Re: RE: starship-design: Re: debate

[Kelly St <KellySt@aol.com>]

In a message dated 12/10/97 7:50:49 PM, david@actionworld.com wrote:

>> ----------
>> From: 	Kelly St[SMTP:KellySt@aol.com]
>> Subject: 	Re:  starship-design: Re: debate
>> 
>> The oil companies do expect practical fusion to really crater their
>> market in
>> 50 years or so, but since they've identofied at least 2 centuries of
>> oil
>> (assuming no market losses to other sources, and a continuation of
>> world
>> consuption growth rates), a future oil shock is not likely to help
>> push the
>> tech.
>> 
>Well, this isn't entirely true.  Two centuries worth of oil is indeed
>there, but much of it is considerably more expensive to extract than
>current oil.  Prices will still rise considerably, even though the oil
>is there.
>------------------------------------------------------
>David Levine 

It was expected to be less economical at the moment, but prices have (on
average) declined for over a century, and were expected to do so for another
century.  Also oil is VERY plentiful in near earth comet cores, so if we
wished to we could extend our oil reserves for a couple thousand years that
way at probably reasonable rates.  

However the oil companies did expect the market to be taken away from them by
other power sources within a few decades.

Kelly