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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (3701)	12/31/2008 5:00:25 PM
From: Hawkmoon	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86356

When I say trade, I mean trade that benefits us as much as the trading partner. Oil is like a huge tax on our economy and it drives our foreign policy. Some would argue that it DOES benefit us to obtain cheap oil from overseas because it entwines their economies with ours and makes for a more stable global economy and political structure. It's when nations have NO business interests between one another that rivalries often escalate to armed conflict (because neither has money to lose and winning will give them domination over the rival). In sum.. trade is trade. What matters is that the trade be equal in that they purchase as much of our goods as we do of theirs so we avoid a permanent wealth transfer from one party to another. What you fail to understand is that even with an all electric automotive industry, we'll STILL BE DEPENDENT upon strategic materials require to manufacture them. For instance, did you know that the major of the lithium chloride and lithium carbonate are found in the high plains of the Andes mountains (Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina)?? meridian-int-res.com priuschat.com Coming back to Meridian's lithium supply study, the paper notes that the explosion of basic commodity prices on metals like lithium, cobalt and nickel in the last 12-18 months may, in fact, be indicators that we've really reached peak oil. Until recently, lithium metal traded for $1/kg. In 2006, it was going for $5/kg and some Japanese battery makers are apparently offering up to $10/kg or $10,000 per metric tonne, "a tenfold increase in 2 years," Tahil reports. None of those countries are particularly stable, with the possible exception of Chile. But it will require SUBSTANTIAL CAPITAL (subsidies) to create sufficient mining capacity to fill the manufacturing requirements for Lithium Ion batteries. And when that infrastructure is built, it will need to be protect, both domestically and internationally from any threats that might put that supply at risk. Who's going to subsidize that? And what kind of ecological damage is going to be inflicted by mining that much lithium to supply the needs of the the global automobile industry? Either way you look at it, we're going to be subsidizing someone's security if we're dependently upon foreign imports of strategic materials to supply our energy infrastructure. Hawk