This is a war I expect will only get more heated over the next few years: the fossil-fuel industry (last century’s dominant power) and the Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur set (this century’s).

The first major battle has broken out in California:

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Still smarting from California’s recent enactment of emissions caps, the oil industry is confronting another assault in the Golden State — this one bankrolled in part by Silicon Valley tycoons pushing to fund conservation and alternative-energy initiatives with a tax on oil output.

Two of the nation’s most influential constituencies are locked in an increasingly nasty battle over a ballot initiative that could squeeze an estimated $4 billion over the next decade from oil producers in California through a tax that would be as high as 6% a barrel.

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I know who I’m rooting for.