Life is being rearranged as we speak. Has been going on in earnest for the past 5 or so years, since oil spiked the last time. Began about 10 years earlier after 9-11. Not because of 9-11, but about that time when the following recession hit. People lost jobs due to offshoring, automation, technology improvements, whatever.
Rearranging 300 million people takes some time to do, especially when we don't even know what the jobs of the future are going to be and where they will be. Alternative fuel and power source development are well underway but realistically it will take several decades to get away from petroleum as the primary source. And I do believe it will happen, but only when the alternatives are practical and affordable. The market place will determine that. We already have real alternatives as miamizsun has tried to point out with the Thorium reactors, others will follow, it is happening.
But planes will not fly on batteries, trucks will not roll on batteries, and neither will busses. We have an oil glut and it will continue. The US has 25% of the world's oil reserves according to a recent study. The trucking industry is in the process of switching to natural gas. That will cause problems for refiners with a falling demand for diesel. You cannot make gasoline without making diesel. That is the reason that gas is less expensive in the winter, diesel production goes up to meet home heating needs, resulting in an oversupply of gasoline. And vice versa in the summer with summer car travel. Eventually the US will become an exporter of diesel fuel due to oversupply.
I have seen electric charging stations in California as well as here in Ohio. In Cal, they are being used, but here in Ohio, they are not, because electric cars are impractical in areas that experience hard winters and long commutes in the cold. The heaters in these electric cars still run on gasoline, just as the auxiliary heaters in VW's did some 40 years ago. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
But I have faith. When the range of an electric car hits 100 miles on a charge, then there will be a demand for them, but 40 miles, just ain't doin it and won't. But my point and the point of many others is that we need cheap oil to survive the transition. The transition has begun and will not stop, even if oil gets cheap. The goal of reducing pollution is the driving force. The cost of pollution is very high, as in spent nuclear fuel rods, coal ash and sulfur from refining crude. And CFL's are the Windows ME of lighting, speaking about pollution. I am already well into LED's for my lighting needs, paying a higher price for a better and greener product. Think how long it took to switch over from bias ply tires to radials. Took decades, but it happened.
Politics and the rest of the world not withstanding ...
As gas prices continue to soar around the country, Joe Kennedy III, the Democratic candidate for Rep. Barney Frank’s seat, wrote an online letter to supporters calling for an end to “cheap oil.”
As gas prices continue to soar around the country, Joe Kennedy III, the Democratic candidate for Rep. Barney Frank’s seat, wrote an online letter to supporters calling for an end to “cheap oil.”
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