The last instalment.

I have realised that my model is not realisable, not because my idea is bad, but because this world is not good enough for it. I have made some back-of-envelope calculations and notice that commodities are not priced according to their energy values.

For example on the commodity market, ethanol costs about $0.7/TJ while heating oil costs about $0.25/TJ (assuming a price of $1.54 per 42,000 US gal). That is, the market prefers to spend thrice the price on ethanol for the same value. You might wonder who is so stupid. The fact is that regarding the huge margins, these differences are trivial. Because you pay about $28,000 per terajoule, at a price of $0.10 per kWh.

That said, I never expected energy to become a currency within the next thirty years. What I am thinking of is rather a future time, when people having left Earth, terraformed and colonised alien planets and moons try to make a living in a new harsh reality beyong the control of the core planets. That’s when jobs are paid in antimaterial.

So I hope. Joss Whedon, hire me as a consultant!