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Re: Global Energy etc.



Of course I talk about the fact that we really can't predict what
the technology might come up with over the next 100 years any better than
someone in 1900 could have predicted what 2000 would be like.

That's why I haven't tried looking ahead so far in the similar course
that I'm now teaching (for the first time). Around here the prevailing
attitude seems to be that we needn't concern ourselves with the future
(at least not beyond the next 20 years) because the experts will invent
something to solve all our problems by then. Unless the world ends
first, which is also considered likely by many of my students.

Actually, the U.S. Energy Information Administration seems to have
a similar attitude. By and large, their projections look at only
the next 20 years. Naturally, they anticipate an unabated increase
in petroleum consumption.

Dan