* Posts by truehawk

1 publicly visible post • joined 27 Jan 2013

Climate shocker: Carry on as we are until 2050, planet will be fine

truehawk

Re: Free Markets Reduce Emissions

Free markets reduce emmisions????

Actually, no.

Companies are remarkably adverse to spending money on basic research, and preticularly on reactors.

I believe that there is one start-up doing work on Fusion, but other than that, it is all publicly funded (government) research that have produced breakthroughs in energy production. Even in the last century The US Navy spent the money to develop advanced refining techniques, platforming to raise the octane rating of gasoline, and the Fisher Trope for Process to make gasoline from coal before the Second World War. (Standard Oil gave the the tech to the Germans).

Companies do not have the will and the revenue to sustain this kind of endeavor. They would much prefer to patent the spinoffs as they have done with the silicon chip.

Free Markets seek profit, and where barriers to entry are very large, monopoly control of existing resources is the easiest way to extract rent. Luckily the wind and sun can be harvested at low cost are distributed.