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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (79177)	8/29/2006 11:38:28 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

>>The damage would not be primarily to the oil industry. Sure they would be slammed, but you would probably get as many new jobs (sometimes even in the same companies) with new energy sources. The damage is the massive cost and economic disruption that such a sudden gigantic transition would cost. If you try to drop oil imports in say 10 years and use no oil for power at all in say 30, you reduce the amount of energy we can use and the amount of wealth that can be created. At the same time you have to invest trillions in a rushed efforts to bring other sources on line. If instead you let the transition occur at a reasonable pace and happen mostly due to market force you don't face such a traumatic transition.<< Tim - Yes, we are all dependent upon oil. But we could just as well depend on something else. FIrst of all, I believe that much of the existing infrastructure could be used in supporting new sources of energy. Most likely, vehicles will still require some kind of liquid fuel, though hybrids would require much less. How about hybrid cars running on biodiesel, just as an example? They'd still need to fill up. Now where could we find an infrastructure suited to distributing liquid fuel for automobiles? Gee, that's a toughy. Just think of all those gas station owners not being put out of business. Let's say the government decrees that all cars built and sold in America must be hybrids within five years, and we will subsidize the car companies to effect that transition. Sure, that costs tax dollars. But suddenly, thousands upon thousands of workers who've been laid off by Ford, GM, and Chrysler would be put back to work. They'd be making money and paying taxes, instead of being underemployed drags on the economy. Investing trillions in bringing other energy sources online puts those trillions to work right here in our country, and would generate jobs like mad. It's not as if all the money would go up in smoke. Hell, even building nuclear weapons, one of the most wasteful things a nation can do, produces jobs. By the way, I don't think you can really support your contention that if you transition from one energy source to another, you reduce the total amount of energy that we can use. I also don't see why it's necessary to completely eliminate the use of oil. Jet planes would be hard to run on anything else. But if you reduce the amount of petroleum used by cars and trucks to, say, one quarter to one third of the amount that they currently use, you've really done something. It will take imagination, determination, skill, science and creativity. Those are all things that can be found in abundance in the U.S.A. And just think, if we were to invest heavily in renewable energy technologies, we could leapfrog ahead of the rest of the world, and then start exporting our super-fuel-efficient vehicles and biodiesel generating plants. I think it would create an unprecedented economic boom. - Allen