Re: GAS-L: The "Hydrogen Economy": Bleak or Bright?

[Marc de Piolenc <piolenc@mozcom.com>]

While I tend to agree with the post copied in part below, I also fully
understand Peter's jaundiced view of the relations between First and
Third World economic powers. Capital projects here are burdened with
such high rates of interest that they are made artificially
"uneconomical," when they would have succeeded in an un-skewed economy.
It's the 17th-18th century monster, Mercantilism, in a different guise
and with the Third World playing the part of America and those in
control of the World Bank the role of Britain. The effect - which I have
come to believe is fully intended - is that the Third World exports raw
materials and imports manufactured goods, just as a certain thirteen
colonies were forced to do until they took matters into their own hands.

Unfortunately, the Powers that Be here are happy to be in bed with
whoever's running the show internationally, so the only solution is what
Peter is doing: 

* ask nobody for approval, 
* expect no local help,
* solve your own problems,
* mine the Internet for all the information that could possibly be
relevant
* use the Net to communicate with far-flung like-minded people.

This "global grass roots" approach to industrial development is slow,
but it is immune to sabotage by financial manipulation, which recommends
it in my view. In the long run, I think that other measures are needed
here in the Philippines, namely:

* institution of a gold-based currency, if necessary informally and at
the local level (every attempt at economic recovery in the recent past
has been stopped cold by abrupt devaluation of the peso vis-à-vis the US
"dollar"). This would be relatively easy here, as the overseas Chinese
who are the true drivers of the economy in the South have never put any
faith in fiat currency, and likely have very large personal gold
holdings

* elimination of the cynical education "reforms" of the recent past that
de-emphasized English in favor of the official national language,
Tagalog (renamed for cosmetic purposes "Pilipino"). As all higher
education here is necessarily conducted in English (availability of
textbooks, technical literature, equipment...), this has the effect of
closing the door to higher education to all but the wealthy; no matter
how many scholarship programs are instituted for the poor, they are
useless if primary and secondary schooling give the poor insufficient
grounding in English.

* removal (or bypassing) of "protective" restrictions and tariffs on
foreign publications, which make it difficult and expensive to get
technical literature, especially in the provinces. At present, it is
easier to get technical and historical information on the Philippines
economy in the USA than in the Philippines!

Enough venting for today. Thanks for reading this far.

Marc de Piolenc
Iligan City, Philippines

> At 10:26 AM 11/21/2002 -0600, you wrote:
> >>>>
> Peter  What a paranoid view of the world. The reality is  that yes many
> large companies control oil and energy production in this modern  age
> because of the high risk and high cost in developing oil production. If you
>  have a good cost effective alternative to cheap oil that is great. Take
> the big  plunge and market it to the world.  Unfortunately (or fortunately
> depending on your  veiw point) energy is about economics if you can't look
> at the costs of the  whole project and compete it is doomed to be a
> failure.



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