Quote:
Originally Posted by $5 submissions
To take a CONTRARIAN view, $8 to $20 per gallon gas would be a GODSEND. Why? It would finally make competing solutions affordable. High oil prices would push alternatives to reach economies of scale they couldn't otherwise attain with low priced fossil fuel around.
Alternatively, it would PUSH the technology described in this thread to proceed at a faster pace.
Oftentimes, we have to go through pain before being pushed to a whole new higher plane.
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In a way I agree...but then you have to look at the bigger picture: It wouldn't be just painful for regular people buying gas for their cars. It would make food prices go through the roof as well as every product out there. Our goods are trucked across the U.S.
The economy is already devastated and higher gas prices could mean major, major trouble across the entire spectrum of our country...and the world.
One of the big problems in my opinion is the fact that we pay for gas what oil is SPECULATED on. Not what it actually costs to deliver. And then add on the govt. taxes (here in Nevada it is 23 cents per gallon in state tax and 18.4 cents per gallon in federal tax. County taxes run as much as 10 cents per gallon on top of those. There are also additional state fees that add another 1.3 cents per gallon.)
I wonder what a gallon of gasoline would cost minus the oil market speculation driving prices and the various govt. taxes?
Anyway...even if it were cheap, I think it's a matter of national security that we get off it.
At least get our passenger vehicles off of it. Either through electric or hydrogen (remember, that's been around for years too) or a super economical engine like this wave disc engine. Then just have our trucking and airline industries using oil. That would have to make some kind of dent right?