I have a saying, I say that, democrats are usually wrong... but when they get things right they are REALLY right.
All this stuff about the environment is where the democrats are REALLY right.
Al Gore wrote that we needed to get rid of the combustion engine in one of his books. Well this is not really right but it is half, quarter or maybe even two thirds right.
The democrats don't want the oil companies disturbing sensitive marine and land ecosystems... THIS IS REALLY RIGHT!
Dems also don't want oil rigs (wind farms) as eye sores to hamper their commercial "tourism". Screw tourism! These very tourists are the ones consuming the earth's oil to death. If they can't stand an oil rig to look at what justification do they have to pollute the atmosphere?
Also it would seem more oil production in America would lower the overall price of oil (or create more drivers). Do oil companies want a lower price? NO of course not! What incentive do oil companies have to drill more or lower the price?
Nancy Pelosi just gave OPEC incentive to lower the price of a gallon of gas
If we reject their gas/oil/fuel and go with solar and electric cars NOT ONLY HYBRIDS. Hybrids still have a combustion engine that requires oil, gas "FUEL"
Maybe take the car out of the auto industry and put it in the tech (electronics) industry. Would you power your coffee pot on gas?
So the issue really at the center is "to fuel or not to fuel".
Should we go completely electric in every single car or just drill away till the earth dries up like a rotten apple core.
America's fuel problem has changed the chemical composition and topography of our earth and in this our greatest scientists are in a stalemate as to what the impact is or will be.
We are now playing Russian roulette with our home.
I am with Nancy on this one.
We need to come up with a drastic solution. We need to figure out a solution for the "messenger who will go and alert the towns people of the snow".
I will now try and explain the parable of the messenger and the snow.
The messenger is the energy companies
The snow is the energy that we are given, both renewable and non renewable.
There are several ways that the messenger could alert all the people of the town without even leaving a single footprint in the snow.
He could holler out of the king's palace window to the closest house and tell them to holler the message on to the next house and so on
once the message reaches the town square it will centrally move out from there. Maybe a few foot prints will be required to reach some more distant houses but over all the amount of footprints in the snow would be much less than having the energy/messengers suppliers do the walking.
This hollering from house to house is, "wind energy"
(Not quite, but I like to draw the parallel.)
This is actually a form of electricity. Sound waves acoustically move through the air by electrons that bounce against each other carrying the physical sound wave of vibrations through the air. This is much like how electricity works.
To contrast this, to have a messenger carry our energy to each house the oil truck pulls up and drives off leaving not only a footprint but deep tire tracks. We pay messengers to carry messengers and the environment and waste are the casualties.
Why do we do this? There is a very good reason
SECURITY.
Having many forms of energy at our disposal makes us more secure.
When one energy form becomes too dominant or disrupted, then the balance is lost and we become subject to the vulnerabilities that accompany this lack of diversity.
So we need an element of renewable fuels too. This does not mean the every vehicle has to have a combustion engine. But it also does not mean that the infrastructure of fuels needs to erode that we no longer have a percentage of that alternative available i.e. gas/hydrogen stations.
The second thing the king could have done was have an emergency pager system that alerted the town people with one single text message. "keep off the snow". Not a single foot would have needed to been tread on the snow. Yet we have super tankers hauling this messenger (energy) all over the globe while we have the technological infrastructure to deliver energy electrically as in the text message. Or simply hollering from house to house. (Maybe the housing market has gone bust because our houses are not energy efficient.)
So energy stations which create energy from natural means use the existing electrical grid to distribute "more" electric energy for a larger proportion of our "traveling " needs. i.e. more electric compact cars without combustion engines.
We are paying for the energy to truck and ship this energy all over the globe when it could be traveling through wires at nearly the speed of light.
We do NOT take the profits of the oil companies (unconstitutional) but we take all subsidies away and possibly even subsidies which were given in the past.
We give HALF these subsidies to only automobile companies who can "rabidly" supply generic VERY compact electric vehicles no frills to consumers at a record low price. (a few thousand bucks)
The other HALF we give to utility companies to either double the electric grid and or create new green energy "plants" based upon renewable sources of electric energy.
The oil companies may shrink but in the end they will survive. Hybrids will develop, the fuel cell cars will come on the market too, eventually they will become cheap but many consumers will choose to go electric. This will help us micromanage energy more efficiently.
Those who need fuel will have the option of fuel be it gas or hydrogen those who need electric will go electric.
The electric solves the messenger problem allowing us to make exceptional gains in energy conservation.
Sending messengers, tankers and trucks to carry energy takes energy. The only energy it takes to deliver electricity to a home is the resistance along the electric wire which is negligible.
It is simple logistics that electricity play a greater part in driving our transportation needs.
The oil companies will lower the price of oil when there is "less demand".
