Unintended consequences of seawater fuel – you can afford the drive to dinner, but can’t afford the dinner
Larry Rosenthal shared a Justin Rosario post about how a U.S. Navy technological advance will bring grief to evil Republicans as Big Oil gets smaller and no one cares about the Middle East any more.
But I’m not going to talk about that. First, I’m going to talk about the technological advance itself. Rosario quotes from the International Business Times:
After decades of experiments, U.S. Navy scientists believe they may have solved one of the world’s great challenges: how to turn seawater into fuel….
The new fuel is initially expected to cost around $3 to $6 per gallon, according to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, which has already flown a model aircraft on it.
While the International Business Times focuses on the new technology’s application to U.S. Navy ships, Rosario speculates – correctly – that the technology could also be put to civilian use. While he looks at good things (well, good things from his perspective), it’s wise to remember that everything has unintended consequences.
Everything.
Let’s assume for the moment that the technology can be expanded from military use to civilian use, and that Big Oil companies and repressive Third World dictatorships disappear overnight, and that a vast network of fueling stations appears around the world, but that the fueling stations are all run by really really nice people who pay their employees $100 an hour while providing fuel at pre-1973 prices of 10 cents a gallon.
Everybody’s happy, right?
“Mom, can we go to Red Lobster tonight?”
“No, son.”
“But Mom, the Red Lobster is only 100 miles away, and it would only cost us a dime to drive there!”
“That’s right, son, but I can’t afford to pay $1,000 for a fish dinner tonight.”
“$1,000? Why do fish dinners cost so much, Mom?”
“Because of all the barges that are going up and down the coastline, converting seawater into fuel.”
“I remember those barges, Mom. They were a lot of them. They looked pretty cool!”
“Well, son, the fish don’t like all of those barges, so they all moved to other waters, and now the fishers aren’t catching that many fish any more. So fish dinners cost a lot more today. Back when I was a kid, I could get a fish dinner for less than it cost to buy two gallons of gas.”
“A fish dinner costing less than two gallons of gas? That’s really weird, Mom.”
tymshft 