# Economic consequences of a new, cheap, safe, 'infinitely available', energy source **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 22, 2009, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335 "2009-08-22T18:55:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/41 "2009-08-23T03:37:21Z")
Begun, the Star Trek Wars have. ---
**Author:** ![Kyrie\_Eleison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kyrie_eleison/32/7682_2.png) [@Kyrie\_Eleison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyrie_Eleison)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/42 "2009-08-23T03:39:20Z")
I think you’re all too optimistic. The third world war would be about intellectual property and patent rights to the newly discovered technology. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/43 "2009-08-23T03:42:25Z")
Unless, I missed it, I don’t think anyone’s commented on my speculation regarding the military: > [@Myself](#): > > Militarily, the need to be involved around ‘the Gulf’ would no longer exist. Current alliances, based on oil considerations, would dissolve. At the end of the day, with the energy supply now guaranteed, both the size and scope of the military could be reduced. That would generate huge cost savings and free up vast amounts of cash. Perhaps taxes could be lowered as a result. What would the net effect be on the economy of this changed geopolitical/military situation? Moreover, such a development would further increase unemployment since, for some people, it’s a choice between the military and being unemployed. A diminished military would also lead to reductions in output by those industries which support/supply it (e.g. aerospace, ship building, etc.). Unemployment would increase in those sectors. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/44 "2009-08-23T03:43:42Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > After the bloody civil wars that occurred due to the massive shift in the paradigm of course. Unless the rich suddenly decided to grow a spine and actually fight for their own interests (of course they’d be outnumbered by a factor of at least 15:1) I don’t see this happening. ---
**Author:** ![Henrichek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@Henrichek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Henrichek)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/45 "2009-08-23T03:44:36Z")
> [@Kyrie\_Eleison](#): > > I think you’re all too optimistic. The third world war would be about intellectual property and patent rights to the newly discovered technology. The OP says that it’s easily developed and available en masse. So even if the inventors would patent it, the patent would soon expire, or perhaps more likely bypassed by other nations for the greater good long before that. ---
**Author:** ![wierdaaron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eada6e/32.png) [@wierdaaron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wierdaaron)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/46 "2009-08-23T03:50:29Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Unless, I missed it, I don’t think anyone’s commented on my speculation regarding the military:Moreover, such a development would further increase unemployment since, for some people, it’s a choice between the military and being unemployed. A diminished military would also lead to reductions in output by those industries which support/supply it (e.g. aerospace, ship building, etc.). Unemployment would increase in those sectors. All I know is that if you could get an infinite free-ish electricity machine in Command and Conquer, you’d be pretty unstoppable. Your premise that our need to be in the gulf is interesting. It could very well be, though if you ask anybody in government they’d say us being in the gulf and all the oil being there are just huge coincidences. One idea I had was that if everybody was completely self-sufficient for energy, nations would sort of retreat into themselves like clams. Besides the fact that there wouldn’t be any need to go invade other countries for their fuel, there would be a kind of mutually-assured destruction type situation. Surely if we had unlimited power, we could create some earth-destroying doomsday weapon, but then so could everybody else. Perhaps we’d all live in some kind of peace, then. However, if unlimited power means we can make weapons of unlimited power, and everybody with a hundred bucks can have unlimited power, wouldn’t that mean that any loon with some training could conceivably produce his own WMD? ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/47 "2009-08-23T03:52:56Z")
> [@wierdaaron](#): > > One idea I had was that if everybody was completely self-sufficient for energy, nations would sort of retreat into themselves like clams. Besides the fact that there wouldn’t be any need to go invade other countries for their fuel, there would be a kind of mutually-assured destruction type situation. Surely if we had unlimited power, we could create some earth-destroying doomsday weapon, but then so could everybody else. Perhaps we’d all live in some kind of peace, then. > > However, if unlimited power means we can make weapons of unlimited power, and everybody with a hundred bucks can have unlimited power, wouldn’t that mean that any loon with some training could conceivably produce his own WMD? I would think the opposite. Human history has, thus far, been all about competition for scarce resources. If energy is free, why do I care what you do? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/48 "2009-08-23T04:26:40Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > Unless the rich suddenly decided to grow a spine and actually fight for their own interests (of course they’d be outnumbered by a factor of at least 15:1) I don’t see this happening. Heh, or they price it out of the price range of most people, but within the price range of the top 15% of the world, tanking energy prices, destroying the economies of third world markets, just suddenly shutting the tap off. Laying off workers in favor of more efficient robots and not sharing the profits. It’s not the rich that would have to protect what’s theirs in this scenario. People automatically assume that if something like this comes around that it’s going to be democratized and usher in a benighted utopia, yea, right. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/49 "2009-08-23T04:41:55Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Heh, or they price it out of the price range of most people, but within the price range of the top 15% of the world, tanking energy prices, destroying the economies of third world markets, just suddenly shutting the tap off. Laying off workers in favor of more efficient robots and not sharing the profits. It’s not the rich that would have to protect what’s theirs in this scenario. People automatically assume that if something like this comes around that it’s going to be democratized and usher in a benighted utopia, yea, right. the OP posits “cheap” within price range of the top 15% != cheap ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/50 "2009-08-23T05:11:43Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Laying off workers in favor of more efficient robots and not sharing the profits. It’s not the rich that would have to protect what’s theirs in this scenario. People automatically assume that if something like this comes around that it’s going to be democratized and usher in a benighted utopia, yea, right. And you are assuming that the rich are cartoonish supervillains, who would do evil for evil’s sake. Once they’ve got their infinite energy and their robots, they’re set. They’ve entered their own Golden Age, where their dreams are limited only by time, ingenuity and available mass. ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/51 "2009-08-23T05:31:25Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > With ridiculously cheap or free energy, you can recycle plastic with ease. Except that the impetus to recycle anything would be even lower since disposables would be even cheaper. Rather than the makework of a recycling plant, we’d probably put the cheap energy into a mass driver capable of launching busloads of garbage into the sun. Here’s the basic problem with cheap energy: scarcity is what breeds all those virtues that have been picked up by the environmental movement–parsimony, thrift, reuse, recycling. A new age of plenty would mean an age of waste unparalleled. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/52 "2009-08-23T05:33:09Z")
> [@Rumor\_Watkins](#): > > the OP posits “cheap” > > within price range of the top 15% != cheap You and I are in the top 15%. If you could buy something that would power your home indefinitely for 1000 would you consider it cheap? I would, I'd jump at it in a heartbeat. Well 1000 is out of reach for the vast majority of people on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/53 "2009-08-23T05:34:12Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > And you are assuming that the rich are cartoonish supervillains, who would do evil for evil’s sake. Once they’ve got their infinite energy and their robots, they’re set. They’ve entered their own Golden Age, where their dreams are limited only by time, ingenuity and available mass. If you got that from what I said then the only thing I can assume is that you don’t know how to read. I guess you don’t understand the concepts of manufacturing cycles, you don’t understand how things are more expensive at first, or that cheap is entirely relative to how much money you are willing to spend on the product. I guess you don’t understand that many countries in this world depend on oil and natural gas almost entirely for their living, and that when these items came out the wealthy class would switch pretty rapidly from those fuels to this device leaving those in oil producing nations without jobs. I guess you don’t understand that it would take a while to provide something like this to everyone who needed one on the planet, and that in the meantime the disruptions of old techs would drive people worldwide into even deeper poverty so that even when the price became $ 50 it would still be too expensive for most of the people in the world. I guess what this thread is really asking is, “If a Deus Ex Machina appeared and catapulted us into a benighted utopia, what would that utopia look like?”, rather than a recognition of the cold hard fact that a lot of people’s jobs, most in fact, exist BECAUSE of energy inefficiency. ---
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/54 "2009-08-23T05:34:29Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Well $ 1000 is out of reach for the vast majority of people on the planet. so its not cheap then. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/55 "2009-08-23T05:38:53Z")
What happened when computing power plummeted in price? It’s a similar thing - a major price shock to the economy. It’s a disrupting event in the sense that it winds up eventually causing dramatic changes to many sectors of the economy. This would undoubtedly be a good thing. Anything which improves the efficiency of the industrial economy will wind up improving the lives of the citizenry. But it will change industries, and in ways that are not knowable at this point. Whole industries could be wiped out, and new ones be created. We really can’t guess at what we’ll find really useful to do if we don’t have to pay much of an energy cost to do it. Just like how the computer wiped out telephone operators and damaged many other old industrial markets, but replaced them with better things. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/56 "2009-08-23T05:43:45Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > What happened when computing power plummeted in price? It’s a similar thing - a major price shock to the economy. It’s a disrupting event in the sense that it winds up eventually having dramatic changes on many sectors of the economy. Except that computers were never the foundation of the entire world economy and that your example has no applicability to the subject AT ALL. What happened with computers was a gradual shift, not a sudden one even though it was fairly rapid. We’re not talking about the obsolescence of a Pentium for a Pentium II, where the Pentium will still work for most of the things people need them for. We’re talking about the obsolescence of oil, coal, nuclear and natural gas. We’re talking about the obsolescence of the power grid. We’re talking about the obsolescence of combustion engines. We’re talking about the obsolescence. > [@](#): > > This would undoubtedly be a good thing. Anything which improves the efficiency of the industrial economy will wind up improving the lives of the citizenry. But it will change industries, and in ways that are not knowable at this point. Whole industries could be wiped out, and new ones be created. We really can’t guess at what we’ll find really useful to do if we don’t have to pay much of an energy cost to do it. Just like how the computer wiped out telephone operators and damaged many other old industrial markets, but replaced them with better things. Anything that improves the efficiency of the industrial economy puts people out of jobs. Comparing this kind of event to ANY prior obsolescence is just plain silliness. Nothing like what we are talking about here has ever happened before. You’re not talking about making industrialization more efficient you’re talking about industrialization being obsolete. What you are describing is the bankrupting of Russia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Venezuela, Mexico, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, any country whose primary export is oil and natural gas. No more tanker ships, no more oil platforms, no more roughnecks fixing pipelines and oil pumps outside of Midland. Eventually things would get better and it might be downright utopic, but that’s after the famines, wars and plagues. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/57 "2009-08-23T05:49:29Z")
Now if you are talking about a gradual shift well that’s what’s happening right now. Gradually over the next century solar/tidal/wind/geothermal will make all other forms of energy obsolete. Barring some kind of catastrophic event this WILL happen, not MIGHT happen, and 3D printers will democratize machine production reducing the cost of producing well, anything. And it will destroy most of the industries that are familiar to us today, but it’ll be a shedding of jobs a few hundred thousand at a time, not a few hundred million at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/58 "2009-08-23T06:15:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Anything that improves the efficiency of the industrial economy puts people out of jobs. We’ve been improving the efficiency of the economy for a long damned time, and so far as I can tell there are still jobs. In fact, until very recently unemployment was at all-time lows. Efficiency creates wealth. Wealth allows us to do things that were too expensive to do before. It increases opportunity, and it creates jobs. Those jobs may come at the expense of other industries, but created they are. There was a time when a majority of the country was employed in food creation or food services. It’s a fraction of that now. Whole areas of the economy underwent dramatic change. And food, like energy, is a basic need. The results of our being able to suddenly provide for a basic need with minimal effort transformed society and the economy. The world became a very different place. But would you want to go back? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/59 "2009-08-23T06:23:09Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > We’ve been improving the efficiency of the economy for a long damned time, and so far as I can tell there are still jobs. In fact, until very recently unemployment was at all-time lows. Because it happens gradually over time and the old employees can be retrained, even though it does break people’s lives in certain microcosms, such as Detroit autoworkers. Detroit is dying and it’s not ever coming back. We’re talking about creating thousands of Detroits overnight here. > [@](#): > > Efficiency creates wealth. For those in a position to benefit from the profits created by that efficiency yes. > [@](#): > > Wealth allows us to do things that were too expensive to do before. It increases opportunity, and it creates jobs. Those jobs may come at the expense of other industries, but created they are. There was a time when a majority of the country was employed in food creation or food services. It’s a fraction of that now. Whole areas of the economy underwent dramatic change. And food, like energy, is a basic need. The results of our being able to suddenly provide for a basic need with minimal effort transformed society and the economy. The world became a very different place. But would you want to go back? And if the destruction of the old industries come at a rate that is far more rapid than our ability to retrain workers then it causes a temporary catastrophe, like an economic crisis. Again the key word is GRADUALLY. Which you are obviously ignoring. If this thread is about gradual changes then it’s about nothing because it’s basic premise WILL occur within a century, but it will happen over time through innovation, not through one Deus Ex Machina invention. The invention that the OP is referring to already exists, it’s called a Solar panel, we just haven’t fully rolled them out and the gains in efficiency haven’t reached the watershed moment yet, that will occur within the next five years and it will be disruptive but not as disruptive as the _Holistic Utopia Generator_ as described in the OP. A Holistic Utopia Generator would be incredibly disruptive to industry today in a way no technology in all of history has been. It’s amazing to me that you of all people don’t comprehend how a civilization based upon plugging up scarcity will be disrupted when suddenly the baseline commodities that drive the engine of commerce become obsolete. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2009, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335/60 "2009-08-23T06:37:40Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > If you got that from what I said then the only thing I can assume is that you don’t know how to read. Or it means that you don’t understand the significance of what you were suggesting. If the rich have the robotics to replace labour, and they have the infinitely available energy source to power their factories, the technology is no longer “cheap” to build, it is effectively _free_. If you can produce everything you need with 0 hours of labour, it doesn’t _matter_ if you retrain or not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economic-consequences-of-a-new-cheap-safe-infinitely-available-energy-source/507335.md?page=4)