We have output restriction in the U.S. and Europe (the latter more than the former these days) which reduces resource transfer to the underdeveloped world.
I was looking at figures on this the other day, in a rare exercise (for me) in trade/macro consideration, and noted that net flows to Africa and Latin America were less than the DoD procurement budget (e.g., about $30 billion). Pathetic.
I'd explain the truly benighted parts of the 'South' as resulting from a variety of factors basically stemming from US/European policies. Crooks in power, onerous debt service obligations, output restriction in the U.S. and Europe due to anti-Keynesian macro policy, politically-rigged terms of trade disfavoring the 'South,' US/Euro/ Soviet/Chinese arms exports, & unregulated global finance, among other things.
> > Even so, there's still quite a bit of coal and
> > nuclear out there.
>
> No, there isn't. Nuclear requires more calories than it produces.
> That's why
> it's uneconomic. It's been subsidised by cheap oil. Coal is
I thought regulation had rendered nuclear uneconomic.
> highly entropic. By
> 2050, according to some estimates, it will take mroe than the
> enegry in a ton of
> coal to get another ton of coal out. Coal is absolutely not a
> substitute which
> would permit everyday life as we know it to continue.
Why should it be more costly to use coal in the future, as opposed to less? My understanding is that there's a fair amount of coal still in the U.S., and a huge amount in China. I grant that the social cost of using the coal considering environmental effects will be greater than the market price, but that's a long way from expecting an absolute shortage.
If we have as little as 100 years of coal, is it too much to expect that by then there will be some new principal source of the world's energy?
MBS