Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Cogito who wrote (79184)	8/30/2006 11:41:26 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

Until we can get by with no oil imports we will have to be concerned about Middle Eastern oil. We might cut our oil imports but the Arabs have larger reserves. If we could cut our use to what we produce today, eventually we would have to start importing again. Hybrids are far more expensive to build now, but as we scale production, the cost differential would decrease rapidly. But it would always remain. Part of the difference is that we have less experience at making hybrids, but part of the difference is inherent in the differences between hybrids and regular cars. Also replacing a car with a hybrid means you have to get a new car. they pollute far less for an equivalent amount of fuel burned. I don't think this is likely. True if you take a brand new hybrid designed for low emissions, and compare it to a typical care pulled off the road you probably will not only get lower total emmissions but lower emissions per amount of fuel used. But take a brand new non-hybrid designed specifically for low emissions and there might be no difference per amount of fuel used. Which doesn't mean I'm against hybrids. I could easily see them becoming a lot more common and I have no problem with that idea. I just don't see them as a panacea, and I don't think they should be mandated. Increasing taxes on gasoline and having market forces drive change would be slow, disproportionately harmful to the middle class and poor, and create a significant drag on the economy Any solution would put a significant drag on our economy unless it was very slow. Having market forces work would create a less painful drag because it would be slower and more efficient. Personally I'm not for any large tax increase. The real price of oil should grow if it is becoming more rare. Arguably a larger tax could be justified in terms of making the polluter pay for the pollution produced, but the amount of gasoline consumed is a poor proxy for the amount of pollution produced. Breaking windows and then fixing them doesn't create an economic benefit, but building new, more energy efficient houses does. But the benefit from the new energy efficient house isn't the total value of the new house, its only the extra value from the extra efficiency, and maybe the extra value from being new. Sometimes that extra value is worth it. If it is worth it people will tend to take such steps. If you step in with subsidies and mandates you distort the signals that indicate whether the investment is worthwhile. You make it worthwhile for the owner of the new home by having someone else pay a large part of the cost. That doesn't mean the net result is worth the actual price paid, it just means the net result is worth the portion of the price paid by the new homeowner.