is that most truly world-shattering discoveries are driven by heavy amounts of funding from national governments. Private industry might build an electric car that is affordable for the masses, but it isn't going to discover something as long-term or pie in the sky as nuclear fusion. I just don't see them spending the time, effort, and money on that sort of research.

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