The wind caused by the slamming shut of one door often opens another door

The end of the free market:

A fascinating new book is about to hit the shelves. Called The End of the Free Market it argues that all-powerful governments from around the world will be the new driving force in the global economy, skewing the decision making process away from individuals, companies and the market towards states, political interests and authoritarianism.

Stated in one bald paragraph it sounds a little apocalyptic. But Ian Bremmer, the highly respected author who is president of the Eurasia Group in the United States, makes a compelling case. The financial crisis has left Western capitalism nervous and risk averse, constantly under attack from a body politic keen to take advantage of public anger over the events of 2007 and 2008. Issues like the control of the banking system, remuneration and the failure of so much of the financial sector, whether Northern Rock, Lehman Brothers, AIG or Royal Bank of Scotland, has created a fundamental crisis in confidence.

At the same time, and with little of the same scrutiny, cash-rich governments from the Middle East and Asia are taking advantage of this malaise. Bremmer argues that, with the collapse of communism little more than a generation ago in historical terms, China, Saudi Arabia and Russia are now the leading players in this new era of state capitalism.

The battle for the rights to energy and food are at the forefront of the new trend, coupled with what Bremmer describes as the ability of such states to "buy" their citizens loyalty. He suggests that the development is a threat to long term global recovery.

There will be no "recovery." This "recession" has been a crisis that has provided opportunities for "state capitalists" like China. The new economy will be increasingly global and the West cannot compete against nations who practice "state capitalism." We will now have to compete against nations who have little to no regulation over industry and far lower labor costs. Welcome to the New World Order.

But I'm not a doom and gloom type of guy. As the saying goes: "The wind caused by the slamming shut of one door often opens another door." I know we will adjust because we still have the advantage producing most of the innovative technology.

New technology for "photosynthesising" fuel could lead to cars running on fuel made from carbon dioxide and sunlight:

Solar-powered reactors can take carbon dioxide and turn it into carbon monoxide. The same reactors can also be used to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The two can then be reacted together with a catalyst to form hydrocarbon fuels, in a technique known as the Fischer-Tropsch process.

Fuels made in this way are sufficiently similar to those currently used in cars that major redesigns of engines and refuelling stations should not be necessary.
...
One such machine, the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5), created by a team of scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, captures carbon dioxide from power plant exhaust fumes. In the future, however, they hope to extract it directly from the air.

The system uses a giant parabolic mirror, which concentrates sunlight on to two chambers separated by spinning rings of cerium oxide. As the rings turn, the cerium oxide is heated to 1500C and releases oxygen into one of the chambers. The oxygen is then pumped away.

As the ring spins, the now de-oxidised cerium moves into the other chamber. Carbon dioxide is pumped in, and the deoxidised cerium steals one of the oxygen molecules, creating carbon monoxide and cerium oxide.

Another team, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, uses a similar system, but with calcium oxide, zinc oxide and steam, which can create a stream of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Their system can already use atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The Fischer-Tropsch method has been used for decades to make petroleum out of coal. South Africa perfected this method during the 70s and 80s when the West prevented oil from being exported to the apartheid state. Petrol from coal is not as "green" as this new technology but it is, as I've said numerous times before, one way of becoming less dependent on foreign oil. We have enough coal in the US to last for another 300 years (at current usage levels.)