| Riley Casey wrote on Sun, 21 September 2008 10:26 |
Many, many years ago our son was enrolled in a parochial school in a very old money, old power area of the city ( not where we lived but thats another story). I was something of the oddball parent for not being an attorney or doctor or government official. Once while we parents were watching our kids play ball the talk turned to our occupations. One parent said that he was an attorney on the staff of a large oil company or perhaps oil trade organization ( I don't remember which ) and that his job was to research competing technologies and to make recommendations on the merits of buying up those technologies. I asked at this point if he meant technologies or processes that might enhance the production or exploitation of oil and he said no, there were other people involved in that end of things that his job was strictly to search out and buy up anything that might prove to supplant the use of his clients products. I remarked at this point that what he was describing was pretty close to the very thing that the most far left and far right conspiracy theorists were united in frothing at the mouth about. He simply smiled and said that from one perspective that might be so but for him it was merely the daily grind of a patent attorney.
The best of conspiracies go to work from 9 to 5 wearing three piece suits and spend their weekends watching their kids play softball.
| John Roberts {JR} wrote on Sat, 20 September 2008 22:31 |
I just love these conspiracy theories, haven't heard one in what a day now?
All businesses get all the money they can... the oil companies are under a microscope, while it appears the government agency (Interior) in charge of the leases has been caught with their ass showing.
There is plenty of real stuff to complain about we don't need to make it up.
JR
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The conspiracy theorists take the fact that the oil companies buy up patents for approaches that could replace oil as evidence that the oil companies don't want competition for their product. While this is one possibility, I'm not convinced that this is the reason behind this practice.
Oil has for many years been a relatively inexpensive source of energy. And there have been alternatives around for decades that could compete with oil on many grounds. Except price. Electric cars have been around since the automobile was introduced. Solar PV has been around for almost a half century. Hybrid vehicles have been around since before WWII. The Diesel cycle was originally designed to run on peanut oil. Wind has been used as an energy source for centuries, and the list goes on.
But only recently has the price of oil increased and the price of oil alternatives decreased such that these alternatives are cost-competitive with oil. The cheap oil is running out, although we will never run out of oil. And the oil companies knew this day would come, they just didn't know when. So they researched and bought up alternative solutions in the hope that one day the alternatives would be cheaper than pumping oil out of the ground. From their perspective, as long as they can sell the right hydrocarbon mix on the market, it doesn't matter where it comes from. Right now, it's cheap to get it out of the ground. But in 5 years, perhaps it will be cheaper to get it from algae. If they can sell the output for a given price, the cheaper their source the more profit they will make. And if their source happens to be cheaper than their competitors, so much the better.
Designs are almost never shelved due to fears about competition. Designs are usually shelved due to economic factors, typically a higher production price than it is believed that the market will bear. And if factors change in the future, designs are pulled off the shelf, because otherwise the development cost of the design cannot be recovered.
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Topic: Diesel or Hybrid? (Read 21893 times)