Malthus

I've been more than a month without posting and although I would have liked to write something more about the MWC all the travels and social compromises refrained me to do so.
I would like to write, nevertheless, about something that appeared in a conversation in one of my last business trips. It was about the present financial crisis and its relationship with the energy crisis. The argument was that as our hunger for oil and other resources is so big and our wastes would need three planets to be naturally degradated, we are facing the end of our economic and technological progress.
My point was that this is actually what was pointed by Malthus: The catastrophe in front of a peak on demand and scarcity of resources. Malthusian theories demonstrated wrong because they did not take into account one endogenous factor, i.e. Technological progress.
It is right that we have a problem of scarcity with the present resources and that this trend is not sustainable in the long run, but the solution is not stopping the wheel from spinning, but invest in research and apply an economic rationallity to the resources and reflex in its price the actual costs of consuming these resources.

From a Physics perspective we have not reach in any way the limit of energy consumption nor of space occupied: Only a small fraction of the energy that comes from the sun would be necessary to supply the present energy needs and vast areas of the earth remain deserted.
This does not mean that things will get on track alone and we have to do nothing. We have a tough task in front of us, but if we realize of the importance of the problem and strongly believe that altogether we can find a solution, it will come.

New Apollo Program

Some days ago I read in the Time magazine that Obama is really committed to start a New Apollo Program related to achieving for the US energetic independence. This is a Kennedy's size program and I really agree that a superpower like the US must be involved in any big achievement regarding this topic in the present time.
Europeans are really committed to the ITER initiative to find an alternative to Oil in Nuclear Fusion. The US has also relationship with this project but I see the approach of the US more broad. I guess that several different approaches will be established in the first times, then select two or three of them, the most promising, and progress them to final stages. Just then will be a bet for only one of them, but once it is seen its final viability.

And all this in a 10 years time frame. I think that this is fairly possible and it could bring two things to the present world: An objective to fight for in turmoil times and a long term solution to Oil dependence. I am sure it will not mean ending with Oil, oil is useful for several applications, but it can reduce the widespread presence of it. An in times of economic crisis public investment and spend is capital to find the way out.

Related to this today I found an interesting video in youtube on conmuting in DC...



Bravo Obama!