EclecticLip

Energy Shift was chosen as a book club selection for much the same reason as Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller: the company is in the alternative energy field, and so would benefit from employees knowledgeable about the energy sector.

As a policymaker-oriented volume, the book wasn’t as detailed or analysis-driven as I’d hoped.  An example comes in Chapter 2, which repeats the common refrain that energy demand will continue to rise by 2% per year for the foreseeable future.  It would seem to me that the developed world is likely to continue experiencing several years of economic malaise, in light of the debt overhang and worsening demographics.  Reduced consumer demand could somewhat dampen economic growth in developing economies as well, with a commensurate effect on energy demand.

None the less, the book was highly valuable, if only to know the kind of advice being given to movers and shakers.

As usual, if you enjoy the book summary, please consider supporting the author by purchasing a copy. 

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Energy Shift - summary

Given the visually-staggering inventory piling up, it is difficult to foresee good times returning for automakers, anytime soon.

This image had a nice feel to it — the staggered and uneven rows made me think of the old “space invaders” arcade game.

Rob McEwen — founder of Goldcorp — got a mention in Bloomberg the other day, basically about his predictions that gold would hit:

• US$2000/oz…  by end-2010
• US$5000/oz…  at its peak

He’d have a lot less credibility if not for his track record. 

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Toyota’s in an interesting spot this year.  The new Prius is being overshadowed, what with the flurry blizzard of electric car announcements from naerly every carmaker, including Chinese battery upstart BYD.

One of the newer members of Warren Buffett’s investment stable, BYD deserves kudos for nipping the First World automakers with their product — which is already on sale in China!

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I’ve encountered a major fallacy in two fields, relating to the incorrect application of a steady-state assumption.  So I’m making it a category.

I’m going to say arguments suffer from a steady-state fallacy when they improperly assume that a present-day circumstance will carry over unchanged into the future.  Because over time, most circumstances do change.  People get older.  New technologies emerge.  Empires fall, and new ones rise. And so forth.
A few examples below the fold…

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Toyota substantially expanded production over the past decade or so, when demand was artificially increased by easy credit. I can’t help think that contributed to this announcement: an unprecedented eleven-day shutdown at its Japanese factories.

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