<Turkmenistan learns a lesson The Oil Drum DrumBeat: January 16, 2008>

59 comments on Now We're Talkin'...(or, "Transit Panel Urges Federal Gas Tax Increase")

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Henry on January 15, 2008 - 7:38pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Whether the problem can be solved or not, I don't know. I don't think any of us knows which is why I object to government force being used to institute their or their constituents' view of which alternative should be attempted. We all have our views about what might work, just as you have expressed the view that electricity is the answer. If that is so, then you need do nothing but invest in that directly such as with solar panels or in companies that implement the electric solution you see as appropriate; the free market; all we need is government get out of the way and stop the plunder and control so we actually have some wealth left to direct into the solution we see. The arrogance comes in when individuals or groups insist that government fund theses "solutions" at the public expense thus depriving the public of those funds which they could have used to fund what they judge as more likely to work.

My conclusion about horses and buggies is based on the simple facts that after world wide peak, oil imports to the USA (imports equal 60% of what we use) will disappear over a period of probably a single decade, domestic production has been declining for decades and will continue to do so baring some miracle, and EROEI relentlessly declines at about 3.5% annually. The net result of this is that 10 to 15 years after peak, the USA could easily have only 25% of the oil available to use that it had at peak. So if you want a time frame, and rely on the likely date of 2010 as worldwide peak for oil from all sources, then somewhere between 2020 and 2025 we would be down to 25%, a loss of 75% of our oil energy in the USA. That is just 13 to 18 years away. Actually I probably spoke out of turn to say horse and buggy because there are probably not sufficient horses and buggies around to use many of the roads. Rather I should more accurately have described them as wide footpaths. This is my best estimate, but I allow for the possibility that we will soon enter a financial collapse of much greater magnitude than the great depression of the 1930's which would reduce oil consumption and accelerate the human suffering to an earlier date, thusly delaying the peak oil date a few years. But then in no case am I asking government to impose my view of the next few decades, since this is an expression of my thoughts and not a recommendation.

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ftillier on January 15, 2008 - 8:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

You seem to put your full faith in a 'free market'. The corporations, just like our government, will look at short term returns on their investments, rather than to long term benefit for our society, humanity, or our ecosystem.

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john15 on January 15, 2008 - 9:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

in the car market the Prius outsold the Ford Explorer. take that doomers!

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kmcrawford111 on January 16, 2008 - 4:06am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Take what? The Prius isn't going to save anything. At "best", if you can even call it that, it may allow our insane car-crazy infrastructure to continue a bit longer. And with America already sunk in debt in a downward spiral economy, increasingly not able to buy $25,000 cars, it's going to be a wee bit.

All of the green smoke car manufacturers have been blowing up our collective ass is simply astounding, though not as astounding as the amount we've bought into it. "Buy this car, and help the environment!" Any 3,000-lb. machine built using copius amounts of energy - the vast majority non-renewable - isn't "green", even if it is never ever used. The portrayals of these "green" cars is completely ridiculous. I have a brochure for a Prius that depicts green leaves coming out of the exhaust! "The more you drive it, the more you help the environment!" Bullshit. A more accurate description might be that you're hurting the environment less. That's it. You aren't "helping" shit, and I will even go so far as to say you are helping to avert real progress from being made. My favorite thus far was an SUV video ad showing a guy mountain biking, with the captions paraphrased as: "Driving this SUV will help preserve our environment. It also also give you the power to help enjoy it." I can't believe people are this stupid. I have a better idea: use a bike and skip the SUV altogether, and save what, 99% of your money? If this is the best we can do - pretending that hybrid cars are going to save us - we are doomed.

It's time to get over the obsession with cars. It should be obvious by now that it's been a terrible idea to design everything and anything around them here in the USA. Unfortunately, almost everyone seems obsessed with pouring absoltely all of our resources into keeping them going, all the while bitching about $x gas and unwilling to use any of their own energy to walk or bike around. The few of us who know better - those who can see past tomorrow - forsee what a terrible mistake that is going to be.

Personally, I can't wait until gas hits $5, and especially $10, that is - if our shitty economy will allow it. And before any of you jump all over me, consider this:

I own a Prius.

The difference is, I don't pretend that I'm going to save anything with it.

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PaulS on January 15, 2008 - 10:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The corporations, just like our government, will look at short term returns on their investments...

(emphasis added) Didn't you just vitiate your own point?

At least corporations, however odious Marxists and other social parasites looking for handouts may consider them to be, have the virtue of being numerous. So there is some chance that between them they will try out numerous mostly stupid ideas, and maybe a few of those will work. There is only one government - it is a monopoly by definition - and it is spending somebody else's money, which makes it extra-careless, so it will at most try just a very few stupid ideas, and probably put most of the taxpayers' money into one grandly stupid but lusciously corrupt idea, for instance corn ethanol.

Now I don't know what our odds are, but how can the narrow monopoly approach possibly improve them?

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ftillier on January 16, 2008 - 12:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Didn't you just vitiate your own point?

Nope, my point wasn't that government was better, but that the free market isn't the silver bullet that will save us. I don't think it has to be exclusively one or the other - probably a healthy mix of the two.

-Fab

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Henry on January 16, 2008 - 2:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I am arguing for the free market because that consists of countless numbers of individuals and businesses, many of them small, acting in their own best interest without the intervention of government force. This corporate fascism that operates in part of the economy where government and special interests get together and rig things for the profit of the few at the expense of the many is not the free market. If you are arguing for government solutions, you are essentially arguing for more of this fascism. Who benefited from ethanol subsidies and how much of our remaining resources were diverted into this government control of private property (fascism) non solution?

So if you are telling me that the free market does not work and then point to all this rigging of the economy as proof, I think you are way off base. The privileged position enjoyed by the banking system, the medical and drug establishment, the war industry, and the "public" utilities to name a few are created and enforced by government with the effect of shifting wealth out of the hands of the many into the hands of the few. What needs to be done is to get the government out of the way, not get them more involved.

When you advocate government solutions to energy problems you are advocating either more of this fascism or outright socialism, both of which will only bring us to a bad end quicker. Again, I put forth the idea that the likely solution, if there is any, will come from individuals making their own preparations to deal with the future they individually see and from the brains of inventive people and free market businesses who might create alternatives that at least mitigate somewhat the damage that will result from the fast approaching end of the oil age.

Taking more of our wealth via an additional gas tax is only going to put more economic power in the hands of the government to be squandered on some creations of the listless minds of bureaucrats and politicians.

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AlanfromBigEasy on January 16, 2008 - 10:50am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Your statements ring of blind religious faith. A series of small self centered actions are somehow going to change the fundamental paradigm that has organized our urban, suburban, exurban and rural forms ? Courtesy of GMs buyout of streetcar lines, the Interstate Highway system, etc.

If you truly believe this, then look at what real estate developers have built for half our population. They are out to make a buck, slap something together and turn over a new subdivision in 18 to 30 months and then walk away forever, leaving former farmland with an unsustainable mess.

If not required to by the central, socialized authority the streets would not even line up with the streets from the subdivision next to them. The streets and sewers would collapse in a decade or so,

There *IS* a solution ! But it can *ONLY* with collective, governmental effort. Look at France, a complete non-Oil Transportation system is largely in place (but still growing after 25+ years of modest level effort).

TGV lines radiating from Paris in all directions (more lines bypassing Paris under way) for intercity travel. Urban Rail in almost all cities and towns of 100,000 and more. And now rent-a-bikes (first half hour free) in many French cities. All collective effort,

Switzerland could not have survived and functioned after a 100% six year oil embargo with a series of small individual efforts.

Best Hopes for Collective Efforts,

Alan

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59 comments on Now We're Talkin'...(or, "Transit Panel Urges Federal Gas Tax Increase")

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