| ??? 07/25/06 07:13 Read: times |
#121011 - So? Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Richard Erlacher said:
I once went to a product announcement that served several cases of wine that sold for $10K per bottle. So? Wine isn't gas. Wine is a luxry, and $10k wine is an excessive luxury. No-one disputes that rich people have money to spend on things most people wouldn't. That doesn't have much to do with gas costing $100k/gallon, though. Rich people are not all stupid. Their behavior, however, when they're spending money that they view as an inexhaustible resource, can be pretty reckless. It's like the government when it's spending YOUR money. No argument there. But that (in the case of the rich, not in the case of the government, hopefully) is their choice. Everyone is free to spend money on what they want; and if someone has so much money that they are inclined to buy cases of $10k wine, hey, I'm happy they have that much money to blow. I hope to be that rich someday, too (though I'll never spend $10k on wine). This does not mean that those same people are stupid and are intentionally working to make the middle-class poor and the poor people extinct. However, most of the investment in the solar, wind, and hydrogen energy generation future is being made by the same people who presently control the fossil-fuel generation and petroleum industry. They're interested in profits within their own lifetimes, and couldn't care a whit whether the world ends the day after they depart. Ok, you lost me there. So most of the investment in alternative energies is being made by the "bad guys" (the oil industry), and yet that's somehow proof that they're not interested in alternatives and are trying to keep people on petroleum??? They're the ones who are making sure the oil and coal are all gone before anyone makes reasonable progress in the U.S. toward a hydrogen-based economy. That's a popular conspiracy theory. I don't think it can be proven. But there's certainly nothing stopping other people from making progress on hydrogen whether big oil wants to or not. Heck, a good start would be if the environmental wackos spent their money encouraging a hydrogen economy rather than trying to stall development to protect some cricket. They're the ones who are dragging their feet in the wind generation efforts. They're the ones who want to promote ethanol, which uses more petroleum than it saves us, yet costs more, agricultural subsidies aside. If you say so. Personally, I don't think it's big oil's responsibility to replace their product. I agree, it might not be in their interest. That being the case, the fact that they've spent any money on alternative energy is amazing. I'm not waiting for big oil to promote nuclear energy. I'm waiting for big oil's competitor to promote nuclear energy. They're also the same guys who buy those 43-thousand square foot houses that waste more energy than ever before, and they're the ones who want to ruin the last pristine wildlife refuge in the north slope just to gain, and ultimately export, about three months' U.S. supply of petroleum. Again, if they have money to spend on big houses, that's their decision. It's no more our right to tell them how to spend their money than it is the Walmart clerk's right to tell me whether or not I can buy a new computer when I already have five in the house. As for Alaska, the economically feasible reserves located there could eliminate our need to import oil from a certain South American country for 30 years. Not a bad idea. If the government were truly interested in improving our energy situation, it would subsidize independent efforts in photovoltaic single-home energy generation systems so we could get away from the huge losses due to transimission and distribution inefficiencies. No, if it were truly interested in improving our energy situation, it would invest in nuclear energy. Nuclear is cheap enough that we don't need to make our cities even more ugly by putting solar panels on every house (I'm a pilot and I can't even imagine flying over a city with solar panels on every house). I don't deny that our government (not just the current administration, but all administrations) are very unimaginative when it comes to energy. There is comfort in the status quo, and not just because of big oil. The worldwide impact of our energy independence would be massive. It'd be huge. Countries would go bankrupt, we could very easily withdrawl from areas of the world that would become even more unstable than they already are leading to a power vaccum. I can understand a certain reluctance to rocking the boat for reasons that go far beyond contributions from big oil. If the government were truly interested in improving the U.S. energy situation, they'd ration gasoline, and adjust the price paid on the basis of consumption. Oh, come on. You don't really believe that rationing and price controls is an effective solution in a capitalistic economy? Sheesh. If you use 10 gallons per week, you could buy those ten gallons at a subsidized price, say, $2 per gallon. Ok, so not only do you believe in rationing and price controls, you also want to subsidize? There's a country about 90 miles south of Florida you might be interested in relocating to. Their government policies might be more to your liking. Regards, Craig Steiner |
