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Marko Rollo
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Let's start with the argument that regardless of our feelings about global warming, reducing our dependence on foreign oil is a reasonable and desirable long-term goal. So how about a little Dem/Rep horse trading so we can get off the dime and get what we both want?
Dems: quit calling for a windfall profits tax on big oil: it's punitive, and not good policy. Reps: the oil companies have enough profits, quit giving them tax incentives to drill. Corporate welfare is embarassing to conservatives anyway.
Dems: admit none of us are smart enough to evaluate the latest crop of thorium and pebble reactors, and that just maybe nuclear is a lot safer than it was 30 years ago. Quit bringing up Chernobyl (sp?). Everyone who's been their knows the Russians are crappy at maintenance. Reps: admit that France (ugh) and Europe are much farther ahead of us in nuclear tech, and have something to teach us. Anybody that invented champagne and French ticklers can't be all bad.
Dems: quitcherbitchin about birds dying in windmills, and cut out the lawsuits every time somebody proposes a wind or solar farm. Animals die. Get over it. Reps: Wind and solar energy are great new businesses. Have fun, make some money. Let the government subsidize a few farms with that big-oil money you took back, then make a killing in alternative energy stock, cash out, and take a vacation in France.
Dems: Stop pretending you have to drive a 3/4 ton F-350 with a V-8 for that one time a year you need to move a sheet of plywood. Rent a U-Haul. Reps: you know poor folk secretly idolize your beauty, style, and glamorous ways. Be a responsible trend-setter. Tell everyone "small is cool". Cars, houses, everything. You did it with cell phones and ipods, so I'm sure you already know how.
Dems: step away from the Walmart. It's all plastic crap anyway, and it ends up either around your waist or on the credit card balance. Reps: go ahead and check the air pressure in your tires. I promise, no one will watch.
I figure with a little horse trading, we can save 20% on energy, about the same amount we import from the Arabian peninsula. The Chinese will buy their oil. Let them be mad at the Chinese for a while.
Any takers? |
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Fri Aug 08, 2008 2:21 am |
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MikeInGB
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This sounds way too logical, therefore, it will never happen.  |
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Fri Aug 08, 2008 6:33 am |
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MikeInGB
F L I N T O I D
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Here is a very interesting take on the energy problem from energy analyst Robert Bryce:
The Impossible Dream of Energy Independence
http://www.reason.com/news/show/125027.html
Juan Cole parses some of Bryce's points on his blog
Informed Comment
http://www.juancole.com/:
The Scam of Energy Independence
John McCain keeps talking about making the US "energy independent."
Robert Bryce points out that it is impossible for the United States to be energy independent with current technology.
McCain says nuclear energy can make the US independent of "foreign oil." But the US imports 83% of the uranium it uses!
By the way, if you built a lot of new nuclear reactors, it would cause the price of uranium to go up. There is only so much uranium in the world, so we will have "Peak uranium" after a few years if we go that route.
McCain keeps saying that the US navy has run subs on nuclear power for years and there have been no leaks.
Ahem. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/04/asia/AS-Japan-US-Nuclear-Sub.php
McCain says drilling in the United States can make the US energy independent. Hogwash! HOGWASH. All the offshore fields now known off the lower 48 states, if drilled, might produce 400,000 barrels a day ten to fifteen years from now.
The US imports on the order of 13 million barrels a day of petroleum. The world produces 86 million barrels a day and apparently wants 87. Offshore drilling in the US would yield a drop in the bucket.
In the meantime, China's oil imports were up 12% last year over the year before. The extra oil from offshore drilling would just get used up lickety split.
McCain calls "foreign oil" expensive!
It is all one global market,folks. Once oil is pumped and goes on the market, it sells for the same price everywhere (except if there are government subsidies, which are a huge waste of money and very bad economics). It doesn't matter if it is pumped in Oklahoma or Ahvaz, it is priced the same.
Muhammad Sahimi makes this point at some length. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/muhammad-sahimi/it-is-not-offshore-drilli_b_117340.html
Moreover, getting more fossil fuels out of the ground will produce more global warming, ravaging the world's coastlines and their inhabitants. Again, it doesn't matter whether American carbon is put into the atmosphere or Chinese. It is all one atmosphere.
The only prospect for US energy independence is cheap and effective power generation from wind and solar energy, which needs new, cheaper and better methods of battery or other storage to be practical.
Obama's pledge to invest $150 billion in alternative energy is a promising first step. That is a little more than what the Apollo project cost the US in today's dollars. And putting a man on the moon was rather less important than, like, saving the planet.
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Granted, the world's oil supply is "one big bathtub" but what neither writer mentions is that if America, consumer of one quarter of the world's oil, would figure out a way to use X % less, the price would drop considerably. There is a proven correlation between the price of oil and the erosion of Western ideals in petrolist states like Iran, Saudi, etc. When the price of oil is low, their governments are much more open to the progression and modernization that their citezenry demands. When those governments are flush with oil cash... not so much.
The Middle East has grown very adept at using the oil weapon against the West while we line their pockets. It is time for us to turn the tables on them. |
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Fri Aug 08, 2008 9:03 am |
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