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think wasting money on economically unviable technology is a waste of resources. The technology IS advancing everyday, so why should we sink trillions into tens of thousands of early tech wind mills when there is a much cheaper energy source?
When will it be the right time? When wars are fought over the remaining reserves? The cycles of change are happening very quickly now. I don't think there can be adequate planning for something 10 years out.
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Should we not use it while improving other technology?
Who is "we"? Look at fossil fuels that "we" currently have and don't use (assuming that can be done) as a strategic speculative reserve for economies that are too stupid or ill managed to prepare for the end of reliable fossil fuel supplies. Those supplies/reserves WILL be used. How long they last will be the variable.
You're also under the assumption that the market will adequately cope with "demand" as that curve takes a sharp upturn.
Now if you just want to say, "I don't care about the consequences. I want supply and demand to cope with all things ..regardless of outcomes ..good ..bad..tragic ..avoidable..whatever" ..then just state it like that and all is fine and good. If you even entertain the notion that we "might" be able to cope with the future, then I think your allegiance to and faith in "the market" is ill placed
There will be an end to the open ended economic consumption cycle. Those who have the highest level of development in conservation technologies will be the holders of the future holy grails.
I think you radically underestimate the collisions of so many exponential curves in one short span of time. A single "tragedy of the commons" in a world of under a billion is one thing. They just do without it and work a way around it if they're going to turn into a world population of 2 billion. The relative cost, regulated by "the market", hasn't slowed population growth, even though it gets more and more expensive to sustain it. The only measures that appear to slow it is industrialization, which, in turn, creates a more energy intensive scenario for those within it.
It's the trap of Universal Law (GOD'S Law, in my case). No solutions ..just exchanges of problems. You don't get anything cheaper. You just push the bill (consequences) out into the future.
Economic viability is a speculative human concept. In the vacuum of sensibility ..all any machine need do is produce more work than it took to create it over its lifespan. When you apply economics to it, coupled with free energy (outside of just the recovery costs), you get odd side effects. You get a $99 energy hog air conditioner that's replaced every year or two as opposed to a $600 one that is more efficient and lasting a decade.
Survival of the fittest for one environment doesn't mean that it will lead to "better" in all environments. That gets us back to determining or getting a grip on your basic concepts of "viability"
Would you sell passage for lemmings to the sea if it meant that your success, knowingly, depleted lemmings to the point that you couldn't make a living off of it? That is, the enterprise itself is doomed from the get go. How much wisdom is applied there?
How did Danny Devito put it in "Other People's Money"?
At one time buggy whips were in demand and the I'm sure that the last buggy whip factory made the best buggy whip. The last thing you want is to have an increasing share of a declining market. Slow and steady ..down the drain...
..and that was a testimony to the hard rules of your number one tenet of life, Capitalism.
Hence, in the 21st Century, I'd say that the wisest will be investing in the future ..and not in buggy whips.
