>From the WSJ, a few minutes ago: "Egyptian Vice President Suleiman says President Mubarak has stepped down and has delegated Egypt's affairs to the army."
Mubarak may very well be a scumbag who richly deserved to get kicked out of office, but the proximate cause of the demise of his power is, as far as I can tell, the skyrocketing price of food. And that, in turn, is due, at least in part, to the high price of oil, which has made biofuels economical. Because that, in turn, has resulted in farmers pulling land out of food production and switching over to "fake oil production" -- most notably, ethanol from corn. All of North Africa is currently going up in flames, due at least in part to the ethanol we burn in our gasoline. A cheap source of energy would make a huge difference to world's poor, even if they never used it themselves, even if all it did was free up arable land from biofuel production. The other thing pushing up food prices is the rotten and unpredictable weather which the world's been suffering through for the last few years, which has resulted in major grain producing nations cutting back on their exports -- and that seems to be due mostly to climate change caused by burning of fossil fuels. So, again, an alternate source of energy would (eventually) benefit the world's poor, even if they never used it themselves. Won't it be great if Rossi's gadget turns out to be for real? Time will tell....
