So here's an inspiration for a run I found:

http://www.geet.nl/nieuws/free-uk.htm

If he could really do that much damage to the world's economy, I'd be tempted to say you should leave him there for a while. But, no, that wouldn't be fair. Amusing, but not fair.

I'm living in a country that recently decided to back massive loans to our banks with public taxes. Essentially, taking our money to give to the banks so that they can lend it back to us with interest. With luck, the UK government will sell the shares back and make money, but I'm not counting on it. And I pay a lot of taxes. I'm living in a country that subsidises the private arms industry by around UK£850m per year and I haven't even got started on the taxes on business (or rather lack of them). If anyone can do more damage to the World's economy than some of the people pretending they're in charge of it, I'd like to meet them!

And isn't it funny how often threats to the World Economy mean threats to big financial institutions rather than to the general public.

But back to the point. It's easy and natural to dismiss this story as either paranoia or an fraud, but the more interesting question would be what would happen to someone who really could bring the oil industry to its knees? Even if it took over a decade before such a technology could start to take the place of oil due to whatever changes of infrastructure or technology were needed, its existence alone would wreak havoc. And we well know that the Oil Industry and Western governments have killed to protect this industry before. I think a compulsory sectioning under mental health and a smear campaign would be the least of the options considered.

Paranoid? Probably - if you were cautious about revealing your ideas, irrevocably discuss the technology in peer reviewed journals, be quick and careful about patenting it, etc., maybe you'd be safe. Particularly if you had a reputable status in the field of research. But it's a realistic possibility that someone who invented such a technology would come to an end such as this one. And perhaps safer to smear someone as a lunatic or crackpot, than to bump them off and rouse suspicion. And in the Shadowrun universe, it would definitely be on the cards. I can't be the only person here to have seen The Man in the White Suit. Imagine that film with a darker SR2070 remix.