The 'C'-bomb of politics!

[elfs]

Two days ago, George W. Bush went on national television to implore Congress to open up more US territory to drilling interests, claiming that that would help lower gas prices. As has been pointed out, increased drilling will only immanentize the day when we have to find some other way of manufacturing plastics because we've burned all our hydrocarbons in our gas tanks and won't save you and I a whole lot of money in the process.

Yesterday, John McCain unveiled part of his plan to put a nuclear power plant in every state in the union. The Cato institute wonderfully calls this the Sim City Energy Plan, although I think Mr. Taylor fails to account for the regulatory burden placed on nuclear power since Three Mile Island. The regulations don't account for modern reactor designs like the pebble bed reactor, and create significantly highter costs.

But neither Bush nor McCain used the one word that would really have made a difference: conservation. What happened to it? Why don't the candidates talk about higher CAFE standards, or better public transit, or more appropriate virtual office requirements?

Virtual offices and replacing your lightbulbs with flourescents aren't exactly goverment initiatives (at least, they ought not to be). But our President can lead the way, by example and by exhortation. Our candidates can encourage those of us who haven't figured out what we can do to reduce our gas and electricity usage. But nobody's talking about conservation yet. (Well, okay, FOX News is, but only to remind us that smaller cars kill so you should keep driving your gas-guzzling SUV!)

Why aren't politicans talking about conservation yet?

Comments

[darrelx.livejournal.com]

Case in point: Gasoline 13 miles to the south of me (in tijuana) is only $2.54 per gallon today (cheaper if you convert to Pesos before going to the gas station)... it's $4.60 at the cheaper pumps here in San Diego.

Why? because Mexico pumps their own crude, refines it domestically, and doesn't have to import any oil from other nations. In fact, oil exports is their second largest source of income (second only to cash being sent back from Mexican citizens working in the United States... but that's a whole other can of worms!)

We should be pumping our own as well, and not importing one single drop from other nations. We need more refineries, too.

We have more oil reserves than all of the Middle East and Central American reserves combined... if only we'd tap more of it instead of caving in to the NIMBY's and eco-terrorists.

We used to be the most prosperous nation on earth. Used to be a time not so long ago when a single father could support an entire family on 1 income. Then Jimmy Carter happened.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

We should be pumping our own as well, and not importing one single drop from other nations. We need more refineries, too.

Please note that US oil consumption outstripped production in the 60s. Consumption is now *many* times production. This is the reason that the oil embargo worked back then. Just imagine what would happen today?

Oh, and the number of miles driven by Americans is now twice what it was in 1980.

[darrelx.livejournal.com]

In the 60's we didn't know about ANWAR's reserves, The horizontal drilling techniques to get at the oil in the Dakotas was too expensive, and offshore drilling was a novelty.

The number of drivers may have doubled since the 60's, but the known reserves have increased at least 20-fold from that decade. Sadly, domestic oil production has been fairly flat since the late 70's, thanks to the Windfall Profits Tax that Carter implemented which unfairly restricts domestic oil companies from doing business.

...but I'm guessing that you LIKE paying $5 a gallon?

[gromm.livejournal.com]

No, I don't like paying $1.45 a litre. Nor do I like paying at least $90 a month in insurance. Plus car payments, whatever they might be. Which is why I don't own a car and I live 4 blocks from work. My wife pays $98 a month for a transit pass that gets her to work faster than it takes to carpool.

I'm doing my bit to decrease demand for oil, thus reducing its cost (like what happened back in 1980). Me and all the others like me are probably keeping the price of gas under $6 a gallon for you guys. You're welcome.

[darrelx.livejournal.com]

I work 24.6 miles from where I live, not local to mass transit, and my vehicle also needs to occasionally pull a trailer... so yes, it's a small SUV (Jeep Liberty). I don't like paying $50-$60 per week for fuel just to commute, but I don't have any other choice.

As for your high-and-mighty concept of single-handedly keeping the price of oil down, again I call BULLSHIT.

The eco-idiots who insist on keeping local sources of oil from being tapped are the reason for the HIGHER prices, as well as being the reason that it's too costly for independant inventors or small entrpeneurs to find alternatives.

Here's a concept that you probably won't accept:

Making oil cheaper today leads to helping small businesses and inventors profit, which leads to faster and cheaper development of new sources of energy, which in turn leads to less oil being consumed down the road.

But you'd probably rather restrict small business and inventors from even getting off the ground by telling them that they can't use oil today. Is that what you're saying?

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I don't like paying $50-$60 per week for fuel just to commute, but I don't have any other choice.

Awww poor muffin. You were *forced* to buy a big house with a lawn in the suburbs. You had *no choice*. Your friends and family would have shot you to death if you hadn't.

Do you think that I must be fantastically wealthy to own a home so close to work? By the sounds of it, you could afford a place across the street from the office by just giving up that commute.

Making oil cheaper today leads to helping small businesses and inventors profit, which leads to faster and cheaper development of new sources of energy, which in turn leads to less oil being consumed down the road.

If that were true, then the price of gas today would be $0.15 a gallon. We've had over a hundred years to get your theory straight.

Instead, the equation obviously goes industry + oil = profit. Industry + more oil = more profit, and thus to make more money, industry uses more oil, which turns into "in order to stay competitive we must use more oil than the next guy" in a very short period of time. Which would certainly explain why America is addicted to oil and why it's now using more oil than it ever has before. A very casual (http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/funda/Sidebar/OilConsumption.html) Googling (http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html) could tell you that (http://www.iags.org/futureofoil.html). That same set of links would also demonstrate that US oil production would have to triple to meet its own needs today (nevermind its growing future needs), and there's no way in hell that will happen.

But don't worry. I have no intention of "preventing small business from getting off the ground" by telling them they can't use oil. The world's supply will probably be gone in 50 years (100 if you're wildly optimistic about that, and honestly believe that we haven't already reached peak production) anyway, so I won't have to do anything at all. Believe me that when that day comes, I would really rather not have the opportunity to say "I told you so". I would much rather that people like you would listen today, instead of covering their eyes when the writing is on the wall in the form of a huge blinking neon sign. I would much rather that society made a smooth transition away from oil, rather than the coming bloody revolution of desperate, starving, unemployed, homeless suburbanites forced to stay home from their jobs and the supermarket by $10 a gallon gas.

[darrelx.livejournal.com]

Wow... that was no surprise answer there. I should give up my house, give up my car, give up modern technology altogether... as long as the result is a greener alternative.

Hey, maybe we should all go back to living in caves and foraging for our food? I know, let's all go back to living in the ocean as single-celled orgnisms... no.. wait... maybe we should never have existed to begin with. yeah... that's the answer.

NOT!

Who's got their head stuck in the sand now?

I guess I'm done arguing with someone who has no chance of seeing my point of view.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

It took me a while to come up with a response that wasn't abrasive. But you won't like it anyway.

You've been told by the President himself - that cost won't get any lower than it is now, no matter what. And he's been best buddies with the king of the world's largest oil producer since they were little kids!

And we've come to the conclusion that you're not willing to give up your big house in the suburbs far from work despite the rising cost of continuing to travel back and forth between the two.

But you know what? If you make that choice, you have exactly 0 right to complain about it. You're not forced into this situation, you made a choice. Now live with it. Like a grownup.