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Technology Stocks : The Electric Car, or MPG "what me worry?" -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sageyrain who wrote (247)	5/24/2008 12:38:02 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 17517

What has been lacking - for about 35 years now - is the political will to make the necessary changes to cure oil addiction. Every administration since Nixon's has sent to Congress bills that could cure the problem. What Congress has done is gut them, pass the bad part, and throw away the good. Like they do with most changes that could gut sacred cows. We CAN'T get off oil tomorrow morning. We have too much machinery and infrastructure dependent on it. Think simply of the 10's of millions of motor vehicles out here now that are dependent on petroleum products and what would happen if they suddenly stopped moving! People would starve, go broke, there would be riots and possible civil war. Getting off oil is going to require at least 10 or 15 years. In the meantime, we need it. We can do something about foreign oil imports which have risen dramatacally. We import about $875B in foreign oil a year. As someone said, we are paying for BOTH SIDES in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. Relaxing environmental restrictions on drilling and shale and coal conversion to liquid fuels could do a lot to ease this problem. They could be put back in place later. A sunset provision in the laws relaxing them could give industry warning that the ride is temporary and they'd best look to a day when they pretty much have to do without oil. As to that car, how big is it? What shape? How many passengers will it carry? How much cargo? What surface and what tires does it run on? What devices in addition to just an engine does it have? What's its total weight? All these factors and more effect the answer as to its possibility and practicability. It's no accident that the Tesla car is a 2-seater. I'm not in favor of continued importation of foreign oil. That's suicidal. Ways MUST be found to bring that to an end. But the problem is becoming more difficult. World population s now 6.5 billion (what does THAT do to your food prices as they rise in living standards?). People want to blame our oil companies, but forget China nad India and other nations are on the scene now and very thirsty. If we stopped importing oil tomorrow, my guess is the price would not drop a dime because they'd gladly take up the slack. This isn't the 1970's when a US recession and drop in oil demand could almost destroy OPEC.