Fizzwizz, I think your analogy of the pedal power for all is a bit flawed in the statement that it is better to make more with less people power.

I'm no socialist, that is jobs for all doing anything as long as it uses muscle power instead of machines etc, or something like that, but when you reduce the input to maximise the output, you end up with an elite society that monopolises the resources simply because they have the means to afford them.

The whole future of the industry, and if anyone thinks green power isn't an industry, wait till the oils gone, then see who gets to afford it, but I digress, the whole future of energy production, if you want to condense it to minimum Humanoid activity input, will reduce the output availability to only those that can afford it.

This will solve the problem of inferior production methods, such as wind power not being able to supply the needs of the many, because the cost will be so high the many will probably be reduced to living in caves and cooking over open fires again.

The elitists won't give a sh!t, they have the money and can afford the high tech energy products, so who cares if the scruffy unwashed plebs are without electric power? When the lights are being turned off it will reduce the demand and wind power etc will fill the demand of the priviliged few.

The big problem in the past has been the fact that energy from fossil fuel has been so underpriced it was practically being given away.

The alternate energy sources, soon to be, will not meet the demand of the masses, so the solution of the powers that be is to reduce the demand by making it humungeously expensive, and the need for huge energy producers will no longer be required.

All the energy requirement would then be met by exotic green machines, that only those with the money can afford to use.

If you think this is ludicrous, it's happening in South Africa and elsewhere right now.

A guy with ten kids living in a tin shack in shanty town probably never had a light bulb blow in his entire life, because he never had electricity in his entire life, not on his meage wages, but if you suddenly threw a few million extra consumers onto the grid, how would the existing power plants cope?

Here's an example, I pay A$0.18 per KW/hr for my electricity in the Lucky Country of OZ, but what if the coal burners turned off and the coal went to China for foreign exchange, leaving us with all that lovely clean green electric energy at A$0.90 per KW/hr?

A sure as God made nasty little green apples, I would turn my lights off, because I don't like the idea of bankruptcy in place of going to bed as soon as it got dark, but my next door neighbour would burn his till midnight because he's an executive with pots of boodle.

The moral is, you can't demand cheap power just because you can't afford it.
Ian.