Energy,Petrocurrency,and the World Future

Abstract

The author argues that since most OPEC members have an abundant and continuous supply of solar energy, the primary source for producing hydrogen which can be stored and transported (given the full development of the requisite technology with the help of oil-produced funds), they can not only continue to maintain their lead position as a producer of energy after oil supplies are depleted, but also initiate an ecologically sound technology for producing the kind of energy which, unlike oil, will not be depleted and will, in addition, eliminate the dangers of nuclear power. He also thinks that the OPEC could, in cooperation with Third World countries, initiate a new world bank utilizing commodities produced in the Third World as the reserve currency to replace US dollars or other currencies such as the SDR. Such a bank (with a currency that would not devalue, would become a ‘currency of preference’ for international trade, and would enable the enormous expansion of credit for agricultural production without inflationary effects) could be sponsored by the UN. There are, however, certain difficulties, partly technical such as the problem of storage, and partly political such as the reaction of the industrialized world. But these difficulties are not insuperable.