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256 • MacroeconomicsUltimately, the only sustainable and widely available replacement issolar energy. Though photons are technically rival, no matter how manyphotons we capture in one country (with the possible exception of highlyadvanced space-based technologies) it will have no impact on the numberof photons striking another. The current constraint on capturing solar energyis information—we need to develop more efficient technologies thatdo not rely on exceedingly rare elements. Information of course is purelynonrival, or even additive, 42 in that it improves through use. While wemay still compete for rare elements required by solar technology, more informationmay help us overcome these constraints as well.We have the option of providing information cooperatively and makingit a public good or providing it competitively and making it a marketgood. If private firms compete to develop information, it may take longerto develop (as explained in Chapter 10), and price rationing will create artificialscarcity (see Box 9.2). If information provision is cooperative, weface the problem of public-good provision. One solution in this case is tomake information a club good—institutions (e.g., countries or corporations)that contribute a fair amount to developing alternative energy technologies(members of the club) will be allowed to use them freely, whilethose who fail to contribute will be charged a fair contribution to costs ofdevelopment or denied access as nonmembers. If payments are then dedicatedto further technological improvements, the result is no differentfrom cooperation. This approach solves the problem of free-riding,though failure to allow free use remains inefficient. However, the greaterthe number of institutions contributing to produce a given amount of information,the lower the cost per institution, and the more worthwhile itbecomes to join the club. Unlike a country club, an information club cannever become congested.Climate Change. Global climate change can be defined as underprovisionof the public good of climate stability or excessive use of the commonpoolresource of waste absorption capacity. At least part of the solutionwill undoubtedly involve the new carbon-neutral technologies needed tosolve the peak oil problem. From the perspective of climate change, though,there is no free-rider problem in the deployment of these technologies. Inthe absence of climate change, one institution has nothing to gain fromothers using alternatives to fossil fuels. In the presence of climate change,such technologies become additive: the more people use them, even withoutpaying, the better off the inventor becomes, since she, too, benefitsfrom a more stable climate. The countries best able to fund research into42 We consider using the word antirival to emphasize the contrast with rival goods. However,rival goods are also known as subtractive.