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What if by that time the pollution caused by shale oil burning (which would have been most efficent until recently) had caused massive negative externailities.
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Externalities are bogus concepts that are (mis)used to justify government intervention. The emotion they play on (that others' actions can have effects one's happiness without action from the one that is effected) is a real one, but their application is always arbitrary. Additionally, they assume to know the preferences of the individual that is affected by them, even though that individual has expressed no preference (i.e. he hasn't acted). See
http://www.mises.org/story/1360 for more.
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In your version of anachro captitalism, if i get it right, someone else should have property rights to clean air, and as energy producers worsen air quality they would have to pay for the rights to do so.
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Not quite. They would pay for damages they cause by allowing their pollution to invade your person and property. They gain no "right" to do so.
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However in the world where we live, myself and everyone else would have to pay a great cost to get together and force energy companies to pay.
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Is that cost greater than the cost of allowing the pollution? If that cost is so great, it should be more than enough to discourage polluters.
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Essential in your schemata (sp) i believe that energy companies are stealing, insomuch, as they are using a resource (a non-polluted enviornment) that does not belong to them without paying for it. The typical arguement here is that if people value a clean enviornment they should organize and delinetate the rights to clean air, however i would argue that this organization is incredibly costly to the point of being nearly impossible.
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Why, then, would it be possible in a state system?
Note that class-action lawsuits are often massively expensive, much more expensive than any one member of the class would be able to afford, yet they are routine. Even individual lawsuits that cost more than the plantiff could ever afford are taken up by lawyers every day.
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I would agree with anachro capitalism if all rights could be perfectly delinetated, but since that is not possible, and the market neither accounts for, nor allows the trade or all valuable things, it remains imperfect.
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Why is this not possible? What trade is not allowed?
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So in this particular instance, i think that the status quo relies on an inordinate cost of organization, an inability to guarantee property rights over time, and profittering off a stolen resouce, not on the inherent value of R+D vs the status quo.
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I'm not sure what you're saying here. When you say "status quo" what exactly are you referring to?
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I personally think this can be rectafied (though imperfectly) by government interaction.
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How?
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edit: I know one response is that government would not allocate reasources any better, but i don't think that's really true. In this case i think clean air has identifiably more net value then immediate cheap energy.
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Your valuation may not be the same as everyone else's. Also note that if producers of "cheap" but dirty energy are actually held accountable for their pollution and forced to pay for damages they cause, the price they are able to offer their energy at will have to reflect those costs - the supposed externality has been internalized.
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(Read i believe A>SQ)
The problem as i see it is organization + "air" delineating costs more then status quo
O + A > SQ
however government reduces the cost of organization to the point that i believe (and it's debateable)
O + A < SQ
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Let's allow that government does enable organization costs to drop. What about the costs it imposes elsewhere?