Note how I phrased this, oh so carefully:
> As long as there is free market competition, there will be cutthroat price > reductions and the cost of energy per joule will plummet, just as the cost > of computing fell by a factor of several billion (measured per instruction > or per byte of storage). > The cost per FLOP or per byte of storage has declined by many orders of magnitude. BUT, we spend a lot more on computers than we did in 1970. Corporations spend more, and individuals spend way more, increasing from zero dollars then to several thousand dollars today. When you count the cost of computers built into your car, your food processor, TV and cell phone, computers are probably one of your biggest expenses. Something similar may happen with energy. We may consume a lot more of it, in many new ways. The price may fall by a factor of ten for the raw joules of heat, but manufacturers will think of clever ways to package energy and we will buy it in small expensive chunks. This is like converting cheap potatoes into expensive potato chips. Overall consumption may not rise much in the first world, because many people consume all the energy they want. I am sure consumption will rise in the the third world. If we undertake projects such as massive desalination, or a project to bury most of the major highways, the overall, society-wide use of energy will increase tremendously. The cost, meanwhile, will gradually fall to zero. - Jed
