Uhmm…Isn’t this pretty much just called a “plant?”

Got Oil

I just finished reading Alan Greenspan’s book. In it says that the way the U.S. isn’t going to stop using oil until it gets too expensive. The cost to change from oil to some other fuel will be astronomical, from replacing the domestic auto fleet and fueling stations to building new power plants. But as the price of oil goes up it will become feasible to produce alternative fuels (they become less expensive than oil). He goes on to say that ethanol is not the answer. If all the corn grown in the U.S. was turned into ethanol, it would only supply 1/3 of today’s demand. Not to mention, our livestock would starve and what would you eat at the movies.

I see two ways oil will become to expensive for us to use.
1)Supply doesn’t keep up with demand. There hasn’t been a new refinery build from scratch since the late 1970’s in the U.S. With increasing pressure to turn to other types of fuels and public pressure on congress to tighten regulation, U.S. oil companies are not likely to build then anyway as the risk losing investments that last 30+ years. Oil companies are also not able to increase drilling facilities as most oil fields are owned by state run corporations in OPEC countries. And OPEC countries have shown no interest in increasing output by building more production facilities as oil is the main (only) source of their revenue and high prices equals more revenues.

2)Congress, in their infinite wisdom, taxes the crap out of gasoline. One of the uses of taxes is to influence public behavior after all. The problem with this is that the cost of EVERYTHING will go up proportionately. That is because, at some point, everything is transported using gas. We Americans love out cars so the tax would have to be pretty steep to do cause any real change, which could throw us into a recession. It also must be noted that most EU countries pay the equivalent of $12 a gallon because of taxes and they still drive. Granted, not as much as us but we are six times larger than France and five times larger than Germany (by population).

We could do what Brazil has done and gradually, over 30 years, eliminate the oil passenger car fleet. They are, after all, able to cut down vast amounts of rain forest to grow sugar which they refine into an ethanol (more efficient than corn).

Personally I think we could do like the French (did I really say that) and build nuclear power electric plants. Nuclear power doesn’t pollute the air, is cheap to produce, and properly managed, is safe and eco friendly. French afterall, are not glowing. We could than have an all electric U.S. auto fleet and not have huge price increases.

Mark Martinez