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If the new technologies are economical and valued, they will succeed.

[/ QUOTE ] Yup. But there could potentially be a very long transition period. This is especially true where there's a chicken-and-egg problem. Let's say the experts decide that hydrogen-powered cars are the best way to go. No one's going to buy a hydrogen car, because there are no hydrogen fuel stations, and no one's going to build a hydrogen fuel station, because there are no hydrogen cars. If the government steps in and subsidizes both the cars and the stations, we can break this impasse and get much faster adoption.

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Engineering the economy so that cars are built with some materials that a select few have decided are best is a stupid, stupid idea. Such manipulation can never be as efficient and effective as letting the market decide.

[/ QUOTE ]If we're talking about deciding something like whether people listen to music on vinyl records or CDs, I agree with you. The problem is that in the realm of energy, there are very important externalities that are not reflected in the market prices. The price of gasoline reflects its supply/demand characteristics, but it doesn't incorporate the costs that will be imposed by global warming, or by sending lots of money to governments like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela that hate us. The true cost of gasoline is higher than its market price. We can't rely on markets to do everything.