Hello Euan & WT,

"Very difficult to sell this to the electorate I know."

Yep, the investment in ongoing consumption, as opposed to conservation, is the crux of the matter IMO. Thus my constant harping that widespread Peak Outreach Programs, to provide full public saturation and acknowlegement of the challenges ahead, is the best path forward to POP the MPP bubble and promote paradigm shift.

The funds required to get everyone up to speed would be miniscule in comparison to the funding required for the new postPeak infrastructure, yet the offset savings to the fast reduction of obstructionist BAU, NIMBYism, Denial, and potential violence would be huge.

Of course, this is just my speculation.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Jeffrey - the US more than anywhere else would benefit from significantly higher taxes on gasoline - as you are well aware. This would reduce consumption (to EU per capita levels?), raise tax revenues, lower the trade deficit, help balance your books, improve energy security, lower CO2 emissions, elevate your countries image abroad and delay an energy crisis.

But the fact is that average Americans place the right to drive a gas guzzler to the mall above all these benefits. If this were not so then Hillary and Barack and John would all be promoting this higher fuel tax policy.

Euan:

However, I happen to agree with Malcolm that sustaining indigenous oil and gas production within the UK and EU should be a high priority and I personally would like to see the burden of taxation shifted away from the producers and on to the consumers. In this way the incentive to consume is minimised and the incentive to explore and produce is maximised. That is the path to energy security.

Good grief! It's running out, remember. How can maximizing exploration and production be the path to energy security?

Tax the heck out of both consumers and producers, I say. If there are purposes for which fossil fuels are rather difficult to replace, you want to conserve production for many decades hence. That means keeping producers on a very short leash and not listening to special pleading from oil interests.

In the long run, the oil and gas industry is headed toward serving niche applications only (or extinction). I think it would be wise to keep that in mind now.