Let's look at some oil market history now. And this is all relevant to Valles' Gundam 00 concept.
Seriously. I'll explain how it relates in a moment. =)
Oil prices are high now, but why are oil prices high? The normal understanding of a market is that, well, demand and supply are related. As demand rises, supply should rise. If supply does not rise as quickly as demand, then you'll see a rapid increase in price. The same will occur if supply falls, but demand does not decrease at a corresponding rate.
Now.
The thing is, there are several factors influencing the oil market.
Necratoid brought up the idea of speculation. People buying and hoarding oil. This is true. As prices rise, demand also rises, as people purchase oil in expectation of the price going even higher. This is not "actual" demand, since folks aren't using the oil they buy. It's speculative.
That's how it works in theory. In practice, of course, it's much harder to determine how much of an impact speculation has on the market. But it does have some impact.
Next up, let's consider the oil cartels.
Oil prices are also kept high in part because most oil producers - particularly OPEC - generally prefer high prices. For profit reasons. This isn't universally true, but it has been historically true for OPEC.
OPEC does not control the whole supply side of the oil industry, but it obviously has influence. OPEC first reached prominence in 1973 when members agreed to restrict their oil production. Because of the diminished supply, oil prices rapidly increased - because demand for oil remained largely unchanged. People still needed it, so they had to pay the higher price.
Let's look at that again. What OPEC did was produce less oil. Less oil. But each barrel sold at a higher price. So that was a profit.
In the long run however, the high price of oil led to the tapping of alternative oil reserves...but also development of more energy-efficient technologies - and alternative sources of energy entirely.
So the market for expensive OPEC oil shrank, and income for OPEC countries started to fall. So individual OPEC countries started to violate their quotas, argue with each other - and the agreement basically fell apart. This reflects the inherent instability in any cartel; individual producers are always elf-interested. After all, they're in this for profit.
So oil prices fell - but this only really happened in the 1980s, so you had a good ten years of high oil prices. More or less.
The thing is, though, OPEC has its act together again by now. World consumption of oil has increased, particularly in the US, China, and India. Discovery of new oil supplies has fallen. There's fewer oil reserves that can be brought online to fight price increases.
In the very long run, though, we still can expect prices to fall - one way or another. Because demand cannot remain at the current level. It's just too expensive. People are going to cut down on their oil consumption, either by changing habits or industries, or finding alternatives. The only question is when that shift in demand will happen, but it will happen...
...eventually.
It may take a long time, but it'll happen eventually.
How does this relate to the Gundam 00 situation, as outlined by Valles?
It makes the technology he outlines even more viable, because it is clear that any non-solar state is going to be really desperate to find an alternative source of power. Any alternative source. One can also expect that such states would limit their use of power as far as is possible, and would be leading champions of energy-efficient technologies.
Again, in the long run, particularly if some viable alternative is discovered, one can expect reliance on solar energy to fall - demand will decrease, at least to some degree. So the question is, what would the solar-producing states do then?
-- Acyl
Seriously. I'll explain how it relates in a moment. =)
Oil prices are high now, but why are oil prices high? The normal understanding of a market is that, well, demand and supply are related. As demand rises, supply should rise. If supply does not rise as quickly as demand, then you'll see a rapid increase in price. The same will occur if supply falls, but demand does not decrease at a corresponding rate.
Now.
The thing is, there are several factors influencing the oil market.
Necratoid brought up the idea of speculation. People buying and hoarding oil. This is true. As prices rise, demand also rises, as people purchase oil in expectation of the price going even higher. This is not "actual" demand, since folks aren't using the oil they buy. It's speculative.
That's how it works in theory. In practice, of course, it's much harder to determine how much of an impact speculation has on the market. But it does have some impact.
Next up, let's consider the oil cartels.
Oil prices are also kept high in part because most oil producers - particularly OPEC - generally prefer high prices. For profit reasons. This isn't universally true, but it has been historically true for OPEC.
OPEC does not control the whole supply side of the oil industry, but it obviously has influence. OPEC first reached prominence in 1973 when members agreed to restrict their oil production. Because of the diminished supply, oil prices rapidly increased - because demand for oil remained largely unchanged. People still needed it, so they had to pay the higher price.
Let's look at that again. What OPEC did was produce less oil. Less oil. But each barrel sold at a higher price. So that was a profit.
In the long run however, the high price of oil led to the tapping of alternative oil reserves...but also development of more energy-efficient technologies - and alternative sources of energy entirely.
So the market for expensive OPEC oil shrank, and income for OPEC countries started to fall. So individual OPEC countries started to violate their quotas, argue with each other - and the agreement basically fell apart. This reflects the inherent instability in any cartel; individual producers are always elf-interested. After all, they're in this for profit.
So oil prices fell - but this only really happened in the 1980s, so you had a good ten years of high oil prices. More or less.
The thing is, though, OPEC has its act together again by now. World consumption of oil has increased, particularly in the US, China, and India. Discovery of new oil supplies has fallen. There's fewer oil reserves that can be brought online to fight price increases.
In the very long run, though, we still can expect prices to fall - one way or another. Because demand cannot remain at the current level. It's just too expensive. People are going to cut down on their oil consumption, either by changing habits or industries, or finding alternatives. The only question is when that shift in demand will happen, but it will happen...
...eventually.
It may take a long time, but it'll happen eventually.
How does this relate to the Gundam 00 situation, as outlined by Valles?
It makes the technology he outlines even more viable, because it is clear that any non-solar state is going to be really desperate to find an alternative source of power. Any alternative source. One can also expect that such states would limit their use of power as far as is possible, and would be leading champions of energy-efficient technologies.
Again, in the long run, particularly if some viable alternative is discovered, one can expect reliance on solar energy to fall - demand will decrease, at least to some degree. So the question is, what would the solar-producing states do then?
-- Acyl