NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/sci/physics/fusion/3241

Text File | 1993-01-11 | 1.9 KB | 41 lines

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Path: sparky!uunet!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!The-Star.honeywell.com!umn.edu!noc.msc.net!ns!ns!logajan
From: [e-mail] (John Logajan)
Subject: Re: What are wise investments if one thinks energy will get cheaper?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Nntp-Posting-Host: ns
Organization: Network Systems Corporation
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 18:22:02 GMT
Lines: 28

[e-mail] (Arnie Frisch) writes:
>This just doesn't hold water.  In many of the oil producing areas of
>the world - especially, the US and the North Sea, the cost of
>production is high enough that a precipitous drop in consumption would
>just take these produccers off line.  The market would probably
>stabilize at about $15 per barrel.

As any economist will tell you, production costs don't set prices,
demand sets prices.  In other words, production costs will adjust as much
as possible to the demand level and if it cannot supply the demand at
the demand price, then trading will cease in that commodity.

Example, it might cost quite a bit to produce orange flavored mud pies,
but whatever the production cost, there is no demand, and so you cannot
even give orange flavored mud pies away.  It would be meaningless to assign
a price to such mud pies based upon their production cost.

>But long-term, when cheap alternative energy
>becomes available, the Japanese will suffer the costs of cleaning up
>their nuclear trash, while the rest of the world laughs at them.

I'm not sure if you're talking just plutonium or generic fission, but
look to countries such as France which get a large fraction of their
electrical power from fission.

--
- John Logajan MS010, Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428
- [e-mail], 612-424-4888, Fax [phone]