Friday, January 16, 2009

Canada's old economy vs new economy

Old Economy:
Canada's oil bust | A sticky ending for the tar sands | The Economist

New Economy:
Better Place to create electric car infrastructure in Canada

Oil, of course will come back... this price drop is temporary and as we work through this recession demand and prices will rise; and there will probably be more EV company flame-outs than huge sucesses (although Better Place looks promising).

Don't get me wrong, I have no illusions that Canada's economy will totally evolve from a resource-based one to an R&D-based one (although that would be nice.) But any investment the country makes in bits and bytes is more sustainable, more forward thinking and is more in keeping with developing a 21st century economy than any investment in rocks and trees.