Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> For example, although the US is self-sufficient in energy, the cost is > controlled by the world market. The U.S. is not self-sufficient in energy. We consume 97 quads. We import 24 quads (mainly oil) and export 10 quads (oil and coal). See: http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/diagram1.cfm If the cost goes down, the profit goes down and the loans supporting the > infrastructure cannot be paid, resulting in massive default. That would depend on how far down the costs go, how quickly. Energy costs have dropped throughout history. The cost of electricity in particular has fallen in real dollars. Granted, cold fusion is likely to cause a catastrophic drop in prices which would strand much of the industry, but the default would not be massive. Oil, gas, coal and electric companies do not have much debt. They are not a major part of the U.S. economy. There would be stranded infrastructure, but it would be stranded because we don't need it. It will not serve any purpose, and no one will miss it, any more than we miss having the use of abandoned railroad lines. It will take a long time to close down the electric power industry. 20 or 30 years at least, and probably longer. That is plenty of time to pay off bonds. They will not have to buy any new equipment or generators during that time, since the market will be contracting. They can just use up and then throw away their old equipment. That is what U.S. railroads did from 1945 to 1965, as passenger traffic vanished. Even today, most of the remaining rolling stock is decades old, and it is a tiny fraction of what we had in 1945. The global energy market is $6 trillion, but most of that money goes to the oil producing countries, mainly in the Middle East and Russia. Their economies will be destroyed. Not ours, and not Europe or Japan. Look at the Fortune 500: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2013/full_list/index.html?iid=F500_sp_full It is true that #2, 3, 4 and 9 are in the energy business, with a total of $992 billion, but the others are nowhere to be seen. Other companies in other business make far more in the aggregate, and many of these companies such as GM and Ford may benefit from cold fusion, or profit from it directly, such as GE (assuming they make cold fusion generators). Every dollar not earned by Exxon is likely to be spent elsewhere. Every dollar not sent to Saudi Arabia will be spent here instead. - Jed
