Read Online ACV's 1 Operation Black Gold by J Murison, Jeannie Michaud - Free Book Online Page B

all out.  In the meantime their existing stock should last about another three years.’
    ‘Three years.’  The young man mused.  ‘Three years to find more oil or convert.  They could convert, couldn’t they?’
    ‘I would presume so, and if they did, they could or would become world leaders in a new era.’
    ‘So why haven’t we become world leaders?’  He asked.
    ‘For fuck sake,’ I sighed.
     
    ‘The patenting Laws,’ supplied Fritz.
    His eyes flew wide, ‘oh right.’
     
    ‘I never did understand that,’ stated Abie.
     
    ‘Jim?’  Fritz offered.
    ‘Nah Fritz, you’re more familiar wee these things than I am.’
    He shrugged, ‘OK it’s fairly simple.  When Scotland went independent, we basically had nothing.  Our first real job was to find cheap sources of power to keep the country working and our export market viable.’
     
    ‘Aye, aye, I ken a’ that, cut the bullshit and get to the point eh!’  Abie interrupted.
     
    ‘The point is, our government threw out the old patenting laws and invited anyone who thought they’d had a rough deal to re-patent their inventions here in Scotland.  In return we would protect their patents by law.’
     
    ‘Aye but why was that necessary?’  Abie was getting pissed off.
     
    ‘Well for over a hundred years people were registering their patents in their own countries.  Any kind of device, like the perpetual motion machines that every household now has was snapped up by interested companies then buried.’  Fritz supplied.
     
    ‘Why?’  Abie had his arms crossed now.
     
    ‘Profit.’
    Abie’s blank look said it all.
    Fritz tried again.  ‘Our government owns and supplies all our electricity, right.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Now with the population boom they needed more electricity, right.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Well at the time most of the nuclear power plants were being decommissioned.  Oil and coal were in short supply.  Hydropower was impractical and takes too long to get up and running.  So when people started registering their patents, the government looked there.  There was literally hundreds of different power saving devices to be had.  They choose on one that had first been patented in America almost sixty years ago.  The perpetual motion machine.  They bought it under the new laws and mass-produced it fitting one in every home.  Fifty percent of the electricity it produces goes straight into the home; the other fifty is fed back into the power grid.  Within about six months they had created the equivalent of five new power stations.’
     
    Abie shrugged, ‘aye, so it was a great idea, so why bury it in the first place?’
     
    ‘Profit Abie, I’ll make it simple.  Everywhere else in the world, well almost everywhere else, the power market, gas, oil, coal, electricity is all owned by the same people and sold for profit.  If your ordinary Joe could buy one of these machines and plug it in and produce his own electricity, then the big companies loose out.  Less money equals less power equals less say so equals less power.’
     
    Abie got it, ‘why didn’t ye say so in the first place then, bit how does that affect the oil?’
    ‘Same thing again, old patents new power supply new plastics the lot.  Everybody used to depend on them, well most still do, supply and demand.’
    Abie thought it over, ‘aye right they supply and then demand what they like for it.  Money, say so, power.’
    Fritz nodded, ‘that’s it, and our kind of environment would make them depend on their supply from others.’
    ‘Like Nommy.’  Abie pointed out.
     
    ‘Aye, that’s how I’ve made my money Abie, supplying the energy market.  Fair enough we haven’t got the say so we would have on a free market but we do well enough.’  Nommy supplied.
     
    Now Abie was nodding his head vigorously, ‘so if this was America then you would have more say so.  Less for them, more profit, less for them, more power less for