[Gomer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harold7

Market forces are doing exactly what you say you want MTA, high gas prices are forcing a reduction in driving, people choosing to buy smaller, more fuel efficient cars instead of SUV's and pickups already, however, since most renewable energy technology other than wind is still a long way from efficient and affordable application, the only way to get where you want to go in the interim is an increase of domestic oil production to mitigate the crippling gas price increases if we don't... can our economy survive if crude hits $200 a barrel or more, we can start converting coal to fuel for transportation on a large scale as well.... what are we going to do when the truckers can't afford to drive anymore?

I don't see how a massive application of new government energy bureaucracies, and taxation is going to do anything other than create 1933 all over again, but then maybe that's the intent...,allowing Obama to be the next FDR so he can implement what the Left has always wanted, FDR's Second Bill of Rights.

There is no short term transition from a hydrocarbon based economy to a Green energy system, the costs and logistics of such a change are insupportable unless you plan on creating a dictatorial, socialists system where the government can impose change through force.

The real solution is for the government to let market forces work, get the government out of the subsidy business for all of our economy, any government research money that goes to energy companies is only going to end up in the stock options and bonuses the executives give themselves, it's not their money so why should efficiency mean anything , the longer they drag it out, the more money the government will give to them... if they're forced to use their own corporate funds for energy research they have to answer to the stockholders for inefficiency and incompetence, the profit motive will drive innovation some thing government bureaucracy has never excelled at doing... you just have to have a business friendly tax environment to make it work.

Market forces are going to come up with the best solution for those at the top of the pyramid, not the bottom.

Like I pointed out in another thread... there is no profit to be made in using/selling any less of anything. Big Business has ZERO interest in reducing the demand for anything. The concept of conservation doesn't stand a chance against the advertising machine. Burn it in the government furnace? Burn it in R&D into alternative energy. Invest in efforts to increase supply and production??? We ought to be investing in efforts to reduce demand and waste!!!!!

Those companies that currently suck and scrape it out of the ground leaving a wake of destruction behind them have ZERO interest in seeing any success whatsoever in efforts to harness the massive amount of energy output by the sun, the tides, and subterranean mass of the Earth. Who is going to invest in something like that that has a direct return on investment that is limited financially but an indirect benefit to society that is immeasurable? This effort is suppressed by the machinations of the entanglement of Big Business with Big Government.

They are only interested in a product they can sell for $$$$. They are not interested in harnessing the power of the sun, geothermal energy, or the savings that can be had through improvements in efficiency.

The Big $$$$ energy companies have a vested interest in selling some form of something that costs money to produce. Big $$$$ encourages people to use more to sell more. They have no problem subsidizing wasteful products and they use their $$$$ force to suppress things that might result in people using LESS (opposition of CAFE standards). That is why they buy patents to viable alternative technologies in order to sit on them (e.g. large format NiMH tech).

Big Energy is not going to come up with the best solution for society. They are going to come up with the best solution for Big Energy. They are going to come up with the solution that allows them to continue to aggregate wealth at the top at the expense of those at the bottom. They are going to flex that $$$$$ influence in our government to ensure that the solution to the alternative energy problem is the most beneficial to their bottom lines, not ours.

What is wrong with mandatory recycling?
What is wrong with mandates requiring responsible packaging?
What is wrong with laws that would allow me to shut down the pipeline of waste flowing into my mailbox every day?

The only efficiencies big business is interested in are those that are pre-consumer.

Let's not add a tax to gasoline. Let's cut Big Oils' subsidies. Let's pour $$$ into a Manhattanesque Energy Project. A real one... not one that lines the pockets of corporate interests. Let's drive home the point that we don't have enough... and that using less is the same as making more. Regardless of what our long term solution is to the energy problem, conservation is going to have to be a keystone.