As they have throughout history, high oil prices are evoking calls for new patterns of energy supply and use. The response comes naturally to markets and politics, unleashing the creative potential those systems represent. If not held in check, though, it also gives way easily to costly excess.High oil prices help new energy forms migrate from the economic margin into the market. Movement of this type is evident and, for a world with an energy appetite outgrowing its supply menu, beneficial.Distortions and costsInevitably, however, some market participants turn to politics for competitive advantage while politicians turn to markets as tools of influence. Energy forms then advance not beca...