Peace through strength

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Is the following a good philosophy by which to dictate a country's foriegn affairs?

[Metatron]

No, I have acknowledged that there are other factors contributing to our poor management of resources (refer again to previous post). It is you, it seems, that refuses to accept the fossil fuel industry and government's major roles in the process.

Very well, I hereby acknowledge that the fossil fuel industry and government have played major roles in the process. And I further acknowledge that the fossil fuel industry and government have been doing EXACTLY WHAT THE AMERICAN CONSUMER WANTED THEM TO DO!
Namely providing low priced gasoline for their gas guzzlers with gasoline taxes far lower than are found in Europe.

You seem to think that it is necessary for oil companies to bribe the government to keep conditions as they are. I say that if the government enacted Europe like gasoline taxes (one tactic I've heard bandied about to reduce our gasoline consumption) voters would have Congress' collective heads on a silver platter.

Only now , with oil hovering around $70 a barrel and gasoline around $3 a gallon, are people in significant numbers warming up to the idea of alternative energy. Even then, the deciding factor for most people is probably going to be "how much will it cost me". You can bet that if some day an ethanol fuel is offered to the public, but it cost $0.50 more per gallon, only a hand full of environmental true believers will pay extra for it. Very few people are going to contract for energy from a wind farm or buy the solar panels if they are not economically competitive with that natural gas fired power plant down the road.

Like I stated in an earlier post, I myself have money invested in a solar company and if oil stays at these elevated levels long term I expect to do well with it. However, I acknowledge that if oil drops back to $35 a barrel, my stock and most alt-energy plays are toast. That's one of the reasons I find the notion that the oil companies want Middle-East conflict rather ironic. If there were no significant conflicts and the price of oil was at say $45 a barrel the oil companies would not make as high short term profits but consumers would have happily payed these prices forever. At $70 a barrel you now have a push on for alt-energy. You have Archer-Daniels-Midland and the agriculture lobby pushing for the use of ethanol as a bio-fuel (they already succeeded in lobbying for the replacement of ethanol for the MBTE additive in gasoline.) The once prohibitively expensive Canadian tar sands which cost the equivalent of $35 a barrel to dig up and process are now cost effective. Coal gasification is now viable at this price level. You get the idea. If the oil companies wanted this, then they may have shot themselves in the foot.

Now, regarding the no nukes hippys. You have neglected to consider the fact that the oil industry was, ironicly, right beside them in that little movement.

Well, yes I did neglect to consider this since it's the first time I've ever heard this allegation. Any proof of this? The notion of an Exxon/Greenpeace cabal is pretty amusing.

Big oil is big money. More competition means less money. Lobby the government to cut alternative energy spending (refer to Reagan's 90% cut- yes, that effected the nuke industry as well), and you get rid of the competition.

1. Still would like a reference for this alleged 90% Reagan alt-energy spending cut.

2. Why would a cut in alt-energy spending effect the nuclear power industry? Pressurized and boiling water nuclear reactors were old hat by then and were built by private enterprise (when they could get the permits). The only thing a cut in alt-energy funding could have effected was perhaps research into "breeder" reactors or maybe fusion research.

It is a vicious cycle; one that has been in motion even before the 70's. The fact that we as consumers are addicted to oil is only PART of the problem. Just as signifigant is the coal and oil industry's addiction to dominance. Something must be done to shake up the energy market, for if we can't get Exxon and co. to relinquish it's grip, change will remain slow in comming.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "addiction to dominance". I have this mental picture of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies chairing the Board of Directors of Exxon as they hash out their plans for world conquest. What oil companies have is an addiction to profit, something that they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to provide. In this, they differ not at all from any other publicly traded company.

In France, as of 2005, 78% of all billed electrical energy was generated by 58 nuclear reactors, the highest share in the world. France closed its last coal mine in April 2004, and currently relies on fossil energy for less than 10% of its electricity production.

Do you still think this is insignificant?

Yes, actually. Don't get me wrong, nuclear power has great possibilities, but it is highly unlikely that it could ever serve as our one saving grace- even if we had continued to pursue it 30 years ago. Powering the United States of America is a whole different ball game compared to powering France.

France has achieved 78% of it's energy production with just 58 reactors. The US has twice that number, but only manages 20% of our needs. And that's just electricity- if I'm not mistaken, most of our consumption occurs in the transportation sector. What are we going to do about that?

It's worth remembering that when you are comparing number of reactors and percentage of energy generated that the U.S. has roughly five times as many people as France. I figure that if the U.S. had deployed an equivalent number of nuke plants per capita that the U.S. would be at least around 45% nuclear and that's assuming that there were NO improvements in the types of nuclear reactors built over that thirty year period. Yes, we probably would not have gotten to that 72% figure for France but I would hardly call 50%+ insignificant.

As for transportation sector consumption, I figure that, for example, the savings in oil that would otherwise have been processed for heating oil for homes due to the availability of nuke based electricity could instead be diverted for gasoline processing. If American oil would still not have been sufficient for all of our gasoline needs, at the very least we could have been pickier about what foreign oil we purchased (like maybe Canadian or North Sea oil instead of Middle-East).

The problems here are not limited to the anti-nuclear movement. Not even remotely.

Your correct. There's also the environmentalist objects to ANWR and outer continental shelf drilling and the animal right activists objections to wind farms due to destruction of migratory birds as well as numerous other regulatory hurdles that have restricted the ability of U.S. corporations from utilizing native energy resources.

I've heard no one (other than yourself) who has suggested that the alt-energy technologies, with the possible exception of bio-fuels, are close to being ready to replace large scale use of fossil fuels.

From what I gather, the technology is there. The only problem is implementing it. With enough incentive, I feel a giant concerted effort could reap astounding results.

The technology is there. The challenge is the energy inputs and friction costs in the system that oil or natural gas do not have. By this I mean that ethanol has to come from a feedstock, here probably corn, which after being grown and harvested has to be transported by truck or train to granaries at considerably greater expense and efficiency than an oil or gas pipeline and then at some point distributed to ethanol refineries by the same less efficient transportation system. This all represents some hurdles that have to be overcome to make ethanol fuel cost effective.

Even if true, this would only have put off the inevitable for a couple of years for the oil companies and would have been a terrible strategic mistake for the American auto industry. By the late 70's and especially the early 80's, Japanese automakers like Honda and Toyota were kicking Detroit's butt with fuel efficient econo-boxes. The free market corrects stupidity like this.

But consider what you just said. The competition that evened everything out came not from within our own borders; it took Japanese automakers to finally get fuel efficient vehicles on our roads.

America in particular has always had a need for fuel efficiency. Why did these innovations not come about in American companies? Is our market really as free as we are led to believe?

Today, yes. Was it as free in the 70's when Detroit's Big Three ruled the roost? No. The Big Three had effectively consolidated the auto industry with only lowly AMC hanging around until the 80's. The Japanese busted up their corporate oligarchy to the benefit of American consumers.

A true capitalist economy has never existed. No government is stupid enough to even attempt it. The result would be a rapid elimination of competition, Darwinian style (e.g. the Rockefeller/Carnegie/Vanderbilt/ era).

Yes, we have what is technically called a mixed economy. The whole social darwinism thing started breaking up when Teddy Roosevelt began enforcing anti-trust laws.

If anti-trust legislation was enforced today, virtually no current corporation would survive. The American auto industry has long held a tight (albiet transparent) bond with the energy sector. Reasonably fuel efficient vehicles have only recently started exiting American factories, because before Honda/Toyota entered the maylay, it was much more profitable for auto companies to appease their oil company counterparts by making cars as gas-hungry as possible.

You'll have to explain this one to me. What motive do the automakers have for appeasing energy companies? Their interests may perhaps coincide given that a large gas guzzler is probably going to be more expensive than an econo-box but I can't see where the automakers would give a damn whether the energy companies made a penny on gasoline.
If GM could make an SUV that got 100 miles a gallon you bet they would make it whether Exxon liked it or not.

The American government does not guide the economy with the best interest of society in mind; they govern in the best interest of individual profit making. Because, hey, the more corporations make, the more campaign money/tax dollars they give to the system. Our market is only free for a select few.

You appear to be arguing that more government regulation would make our market freer. I would argue the opposite. While obviously some regulation is needed, the pervasiveness of government regulation and it's subjectivity are prime reasons why there is so much lobbying of government in the first place. Corporations, unions, and various interest groups lobby the government to either prevent onerous regulations from being imposed on their interests or they seek to have said onerous regulations imposed on their competitors or political opponents. The governments power to regulate is the weapon being used to extract donations (bribes) from these interest groups. Tone down the ability of the government to intervene in the economy and in society in general and there is little need for lobbyist, campaign reform, etc.

However, assuming that is easier said than done, here is what I would advocate: Civilian money that is projected as ending up as campaign contributions will be converted to tax dollars, and at the beginning of each election period, is pooled into a whole and dealt evenly to each participating canidate. No candidate may use any personal wealth for campaign purposes.

The precise method of amassing the money without subjecting taxpayers to too heavy a burden will need some work. However, that is the general idea.

Might work, but you would have to figure out how to certify independents and third party candidates as to whether they qualify for funding. Set the bar too high and no one can conceivably compete against the major party candidates. Set the bar too low and you'll find yourself financing the campaigns of candidates representing the American Nazi Party or the Nation of Islam.

Another common dodge is the "interest ad" where the ad jumps up and down on a candidate because of some issue like abortion without naming his opponent. This circumvents campaign laws because it is considered an expression of free speech rather than a specific endorsement of a candidate. Go to public financing of campaigns and you'll see a lot more of these.

I think I was looking for something a little more meaty than a propaganda statement. Can you cite a specific instance of some immoral legislation that the oil companies were pushing so I know what you're talking about?

Their role in the rejection of Kyoto, for one. I love how the "scientists" employed by oil bastions can so conveniently find evidence contrary to that demonstrated by the other 99.9% of the scientific community. Not only that, but taking part in Kyoto would be a great way to help distance ourselves from foriegn oil; something Bush and co. only seem interested in accomplishing as long as the oil industry has the opportunity to continue raking record profits.

While pursuing worthwhile goals, the Kyoto Protocol has some pretty major flaws that would need to be hammered out to make it effective in reducing greenhouse gases. China, number two in the world in greenhouse gas emissions and the fastest growing economy in the world, is totally exempt from making reductions as is India and other developing countries. If the U.S. fully participated in Kyoto, the extra cost burden on American industry would only encourage these companies to ship more industrial capacity to China and other developing nations. This would not only reduce American industrial and manufacturing jobs here but would ironically actually increase greenhouse gas emissions because the U.S. has substantially higher emission control technology and standards in place than China, etc.

I didn't ask whether or not it was a good idea to have entered Iraq. I was none too thrilled with the idea myself. I asked what do we do NOW? Do we pull out knowing that their will be a three way (at least) civil war and probable Iranian intervention? Are you okay with the even greater loss of life and the possibility of Iran controlling Iraq's oil fields?

I know that pulling out sounds much easier than it will actually be. I know we can't yank American influence from within fundamentalist Muslim culture overnight. However, we *must* begin taking steps towards distancing ourselves from them. How much strife has come about as result of our far-less-than-philanthropic advances upon Iraq and the surrounding region? It's a whole lot of friction that was entirely preventable.

A "westernized" middle east would not only be beneficial to us, but also to the Muslim community. However, as history shows, assimilation is rarely accomplished by force. The Middle East will progress when it is good and ready to.

So are you advocating a phased withdrawal? And what do we leave in place? The current government apparatus or do we begin negotiations for a three way partition with UN peacekeepers similar to MagusYanam's post above?

[Metatron]

Their main principle on the issue is Principle #4.

Don't forget #5. I remember in an e-mail they sent me there was a link to one of their flash movies about how our vast arsenal of nuclear missiles were eating up our budget, and how they would be better applied to energy production. But perhaps I was reading more into their agenda than was actually there.

5. Close the Book on the Cold War and Ease the Nuclear Nightmare.
Cast a cold eye on giant weapons designed to destroy giant enemies that no longer exist. Cancel obsolete Cold War weapons. We applaud the nuclear force cuts announced by President Bush, but even 2,000 warheads poised and aimed at Russia are unwise. We squander $35 billion a year on this obsolete arsenal. Save half of that money, take our missiles off "launch on warning" and invite all nuclear nations to negotiate a nuclear weapons ban.

Nuke weapons yes but no nuke energy mentioned.

My personal opinion is that the crunchy granola types are seriously overstating the environmental impact of ANWR. Here is a list of points in favor of ANWR provided by it's proponents at ANWR.org.
http://www.anwr.org/topten.htm

Their reasoning seems pretty persuasive to me, but feel free to find rebuttal material if you wish from the Sierra Club, etc.

While you are fully welcome to your opinion, I would strongly urge you to use your good sense. I'm sorry, but the opinion that the extraction and refinement industries are fully compatible with native ecosystems is suspect at best and is refuted by most experts (i.e. forestry personnel and the vast majority of EEB scientists). Not only that, they want to drill along the coastline. Even though they pass it off as being only 8% of the refuge, drilling along the coastline will have a much broader impact on the ecosystem at large, particularly amphibious mammals such as polar bears (which den in fairly large numbers along the coastal plain) and marine wildlife (including the critically endangered bowhead right whale). Believe it or not, the quick oil fix is not the only thing to be considered here. The two questions that rise most quickly to mind when I read the ANWR.org website are:

1.) How long will the newly created wealth and jobs from the proposed ANWR drilling last?

2.) Will the oil supply (even given the optimistic measures listed there) last long enough to get us onto economically safer ground and

3.) Is it worth the ecological risk?

1. Given that the wells have not been drilled, it's impossible to know about wealth/job creation with any certainty.

2. Obviously ANWR would be only one of many sources of energy required, not a panacea for all of our problems. I simply deem it an energy source more palatable that Middle-East oil.

3. One has to decide whether the ecological risk to the Alaskan North Slope is a greater or lesser problem than the political and economic risk of the equivalent amount of Middle-East oil.

Just for the record, I'm no friend of big labour, but that's only one strike against the Democrats. I also oppose big business, big religion and financial corruption - that's three strikes against the Repubs.

1. Not sure if black Southern Baptist congregations exactly count as small religion.

2. Perhaps you are too young to remember when the Democrats were in charge of Congress. The Democrats had their fair share of scandals like Dan Rostenkowski and the Congressional Post Office Scandal, the Keating Five, and House Speaker Jim Wright's book deal.

This is not to excuse the Republicans who have plenty of their own dirty laundry. I am merely making the case that corruption is a bipartisan pursuit. If the Democrats take back control of Congress, corruption will follow as sure as night follows day.

It may very well come down to a negotiated partition of the country. However, I maintain that a peaceful partition will not occur if there is a rapid pull out of troops. A phased withdrawal of coalition forces in step with progress at the negotiation table and the phase-in of UN peacekeepers might be possible but a rapid withdrawal would only induce a full blown civil war.

That's a wise plan. I'm in favour of getting it onto the table as an alternative to what both parties are arguing. However, the U.S. forces should start withdrawing troops immediately and hold only enough to ensure peaceful negotiation between the various factions. What we're doing right now is using them as riot police, work for which they aren't cut out, and if we keep using them that way, it could end up more of a quagmire than it already is.

While there might be a difference of opinion on how rapidly to pull out our troops, it sounds like we're largely on the same page here.

I'm stunned by the brilliance of your argument. You have cleverly extrapolated your own individual circumstances (working within walking distance, etc.) on the rest of the country and declared that no one else needs gasoline. Funny thing is, most people don't have that luxury.

Let's take a look at the statistics, shall we? According to the official census, 79% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas. And, taking Providence, Rhode Island (not Oulu, Finland, note) as an heuristic model, walking distance to work and shops is a 'luxury', as you so quaintly put it, most inner city folks can very easily afford. (And if they can afford it, surely the wealthy lily-white suburbanites can as well. There is plenty of housing in the inner city to go around.)

And I quite frankly admire the chutzpah you demonstrate in extrapolating your own circumstances to every city in the United States after you flame me for doing something similar. I've visited Houston. No offense meant, but it's struck me as one of the most poorly-planned cities I've ever seen. What the hell kind of city needs that much strip-mall territory? If it's got the budget to maintain all that infrastructure, it's got the budget to make some well-needed adjustments to the residential planning.

My point stands. Even if you do need to commute to work or to the store, surely even Houston has at least one Honda or Toyota or Saturn dealership that will gladly sell fuel-efficient vehicles to do it. No urbanite should need a Volvo XC-70 to commute to work every day when any of various small wagons will work just as well. (For the record, I fully recognise the need for farm families to own minivans or four-wheel-drive wagons for various produce and other cargo.)

1. Hmmm.... so Mr. "this statement is pure, weapons-grade, precision-guided masculine bovine manure" is accusing me of flaming him? That would be an example of.... what's the word... chutzpah!

2. Hate to break it to you but your 79% "urban" figure includes suburban populations as well, i.e. the commuters I'm referring to.

3. I'm not sure that Providence, Rhode Island is exactly the most representative city one could pick either. Providence has a population density nearly three times greater than Houston (and Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, San Diego, etc.) and like many north-eastern cities is more intensely urbanized than cities in the south and south-west. I'm really not sure what city would represent the ideal model.

4. As for the notion that people are lazy bums who should all be walking to work, maybe we should check on some information about average commute times. Here's a survey from the U.S. Census on this point:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www ... 04489.html

In this survey you'll find this:

In a ranking of large cities (with populations of 250,000 or more), New York (38.3 minutes); Chicago (33.2 minutes); Newark, N.J. (31.5 minutes); Riverside, Calif. (31.2 minutes); Philadelphia (29.4 minutes); and Los Angeles (29.0 minutes) had among the nations highest average commute times.

These are the highest commute times but even the lowest mentioned in the survey were in the mid teens drive time, hardly walking distance. I don't think these millions of people are enduring long commute times because they are lazy, there doing it because it takes that long to get to their jobs.

5. Heh-heh. Houston is not a poorly planned city. Houston is a city with no planning at all! Some decades back Houston was a lazy Southern city with no zoning laws which suddenly grew like a weed because of the combination of the oil boom in Texas and the success of the Houston ship channel. The resulting chaos makes public transportation an even more challenging alternative than it would otherwise be. The car/truck will be king in Houston for the foreseeable future.

6. As for your point about SUVs, while I don't know if anyone really needs a Toyota Landcruiser, I'm not about to tell them they can't have one. I think the best way to address this is with gradually increasing CAFE standard targets that will hopefully ramp up mpg figures to more reasonable levels. A wider array of hybrid and diesel options might help as well. Of course, if oil stays at $70 a barrel or climbs even higher for an extended time, the point will probably be moot since most people won't want to pay the price to gas up these land barges.

Plus which you seem to be ignoring the point that oil is not only used to provide gasoline for cars but also diesel for long haul trucks, railroads, jetfuel for airplanes, and for industry in general.

I'm not ignoring this. Industrial energy consumption still accounts for a sizeable portion of the whole bill (in fact, the second-largest). But I'm noticing how the residential and electric power sectors have been exploding over the past half century. Industrial energy use can be cut in various ways, but I think we can cut out a significant portion of the bill just by better managing residential energy use in the ways I described.

Since I don't think the "let's all walk to work" plan is going to cut it, I think will have to shoot for more efficient fuel standards for vehicles and, if they prove economically viable, alternative fuels like ethanol or coal gasification.

I have not been advocating that we continue on our present course. As I have stated several times now, a combination of resources need to be brought to bear to achieve energy independence. Some will be alt-energy like bio-fuels, solar, etc. Some will be expensive infrastructure projects like nuclear reactors and hydroelectric plants. And some of it will be more local hydrocarbon resources including not only oil drilling in the Arctic and the outer continental shelf but also expansion of use of natural gas, coal gasification, and Canadian tar sands. There will also likely to be some regulatory changes like boosting of CAFE standards for automobiles and trucks.

By 'continuing on our present course' I was speaking specifically in terms of energy consumption, not in terms of sources.

For the record, I'm agreeing with you on every point but the ANWR one, and particularly on the last point you're making. I actually think our difference of opinion (except where ANWR is concerned) is more about emphasis. I'm all for nuke development, and I grant that it will be expensive, but I'm guessing you also think it will pay off in the long run. At the same time, lifestyle change is also a part of the picture that needs to be emphasised. People living forty, fifty years ago bought what they needed, not what looked fancy and trendy. My grandparents could get by with their Mitsubishi Eagle until it broke down, and then with a Subaru Forester for their farm work in upstate Vermont. Why anyone would need a Range Rover in a big city is beyond me.

While I obviously disagree on ANWR, I'd gladly trade it away so to speak if I could get a serious effort on the rest of the agenda above.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Very well, I hereby acknowledge that the fossil fuel industry and government have played major roles in the process. And I further acknowledge that the fossil fuel industry and government have been doing EXACTLY WHAT THE AMERICAN CONSUMER WANTED THEM TO DO!
Namely providing low priced gasoline for their gas guzzlers with gasoline taxes far lower than are found in Europe.

You are still missing my point.

Had market conditions been fair and inclusive, alternative energy companies could have had the opportunity to compete in the energy sector, and potentially developed marketable fuels even cheaper than that $35 a barrel gasoline. There was never any need for higher gas taxes; the government barely even needed to be proactive to foster energy development. All that was needed was a free market, unbiased politicians, and fair play on the oil industry's part.

Politicians knew we were going to hit oil peak sometime soon. They knew conditions in the Middle East would never permit a peaceful oil trade. They knew of the grave environmental effects fossil fuels would wreak (and were all ready wreaking). And yet, their loyalty lay not with the nation and it's questionable economic future, but with their deep pocketed constituents; the giant oil companies who have helped foster all this mess.

Alternative energy's best hope is a day and time when politicians have no corporate lobbyists to please.

I found this speech by congressman Morris Udall rather interesting. It seems to reflect the public's general attitude towards oil companies of the 70's:

http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits ... gyfut.html

1. Still would like a reference for this alleged 90% Reagan alt-energy spending cut.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... gy+funding

2. Why would a cut in alt-energy spending effect the nuclear power industry? Pressurized and boiling water nuclear reactors were old hat by then and were built by private enterprise (when they could get the permits). The only thing a cut in alt-energy funding could have effected was perhaps research into "breeder" reactors or maybe fusion research.

I was referring more to breeder reactors and fusion technology (which, if mastered, could possibly be our saving grace). However, you are right, the reactors themselves were products of private investment.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "addiction to dominance". I have this mental picture of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies chairing the Board of Directors of Exxon as they hash out their plans for world conquest. What oil companies have is an addiction to profit, something that they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to provide. In this, they differ not at all from any other publicly traded company.

Dominance and profit are directly correlated.

Competition is not good for business. Every good Rockefeller knows that.

Well, yes I did neglect to consider this since it's the first time I've ever heard this allegation. Any proof of this? The notion of an Exxon/Greenpeace cabal is pretty amusing.

Government permits are required for nuclear reactors. And who exerts control over much of the government, thanks to a corrupt campaign contribution system?

I find it hard to believe that the oil oligarchys would neglect to meddle in the business of their (at that time) next biggest competitors.

Yes, we have what is technically called a mixed economy. The whole social darwinism thing started breaking up when Teddy Roosevelt began enforcing anti-trust laws.

Perhaps is it time to start enacting those trust laws again?

Come on, you see what the pharmacutical, health care, energy, and retail industry's are doing to the market- just look at your top five list of campaign contributors. Can you really call this a free market? Couldn't it be much freer?

You'll have to explain this one to me. What motive do the automakers have for appeasing energy companies? Their interests may perhaps coincide given that a large gas guzzler is probably going to be more expensive than an econo-box but I can't see where the automakers would give a damn whether the energy companies made a penny on gasoline.
If GM could make an SUV that got 100 miles a gallon you bet they would make it whether Exxon liked it or not.

You are going to ask for references regardless, so I'll go ahead and cut to the chase. This article best summarizes my argument:

http://www.frogstylebiscuit.com/index.p ... les&id=372

Does the concept that companies regularly manipulate the so-called free market at the consumers expense really surprise you?

You appear to be arguing that more government regulation would make our market freer. I would argue the opposite. While obviously some regulation is needed, the pervasiveness of government regulation and it's subjectivity are prime reasons why there is so much lobbying of government in the first place. Corporations, unions, and various interest groups lobby the government to either prevent onerous regulations from being imposed on their interests or they seek to have said onerous regulations imposed on their competitors or political opponents. The governments power to regulate is the weapon being used to extract donations (bribes) from these interest groups. Tone down the ability of the government to intervene in the economy and in society in general and there is little need for lobbyist, campaign reform, etc.

What would you say regarding the Great Depression and Rockefeller/social darwinist era whose effects resulted from the policys you are advocating?

If you ask me, we are starting to go in that direction again. In case you haven't noticed, the middle class is currently struggling as never before, and the wealth gap between the rich and the poor is at an unprecedented high. The economy is doing well, but this only speaks for the upper class' recent successes- purchasing power amoung the lower 80% is on a steep decline.

Take a look at some of these statistics

Could a lack of government intervention in corporate affairs play a part? Should Wal-Mart be allowed to treat it's employees like slaves? Should health care oligarchys be allowed to gouge prices?

While pursuing worthwhile goals, the Kyoto Protocol has some pretty major flaws that would need to be hammered out to make it effective in reducing greenhouse gases. China, number two in the world in greenhouse gas emissions and the fastest growing economy in the world, is totally exempt from making reductions as is India and other developing countries. If the U.S. fully participated in Kyoto, the extra cost burden on American industry would only encourage these companies to ship more industrial capacity to China and other developing nations. This would not only reduce American industrial and manufacturing jobs here but would ironically actually increase greenhouse gas emissions because the U.S. has substantially higher emission control technology and standards in place than China, etc.

That's an interesting take on the matter.

In my opinion, developing nations should be exempt from the regulations as much as possible for sake of their citizens, considering the undeniable positive effects industrialization can have on their lives. However, there must be some upper limit. If the Kyoto signees are really deticated to reducing greenhouse emmissions, they can personally invest in alternative energy venues for nations like India and China.

[Metatron]

Had market conditions been fair and inclusive, alternative energy companies could have had the opportunity to compete in the energy sector, and potentially developed marketable fuels even cheaper than that $35 a barrel gasoline. There was never any need for higher gas taxes; the government barely even needed to be proactive to foster energy development. All that was needed was a free market, unbiased politicians, and fair play on the oil industry's part.

I really don't know why you keep talking about free markets. Nothing that you have been talking about has anything to do with a free market. In a free market those goods and services that are economically viable are the things that are implemented. Private enterprise brings a product or service to market and it lives or dies based on the perceived value it holds to the consumer. In the 70's and indeed up to fairly recent times, most alternative energy products were NOT viable in a free market. Even if oil lobbyist had never mentioned alt-energy to congressmen there were no viable free enterprise solutions that would have stood a chance in the market place on anything more than a very small scale.

What you have been talking about is access by alternative energy researchers to public funds NOT to free and fair access to markets. Your case is not that the oil companies have shutoff alt-energy companies from having free access to the market. Your case is that the oil companies (if true) have shutoff free access to federal money for research needed to make alternative energy technologies economically viable. If this is the case you wish to make then I might very well agree with you, but we should not confuse what you are describing as a free and fair market.

I found this speech by congressman Morris Udall rather interesting. It seems to reflect the public's general attitude towards oil companies of the 70's:

http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits ... gyfut.html

After reading Mo's speech about the future of energy I was left thinking that he could have been far more succinct and probably kinder to the energy industry if he had simply proposed nationalization of America's entire energy infrastructure. What he instead proposed was such a brutal hamstringing of the energy industry that profitability would have been near impossible. These included:

1. price controls on the commodities

2. Inability to invest in multiple energy commodities. The example used was oil companies owning coal deposits but I would have been curious to know whether Mo thinks of oil and natural gas as one commodity or two, given that they are often found in the same fields.

3. Piecemeal break up of all integrated oil companies constraining any company from owning more than one of the following functions:
a) explore and produce petroleum, b) transport it, c) refine it, and, d) market it at retail

4. A government takeover of all oil importation.

5. The creation of a new government agency (proposed name being The National Authority for Energy Management) to control all exploration and production of energy resources on public lands and offshore, effectively nationalizing most of the energy assets in the country.

Given that the historical profit margins on oil companies are a very ordinary 8%, this host of crippling restrictions would make most oil companies unprofitable and therefore uninvestable as public companies. I suspect the end game would be a couple of heavily subsidized, low profit companies for each of the energy categories above, essentially virtual extensions of the above named agency with no motive for exploration or innovation. In other words, socialism.

Why would a cut in alt-energy spending effect the nuclear power industry? Pressurized and boiling water nuclear reactors were old hat by then and were built by private enterprise (when they could get the permits). The only thing a cut in alt-energy funding could have effected was perhaps research into "breeder" reactors or maybe fusion research.

I was referring more to breeder reactors and fusion technology (which, if mastered, could possibly be our saving grace). However, you are right, the reactors themselves were products of private investment.

Which goes to my point that the oil companies are not the reason that the nuclear power option stagnated. Why should government have payed for research on breeder reactors when it was obvious that environmental protestors had already convinced public utility commissions and other regulatory bodies not to grant permits for future nuclear reactors? Fusion research might still have made sense but has always been an extremely long term project that might not be realized in most peoples lifetimes.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "addiction to dominance". I have this mental picture of Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies chairing the Board of Directors of Exxon as they hash out their plans for world conquest. What oil companies have is an addiction to profit, something that they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to provide. In this, they differ not at all from any other publicly traded company.

Dominance and profit are directly correlated.

Competition is not good for business. Every good Rockefeller knows that.

You and Mr. Udall seem to be arguing that since unregulated capitalism leads inevitably to monopoly that the obvious solution is to throw the baby out with the bath water and implement draconian regulation or outright socialism. I fail to see how crippling our energy infrastructure will help us to energy independence.

Well, yes I did neglect to consider this since it's the first time I've ever heard this allegation. Any proof of this? The notion of an Exxon/Greenpeace cabal is pretty amusing.

Government permits are required for nuclear reactors. And who exerts control over much of the government, thanks to a corrupt campaign contribution system?

Politician do not just respond to campaign contributions. They're also not real big at standing up to thousands of protestors led by famous celebrities. Once the issue got rolling, the Democrats realized it was a great wedge issue to use against the Republicans and the nuke industry's fate was sealed.

Yes, we have what is technically called a mixed economy. The whole social darwinism thing started breaking up when Teddy Roosevelt began enforcing anti-trust laws.

Perhaps is it time to start enacting those trust laws again?

Come on, you see what the pharmacutical, health care, energy, and retail industry's are doing to the market- just look at your top five list of campaign contributors. Can you really call this a free market? Couldn't it be much freer?

As I have stated I am not comfortable with the current campaign contribution/lobbying system and would like to see it reformed. However, the devils in the details. It would be very tricky indeed to come up with a system that is equitable to all parties and does not meaningfully infringe on free speech. I have yet to hear a proposal, McCain-Feingold or otherwise, that does not tilt the field one direction or the other and that does not impact free speech.

As for anti-trust laws, it depends on how you would like them to be implemented. You might very well be able to make the case against approval of mega mergers like Exxon and Mobil but surely you recognize the need for mature industries like oil and gas to be able to purchase or merge with other corporations to create growth opportunities. In the case of oil and gas companies, their existing fields eventually play out which means that they can only continue to profit if they acquire new assets either through exploration or through acquisition. Since many of the avenues for exploration are in areas of the world you presumably do not want us in, the only other alternative is for a company like Exxon to acquire a smaller oil company which has newer, more productive fields.

You'll have to explain this one to me. What motive do the automakers have for appeasing energy companies? Their interests may perhaps coincide given that a large gas guzzler is probably going to be more expensive than an econo-box but I can't see where the automakers would give a damn whether the energy companies made a penny on gasoline.
If GM could make an SUV that got 100 miles a gallon you bet they would make it whether Exxon liked it or not.

You are going to ask for references regardless, so I'll go ahead and cut to the chase. This article best summarizes my argument:

http://www.frogstylebiscuit.com/index.p ... les&id=372

Does the concept that companies regularly manipulate the so-called free market at the consumers expense really surprise you?

I'm not exactly sure why I should give great credence to a rather politically biased posting from a guy named Mike (no last name) from a website that also features articles like "Lyndon Johnson's Mistress Claims He Ordered JFK Hit". The article in question claims that some sort of oil/car company cabal exists without providing the slightest bit of evidence or even much of a rational. I will say that the Tesla Roadster is pretty cool. http://cars.blogs.ca/2006/07/23/telsa-m ... a-reality/

Incidently, while the Japanese and Europeans are clearly in the lead for developing an efficient electric car for the masses, the U.S. companies have been involved in research. For example:

The Ford E Ka
http://www.21stcentury.co.uk/cars/ford_e_ka.asp

The Volvo 3CC ( a division of Ford)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6281335/

You appear to be arguing that more government regulation would make our market freer. I would argue the opposite. While obviously some regulation is needed, the pervasiveness of government regulation and it's subjectivity are prime reasons why there is so much lobbying of government in the first place. Corporations, unions, and various interest groups lobby the government to either prevent onerous regulations from being imposed on their interests or they seek to have said onerous regulations imposed on their competitors or political opponents. The governments power to regulate is the weapon being used to extract donations (bribes) from these interest groups. Tone down the ability of the government to intervene in the economy and in society in general and there is little need for lobbyist, campaign reform, etc.

What would you say regarding the Great Depression and Rockefeller/social darwinist era whose effects resulted from the policys you are advocating?

1. The so called Rockefeller/social darwinist era as you called it was largely gone by the time of the Great Depression. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed in 1890 and was used to break up Rockefeller's Standard Oil in 1911.

2. I fail to see how I am advocating policies which resulted in the Great Depression. I don't recall calling for the elimination of FDIC protection of bank accounts, calling for a renewal of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which set off an international trade war, calling for banks to give out mortgages with little collateral, asking the Federal Reserve to drastically cut back money supply, or advocating a stock market bubble thus causing the market crash in 1929.

3. You have complained many times about corrupt politicians taking campaign donations (bribes) from lobbyist in return for political favors to the detriment of society. So I find it somewhat ironic that you want to give these very same corrupt and/or inept politicians MORE power to regulate businesses and society.

If you ask me, we are starting to go in that direction again. In case you haven't noticed, the middle class is currently struggling as never before, and the wealth gap between the rich and the poor is at an unprecedented high. The economy is doing well, but this only speaks for the upper class' recent successes- purchasing power amoung the lower 80% is on a steep decline.

Could a lack of government intervention in corporate affairs play a part? Should Wal-Mart be allowed to treat it's employees like slaves? Should health care oligarchys be allowed to gouge prices?

So what policies would you put in place to address these issues?

While pursuing worthwhile goals, the Kyoto Protocol has some pretty major flaws that would need to be hammered out to make it effective in reducing greenhouse gases. China, number two in the world in greenhouse gas emissions and the fastest growing economy in the world, is totally exempt from making reductions as is India and other developing countries. If the U.S. fully participated in Kyoto, the extra cost burden on American industry would only encourage these companies to ship more industrial capacity to China and other developing nations. This would not only reduce American industrial and manufacturing jobs here but would ironically actually increase greenhouse gas emissions because the U.S. has substantially higher emission control technology and standards in place than China, etc.

That's an interesting take on the matter.

In my opinion, developing nations should be exempt from the regulations as much as possible for sake of their citizens, considering the undeniable positive effects industrialization can have on their lives. However, there must be some upper limit. If the Kyoto signees are really dedicated to reducing greenhouse emissions, they can personally invest in alternative energy venues for nations like India and China.

Unfortunately, while poking around at info on the Kyoto Protocol I noticed some other issues. For example, just this year Germany unilaterally exempted it's coal industry from it's obligations under Kyoto. Also because the treaty uses 1990 as it's base for determining greenhouse gas emissions the various former Soviet Union republics including Russia itself get a free ride on emissions due to the restructuring of their economies in the wake of Soviet collapse. This factor even allows the European Union some breaks compared to what the U.S.'s burden would be because the EU gets to count recent additions from Eastern Europe who are also restructuring like Russia.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

What you have been talking about is access by alternative energy researchers to public funds NOT to free and fair access to markets. Your case is not that the oil companies have shutoff alt-energy companies from having free access to the market. Your case is that the oil companies (if true) have shutoff free access to federal money for research needed to make alternative energy technologies economically viable. If this is the case you wish to make then I might very well agree with you, but we should not confuse what you are describing as a free and fair market.

For fear of appearing to contradict myself, I will reitterate upon my TWO main points.

(1) The government has thusfar neglected to provide sufficient funding for alternative energy development due to a number of politician's personal investments in the oil industry, all at the expense of the environment, the consumer, and the economy.

(2) A number of oil industries have used their size and market influence to place subtle, yet substantial hurdles in the way of independent alternative energy development for the sake of sustaining their personal profit, once again, at the expense of the environment, the consumer, and the economy. This is what I am talking about when I complain about alt. energy firms not recieving a fair market advantage.


The evidence for #1 is fairly obvious, and it seems like we are both generally in agreement regarding it's influence in America's inability to break economic ties to the Middle East.

However, as stated in #2, it is my personal view that the oil industry is stepping beyond strictly political parameters in it's agenda to limit competition. What are the evidences of this? Let us consider, once again, the electric car issue...

Current electric car manufacturers are required to make vehicles using at least 50% gasoline. They have the technological capability to make 100% electric cars. Why on earth are they selling themselves short?

Because Chevron says so. When electric car technology was just taking off, Chevron/Texaco had the foresight to buy the patent for large scale nickel-metal hydride batteries. COBASYS, the manufacturing unit responsible for these batteries, is not allowed to distribute them to American car manufacturers, because this would violate Chevron's patent. In order for an American company to recieve nickel hydride batteries, it must make it's car's 50% gasoline oriented (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_electric_vehicle, "Incentives, quotas, and patent control in the US").

Tada! With one giant swoop of the hand, the oil industry effectively destroys the American electric car industry.

So where does the auto industry play a part? Naturally, they were all part of the ploy.

The California Air Resources Board previously instituted a minimum quota for the number of zero emmissions vehicles manufactured. However, many auto manufactures flat out refused to meet this quota, claiming it would generate little profit (despite the thousands who were waiting in line to lease such products). The no-profitability excuse curiously went uncontested. It turns out that Alan Lloyd, head of the Air Resources Board, killed the zero emmissions requirements much due to his investments in a competing technology, the hydrogen fuel cell.

Auto manufacturer's requirements to build a these zero emmission electric cars proved a economic pain in the neck because of their deep-set affiliation with the oil industry.



Thus, no electric cars for America. Not to put all the blame on the auto and energy sectors, it is true that the average American consumer showed lacking enthusiasm for this great new technology (ignorance, perhaps?). Still, all this is but one example on how big industries will cast all moral ramifications aside to manipulate the free market and keep useful new technologies out of the consumer's hand.

You and Mr. Udall seem to be arguing that since unregulated capitalism leads inevitably to monopoly that the obvious solution is to throw the baby out with the bath water and implement draconian regulation or outright socialism. I fail to see how crippling our energy infrastructure will help us to energy independence.

Although I would advocate that the government provide a stronger guiding hand in regards to these issues, I agree that Udall's solution is rather extreme.

A partial nationalization of the energy sector (as found in many other countries) might be one solution. However, I would have to think a bit more on the issue before making any conclusions on a suitable policy.

Basicly, we just need to restrict the oil industry's market influence, and guide the energy sector in a direction that would be beneficial to all- not just the oil tycoons.

Politician do not just respond to campaign contributions. They're also not real big at standing up to thousands of protestors led by famous celebrities. Once the issue got rolling, the Democrats realized it was a great wedge issue to use against the Republicans and the nuke industry's fate was sealed.

Okay, I can agree to that.

As for anti-trust laws, it depends on how you would like them to be implemented. You might very well be able to make the case against approval of mega mergers like Exxon and Mobil but surely you recognize the need for mature industries like oil and gas to be able to purchase or merge with other corporations to create growth opportunities. In the case of oil and gas companies, their existing fields eventually play out which means that they can only continue to profit if they acquire new assets either through exploration or through acquisition. Since many of the avenues for exploration are in areas of the world you presumably do not want us in, the only other alternative is for a company like Exxon to acquire a smaller oil company which has newer, more productive fields.

Or...

We can screw oil altogether and start investing in energies that aren't going to run out in 30 years.

You see, I have a problem with oil/government pushing for the exploitation of places like the continental shelf and ANWR when proper measures aren't even being taken to ensure a future for clean SUSTAINABLE modes of energy.

You have complained many times about corrupt politicians taking campaign donations (bribes) from lobbyist in return for political favors to the detriment of society. So I find it somewhat ironic that you want to give these very same corrupt and/or inept politicians MORE power to regulate businesses and society.

But here's the difference; without things such as the corrupt campaign contributions playing a factor, politicians will presumably no longer be biased towards ulterior personal agendas.

The only people they will have to answer to are the voters. Staying in office won't be so much of a matter of making the financial contributers happy, but making US the voters happy. It is the ideal democracy.

If you ask me, we are starting to go in that direction again. In case you haven't noticed, the middle class is currently struggling as never before, and the wealth gap between the rich and the poor is at an unprecedented high. The economy is doing well, but this only speaks for the upper class' recent successes- purchasing power amoung the lower 80% is on a steep decline.

Could a lack of government intervention in corporate affairs play a part? Should Wal-Mart be allowed to treat it's employees like slaves? Should health care oligarchys be allowed to gouge prices?

So what policies would you put in place to address these issues?

For starters- beat down the rediculous health care and insurance costs (accomplished via my plan to overhaul campaign contributions and subsequent political corporate bias), hike the federal minimum wage standard to a cursory level, and reverse these new inane tax breaks for the rich.

However, if you don't mind, I'd rather stick to the energy debate for now.

[Metatron]

Current electric car manufacturers are required to make vehicles using at least 50% gasoline. They have the technological capability to make 100% electric cars. Why on earth are they selling themselves short?

Because Chevron says so. When electric car technology was just taking off, Chevron/Texaco had the foresight to buy the patent for large scale nickel-metal hydride batteries. COBASYS, the manufacturing unit responsible for these batteries, is not allowed to distribute them to American car manufacturers, because this would violate Chevron's patent. In order for an American company to recieve nickel hydride batteries, it must make it's car's 50% gasoline oriented (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_electric_vehicle, "Incentives, quotas, and patent control in the US").

Tada! With one giant swoop of the hand, the oil industry effectively destroys the American electric car industry.

First of all, I should point out that Cobasys is a joint venture of Chevron and Energy Conversion Devices, one of the darlings of the alternative energy industry. As for Cobasys deliberately holding back nickel-metal hydride batteries from the electric vehicle market, there is this from Cobasys' website: http://www.cobasys.com/solutions/transportation.htm

NiMHax: EV Systems

Vehicles that use 100 percent electric powertrains can benefit from the long range performance of our NiMHax EV battery systems. NiMHax EV systems are designed for high discharge rates to provide power on demand. NiMHax EV battery systems have a proven track record of distance and performance.

I'm not sure how Chevron forming an alliance with an alternative energy company to offer batteries for both hybrids and pure EVs fits in with your evil, anti-competitive oil company hypothesis.

As for the notion that the oil companies are fighting alternative energy there is this article: http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/22/news/co ... /index.htm

While Exxon is still sitting on the sidelines, there is this about the aforementioned Chevron.

Gaining experience in renewables is what a Chevron spokesman cited as a main reason why that company is spending roughly $400 million a year in the renewables sector.

Chevron's interests include hydrogen centers in the U.S., a geothermal operation in the Philippines and a joint venture making advanced batteries with a company called Cobasys.

"When these technologies become commercially available, we'll be in the game," said the spokesman, Leif Sollid.

Then, of course, there is the clear leader among oil companies as far as alternative energy is concerned, BP.

Perhaps most noticeable is BP , the British energy giant that started spinning its initials in an ad campaign to stand for "beyond petroleum."

Hard numbers of what oil majors spend on renewables are hard to come by, as none of them break it down in their annual reports.

But BP's Sarah Howell said the company plans on pumping $10 billion into its renewable businesses over the next 8 years.

"We think it's a market sector that is rapidly growing," said Howell. "We realize (oil) won't be forever, and you need to start looking into what your customers are going to want down the road."

Much of BP's renewable spending will go into the company's 30-year old solar unit, which has just started turning a profit in the last two years.

When asked why she thought BP could compete with other specialized renewable energy companies, Howell pointed to the length of time BP has been in the business.

"We have a very strong history, strong R&D, a very good product choice," she said.

In case your interested here is a link discussing BP's $4 billion investment in wind power by BP Alternative Energy division.

http://alt-e.blogspot.com/2006/07/4b-in ... by-bp.html

As for the American automakers, I submit that they are not seriously deficient in the drive for the electric car because they are in the oil companies backpocket. I claim they are behind because they are short-sighted nincompoops. In case you haven't noticed the Big Three (assuming Chrysler still counts now that it's controlled by the Germans) have been getting their asses kicked by the Japanese and increasingly the Koreans. Toyota recently passed Ford as the world's number two automaker and I believe that it's just a matter of time before they pass GM.

You and Mr. Udall seem to be arguing that since unregulated capitalism leads inevitably to monopoly that the obvious solution is to throw the baby out with the bath water and implement draconian regulation or outright socialism. I fail to see how crippling our energy infrastructure will help us to energy independence.

Although I would advocate that the government provide a stronger guiding hand in regards to these issues, I agree that Udall's solution is rather extreme.

A partial nationalization of the energy sector (as found in many other countries) might be one solution. However, I would have to think a bit more on the issue before making any conclusions on a suitable policy.

Basicly, we just need to restrict the oil industry's market influence, and guide the energy sector in a direction that would be beneficial to all- not just the oil tycoons.

I'm afraid that I have too strong of a libertarian streak in me to ever consider nationalization an option. I simply do not believe that the central command and control model works for an entire industry. It is the opposite of a free market.

I'm not sure which countries with partially nationalized energy sectors you might be considering as models. Most of the examples of energy nationalization that I can think of are countries like Venezuela and Bolivia who are essentially seizing the assets of foreign energy companies, effectively stealing billions in investment dollars.

As for anti-trust laws, it depends on how you would like them to be implemented. You might very well be able to make the case against approval of mega mergers like Exxon and Mobil but surely you recognize the need for mature industries like oil and gas to be able to purchase or merge with other corporations to create growth opportunities. In the case of oil and gas companies, their existing fields eventually play out which means that they can only continue to profit if they acquire new assets either through exploration or through acquisition. Since many of the avenues for exploration are in areas of the world you presumably do not want us in, the only other alternative is for a company like Exxon to acquire a smaller oil company which has newer, more productive fields.

Or...

We can screw oil altogether and start investing in energies that aren't going to run out in 30 years.

You see, I have a problem with oil/government pushing for the exploitation of places like the continental shelf and ANWR when proper measures aren't even being taken to ensure a future for clean SUSTAINABLE modes of energy.

While I agree with you that more effort needs to take place in developing alternative energy (after all I have a financial stake in the outcome ), trying to restrain efforts to find oil and gas in the U.S. would seem to be an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you wish to eliminate our use of Middle-East oil in any kind of reasonable time frame, it's going to take a full court press of all of the energy options available including alt-energy, nuclear power, alternative hydrocarbons like Canadian oil sands, AND continued development of oil and gas in our country. Along these lines, there was an encouraging (at least from my point of view) oil discovery made out in the Gulf of Mexico by Chevron, Devon, and the Norwegian oil company Statoil. Preliminary testing suggest that the strike may be on par with Prudoe Bay and has the potential to increase U.S. oil reserves by 50%.

You have complained many times about corrupt politicians taking campaign donations (bribes) from lobbyist in return for political favors to the detriment of society. So I find it somewhat ironic that you want to give these very same corrupt and/or inept politicians MORE power to regulate businesses and society.

But here's the difference; without things such as the corrupt campaign contributions playing a factor, politicians will presumably no longer be biased towards ulterior personal agendas.

The only people they will have to answer to are the voters. Staying in office won't be so much of a matter of making the financial contributers happy, but making US the voters happy. It is the ideal democracy.

The problem is I have a hard to seeing how the corrupt lobbyist culture is going to be changed. Neither the Republican or the Democrats have a motive to meaningfully reform the system. Certainly they will play lipservice to the idea and will gleefully try to pass campaign finance reform that puts their opponents at a disadvantage, but both sides take the payola. Until the day comes that some third party gains enough critical mass to scare the main parties into some kind of real reform, it just ain't happening.

If you ask me, we are starting to go in that direction again. In case you haven't noticed, the middle class is currently struggling as never before, and the wealth gap between the rich and the poor is at an unprecedented high. The economy is doing well, but this only speaks for the upper class' recent successes- purchasing power amoung the lower 80% is on a steep decline.

Could a lack of government intervention in corporate affairs play a part? Should Wal-Mart be allowed to treat it's employees like slaves? Should health care oligarchys be allowed to gouge prices?

So what policies would you put in place to address these issues?

For starters- beat down the rediculous health care and insurance costs (accomplished via my plan to overhaul campaign contributions and subsequent political corporate bias), hike the federal minimum wage standard to a cursory level, and reverse these new inane tax breaks for the rich.

However, if you don't mind, I'd rather stick to the energy debate for now.

Hmmm..... well I might have a few things to say on these subjects but I will respect your wishes and save these items for another debate.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

First of all, I should point out that Cobasys is a joint venture of Chevron and Energy Conversion Devices, one of the darlings of the alternative energy industry. As for Cobasys deliberately holding back nickel-metal hydride batteries from the electric vehicle market, there is this from Cobasys' website: http://www.cobasys.com/solutions/transportation.htm

Why would they stave off potential clients with that nastly little 50% limitation? The object of their site is to paint themselves as a leader in green technology; not the oil pawn that they truely are.

Also, did you notice what they left out in their webpage? If I'm not mistaken, their NMH batteries are never even mentioned as serving any application in small consumer vehicles. Sure, Chevron has no problem handing over batteries to the large transit sector (buses, ect); they represent a mininscule portion of gross oil consumption.

If it were not for Chevron, American automakers wouldn't even be bothering with this "hybrid" nonsense- they could make vehicles 100% electric, 400 miles per charge. Think this is insignifigant?

Gaining experience in renewables is what a Chevron spokesman cited as a main reason why that company is spending roughly $400 million a year in the renewables sector.

Do you really think this is signifigant, considering this is a company whose revenue tops 54 BILLION (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/S ... 7D&siteid=)?

400 million is pocket change to Chevron. It is equivalent to me going out and investing in a $3 wind sock from the Dollar Tree.

Then, of course, there is the clear leader among oil companies as far as alternative energy is concerned, BP.

BP is slightly more excusable. However, there is their shady work in ethanol to consider (discussed below)...

As for the American automakers, I submit that they are not seriously deficient in the drive for the electric car because they are in the oil companies backpocket. I claim they are behind because they are short-sighted nincompoops.

Do you really think they are too stupid to realize where the money is?

For one, it is especially hard for an American company to go green (mostly thanks to Chevron, amoung others). However, more signifigantly is the consumer demand: Americans are *still* hungry for gas guzzlers. Contrary to common sense, SUV sales are actually soaring (SUV sales steady , Driving habits little changed by gas prices).

American automakers know where the money is; big rigs and assault vehicles. So what do they do about the newer fuel economy standards finally pushed in by Congress? Revert to their secret weapon: ethanol.

Recently automakers have been modifying their same old gas hogs to run on ethanol, which according to the government, grants the said company a higher fuel economy rating. Sounds great, but there are two little problems:

(1) No one actually sells ethanol (only 800 out of 175,000 gas stations nationwide, 99% of those in the Midwest corn country)

(2) Ethanol in reality gives WORSE fuel economy than gasoline! If you subscribe to Consumer Reports, your newest issue is likely branded with a certain giant headline, "THE ETHANOL MYTH". According to CR, ethanol reduced a 16 mpg test vehicle to 14 mpg. That makes ethanol even more expensive than gas, considering current vegetable oil prices (recently hiked due to their higher demand).

This is signifigant for the auto industry because thanks to their new fuel economy credits, they can afford to focus more attention on profit inducing SUVs and trucks. In this way, ethanol is actually INCREASING our dependence on oil.

The implications are obvious for BP. They can sell more ethanol and petroleum... simultaneously.



All these are prime examples of the shortcommings of a free market. All the focus is on individual profit, not general welfare and sustainability.

Could this explain why socialist Europe is so energy stable, and so (rightly) reluctant to become embroiled in costly Middle East matters?

You may be right about nationalization being a poor option. However, I think there is a happy medium between free market and government intervention to be found. Unfortunately, America is clearly leaning too far towards privatization, and this is making all the difference in the world concerning our current energy situation.

I'm not sure which countries with partially nationalized energy sectors you might be considering as models. Most of the examples of energy nationalization that I can think of are countries like Venezuela and Bolivia who are essentially seizing the assets of foreign energy companies, effectively stealing billions in investment dollars.

I was thinking more along the lines of France, in particular. Think they got to 90% nuclear by letting oil giants run amok?

While I agree with you that more effort needs to take place in developing alternative energy (after all I have a financial stake in the outcome ), trying to restrain efforts to find oil and gas in the U.S. would seem to be an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you wish to eliminate our use of Middle-East oil in any kind of reasonable time frame, it's going to take a full court press of all of the energy options available including alt-energy, nuclear power, alternative hydrocarbons like Canadian oil sands, AND continued development of oil and gas in our country. Along these lines, there was an encouraging (at least from my point of view) oil discovery made out in the Gulf of Mexico by Chevron, Devon, and the Norwegian oil company Statoil. Preliminary testing suggest that the strike may be on par with Prudoe Bay and has the potential to increase U.S. oil reserves by 50%.

I am all for a so-called full court press of all energy options. But who is going to exploit these other options? Don't count on the oil companies.

As long as there is oil in the Middle East, gas gobblers like the US will always be found nearby. Simply drilling more back home probably will not do much. We need to get OFF oil. Period.

[Metatron]

First of all, I should point out that Cobasys is a joint venture of Chevron and Energy Conversion Devices, one of the darlings of the alternative energy industry. As for Cobasys deliberately holding back nickel-metal hydride batteries from the electric vehicle market, there is this from Cobasys' website: http://www.cobasys.com/solutions/transportation.htm

Why would they stave off potential clients with that nastly little 50% limitation? The object of their site is to paint themselves as a leader in green technology; not the oil pawn that they truely are.

I didn't realize that Energy Conversion Devices was an evil oil company.

Also, did you notice what they left out in their webpage? If I'm not mistaken, their NMH batteries are never even mentioned as serving any application in small consumer vehicles. Sure, Chevron has no problem handing over batteries to the large transit sector (buses, ect); they represent a mininscule portion of gross oil consumption.

Actually the Cobasys website mentions general availability of it's NMH batteries for electrical vehicles. While it has a photograph of a bus, it makes no claims as far as size limitations for EV use.

If it were not for Chevron, American automakers wouldn't even be bothering with this "hybrid" nonsense- they could make vehicles 100% electric, 400 miles per charge. Think this is insignifigant?

If this is true, why are there not millions of these wondrous electric cars all over Europe and Japan? Even if the Cobasys business is true that's not much of an excuse. If the Tesla Roadster can achieve souped-up performance on lithium-ion batteries, who needs the NMH batteries.

I think there are two issues. One is that manufacturers are still seeking a balance between efficiency and cost. The Tesla Roadster sounds like an engineering marvel but is too expensive for a normal person. It may be that a car like the Volvo 3CC will bring enough performance and range at an affordable price. The second issue is the same one that bedevils the adoption of ethanol or natural gas based vehicles, i.e. a lack of infrastructure for re-fueling. An electric car can be a difficult vehicle for traveling outside of cities because you eventually have to recharge the battery. That means that your destination has to have some place for you to plug into. This might be fine if your visiting Aunt Mabel and she's okay with you charging up your EV in her garage. But what if you plan on stopping at a hotel? Think the hotel is ready for a bunch of EV's to plug in for recharges in their parking lots? Think businesses will be keen to let you charge up in their garages over night? In short, an EV might be a real good solution for city travel only but not if you want to travel with it.

From what I'm seeing the big push is for the best of both worlds approach, namely the plug in hybrid. My understanding is that when these are ready for prime time they will deliver the equivalent of around 100 miles per gallon in city driving while still allowing out of city travelling as per a gasoline vehicle. And these vehicles definitely can use the Cobasys
NMH batteries because I saw a reference of them being adopted for the Saturn VUE plug in hybrid.

Gaining experience in renewables is what a Chevron spokesman cited as a main reason why that company is spending roughly $400 million a year in the renewables sector.

Do you really think this is signifigant, considering this is a company whose revenue tops 54 BILLION (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/S ... 7D&siteid=)?

400 million is pocket change to Chevron. It is equivalent to me going out and investing in a $3 wind sock from the Dollar Tree.

Actually you may be underestimating Chevron's revenues. The $54 billion figure your quoting is for one quarter. According to Yahoo Finance we're talking about $203 billion for a year. It's interesting to note that Chevron's profit margin is a fairly mediocre 7.92%. It makes it's large profit on volume in much the same way as the left's other whipping boy, Walmart. This as opposed to Microsoft who made $44.28 billion in revenue but had an awesome 28.45% profit margin. Microsoft Windows is a heck of a lot more valuable that oil!

As for the pocket change reference, sure it's not much money compared to Chevron's revenue but it is profitless R & D spending outside their core area of expertise. If they find a profitable way to exploit alt-energy I'm sure they'll ramp up like BP.

As for the American automakers, I submit that they are not seriously deficient in the drive for the electric car because they are in the oil companies backpocket. I claim they are behind because they are short-sighted nincompoops.

Do you really think they are too stupid to realize where the money is?

For one, it is especially hard for an American company to go green (mostly thanks to Chevron, amoung others). However, more signifigantly is the consumer demand: Americans are *still* hungry for gas guzzlers. Contrary to common sense, SUV sales are actually soaring (SUV sales steady , Driving habits little changed by gas prices).

No argument here. Obviously if people are still willing to buy the higher margin SUVs, the automakers would be idiots not to sell them what they want. They are in the business to make money after all.

American automakers know where the money is; big rigs and assault vehicles. So what do they do about the newer fuel economy standards finally pushed in by Congress? Revert to their secret weapon: ethanol.

Recently automakers have been modifying their same old gas hogs to run on ethanol, which according to the government, grants the said company a higher fuel economy rating. Sounds great, but there are two little problems:

(1) No one actually sells ethanol (only 800 out of 175,000 gas stations nationwide, 99% of those in the Midwest corn country)

(2) Ethanol in reality gives WORSE fuel economy than gasoline! If you subscribe to Consumer Reports, your newest issue is likely branded with a certain giant headline, "THE ETHANOL MYTH". According to CR, ethanol reduced a 16 mpg test vehicle to 14 mpg. That makes ethanol even more expensive than gas, considering current vegetable oil prices (recently hiked due to their higher demand).

This is signifigant for the auto industry because thanks to their new fuel economy credits, they can afford to focus more attention on profit inducing SUVs and trucks. In this way, ethanol is actually INCREASING our dependence on oil.

The implications are obvious for BP. They can sell more ethanol and petroleum... simultaneously.

Errr.... now I'm confused. Weren't you the one waxing poetic on the wonders of ethanol earlier in this same thread. Remember the Brazilian energy independence thing. And wasn't it I who was pointing out that ethanol currently was not cost effective without a large government subsidy? As I pointed out earlier, corn is not as efficient a feedstock as Brazilian sugar cane. (Currently effectively blocked by high tariffs thanks to the farm industry lobby and especially Archer-Daniels-Midland.) Until one either devises a way to draw ethanol more efficiently from corn or changes to an inheritantly more efficient feedstock, build substantially more ethanol fillup stations, and finds means to reduce the friction involving the transportation and storage of the feedstock and the processed ethanol, it will never be a viable alternative to oil.

Incidently, I'm not sure why your particularly annoyed at BP over this. Compared to ADM, they are bunch of pansies when it comes to ethanol.

All these are prime examples of the shortcommings of a free market. All the focus is on individual profit, not general welfare and sustainability.

Could this explain why socialist Europe is so energy stable, and so (rightly) reluctant to become embroiled in costly Middle East matters?

Not sure what your talking about here. Last I checked BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total-Elf-Fina were all giant European oil companies who are crawling all over the Middle-East just like the Exxons and Chevrons of the U.S. Indeed, one of the reasons why France objected to the U.S. and Britain's intervention in Iraq was that a) France was one of the under the table beneficiaries of the UN Oil for Food program and b) French energy companies along with the Russians held the major oil contracts in Iraq.

Oh, and judging from some of the European websites I've looked at, the Europeans are none to thrilled that they're paying six dollars a gallon for gasoline.

I'm not sure which countries with partially nationalized energy sectors you might be considering as models. Most of the examples of energy nationalization that I can think of are countries like Venezuela and Bolivia who are essentially seizing the assets of foreign energy companies, effectively stealing billions in investment dollars.

I was thinking more along the lines of France, in particular. Think they got to 90% nuclear by letting oil giants run amok?

Or maybe it's those big ass watercannons they use on their demonstrators!

While I agree with you that more effort needs to take place in developing alternative energy (after all I have a financial stake in the outcome ), trying to restrain efforts to find oil and gas in the U.S. would seem to be an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you wish to eliminate our use of Middle-East oil in any kind of reasonable time frame, it's going to take a full court press of all of the energy options available including alt-energy, nuclear power, alternative hydrocarbons like Canadian oil sands, AND continued development of oil and gas in our country. Along these lines, there was an encouraging (at least from my point of view) oil discovery made out in the Gulf of Mexico by Chevron, Devon, and the Norwegian oil company Statoil. Preliminary testing suggest that the strike may be on par with Prudoe Bay and has the potential to increase U.S. oil reserves by 50%.

I am all for a so-called full court press of all energy options. But who is going to exploit these other options? Don't count on the oil companies.

As long as there is oil in the Middle East, gas gobblers like the US will always be found nearby. Simply drilling more back home probably will not do much. We need to get OFF oil. Period.

Hey, good luck with that. I personally don't expect to see us off oil in my lifetime.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

I didn't realize that Energy Conversion Devices was an evil oil company.

They are when they go into business with Chevron.

Why would Chevron enter the alternative energy business, and risk losing profit on their prime product?

They wouldn't. They entered the business to restrict access to green technology, requiring all cars which use the nickel-hydride battery to run on 50% gasoline.

Actually the Cobasys website mentions general availability of it's NMH batteries for electrical vehicles. While it has a photograph of a bus, it makes no claims as far as size limitations for EV use.

But these batteries are NOT "generally available"; they are only available on strict terms. This is just the plain fact of the matter, no matter what their site says/doesen't say.

If this is true, why are there not millions of these wondrous electric cars all over Europe and Japan? Even if the Cobasys business is true that's not much of an excuse. If the Tesla Roadster can achieve souped-up performance on lithium-ion batteries, who needs the NMH batteries.

You stated the reason yourself. Lithium-ion batteries are not cost effective for consumer use. Currently, only hydride batteries are; and Chevron has an oligarchy over their production.

Errr.... now I'm confused. Weren't you the one waxing poetic on the wonders of ethanol earlier in this same thread. Remember the Brazilian energy independence thing.

Ethanol in Brazil is a blessing because it practically eliminates the need for gas.

Ethanol in the US ironically leads to MORE gas consumption, as I previously explained.

Sure, ethanol is a great thing... when it is not being manipulated by transparent, profit induced corporate maneuvers (both the oil and auto industry's in this case).

Incidently, I'm not sure why your particularly annoyed at BP over this. Compared to ADM, they are bunch of pansies when it comes to ethanol.

ADM- another great example of a giant corporation killing hopeful green technology.

Not sure what your talking about here. Last I checked BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Total-Elf-Fina were all giant European oil companies who are crawling all over the Middle-East just like the Exxons and Chevrons of the U.S.

The heavy European dissent over our pre-emptive invasion of Iraq tells us that they obviously had less to gain from the matter.

One thing is for sure: no european country consumes anywhere near 25% of the worlds fossil fuels, unlike another country I know. Their lighter reliance on petroleum has prevented them from waging terror on the Middle East, and churning up dangerous sentiments in the area. The US could learn a lesson or two from that. Perhaps our president could take it into consideration when deciding how to best prevent future 9/11's?

Hey, good luck with that. I personally don't expect to see us off oil in my lifetime.

Probably not, with the energy market "free" as it currently is. Corporations are not likely to end their assault on alternative energy any time soon; not without dire political change on the forcast.

[Metatron]

If this is true, why are there not millions of these wondrous electric cars all over Europe and Japan? Even if the Cobasys business is true that's not much of an excuse. If the Tesla Roadster can achieve souped-up performance on lithium-ion batteries, who needs the NMH batteries.

You stated the reason yourself. Lithium-ion batteries are not cost effective for consumer use. Currently, only hydride batteries are; and Chevron has an oligarchy over their production.

Do you have any evidence that the lithium-ion batteries are a real cost deterrent to producing electric cars? I note that the Volvo 3CC introduced at the Detroit Auto Show in 2005 uses lithium-ion batteries and, unlike the Tesla Roadster, was supposed to be a concept car aimed an a more economic price point.

Incidently, while I was poking around I found this interesting item.

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory: ... _Batteries

Recently, Toshiba announced a breakthrough in Lithium Ion Battery technology that promises much faster recharge times (1 minute for 80% recharge) and denser power densisities. If this announcement lives up to their claims, a 200+ miles per charge car battery is likely, and it also opens up the possibility of convient recharge stations, as the battery recharges within minutes. A breakthrough that would allow serious consideration towards building an electric car infrastructure.

Here's more info on this battery breakthrough at Toshiba's website:

http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_03/pr2901.htm

If this new pans out, this could go a long way towards making electric cars commercially viable. As I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, my biggest problem with EVs was the problem with recharging them while on the road. With the current NMH or Li-Ion batteries, EVs need considerable amounts of time to recharge making a stay at hotels or many other places impractical. However, if these Toshiba Li-Ion batteries can be implemented in EVs it is now possible to have the electric equivalent of a gas station for EVs since the recharge time would be roughly in the same time range as a gas fillup. Likewise some hotels might deem it to be good business to put in a couple of charging stations for hotel guest if the charge times were reasonable.

Errr.... now I'm confused. Weren't you the one waxing poetic on the wonders of ethanol earlier in this same thread. Remember the Brazilian energy independence thing.

Ethanol in Brazil is a blessing because it practically eliminates the need for gas.

Ethanol in the US ironically leads to MORE gas consumption, as I previously explained.

Sure, ethanol is a great thing... when it is not being manipulated by transparent, profit induced corporate maneuvers (both the oil and auto industry's in this case).

How exactly do you imagine that ethanol is going to be implemented if not from "profit induced corporate maneuvers"? No one is going to go through the considerable expense of building out an ethanol infrastructure if there is not a profit involved.

However, if the information from an article I found at Slate.com is true, we probably don't want ethanol to be implemented.

http://www.slate.com/id/2122961/

The main points of the article are:

1. The process for producing ethanol costs more energy than it produces i.e. you have to burn more fossil fuels to produce it than you save by using it.

2. The energy yield of ethanol measured in terms of BTUs is less than gasoline. In other words, even if a gallon of ethanol fuel costs the same as a gallon of gasoline, you wont get near as far driving on it.

3. The article also mentions some of the friction costs I've mentioned before in this thread. For example, ethanol fuel cannot be transported by pipeline the way oil and natural gas can.

4. U.S. taxpayers are paying billions of dollars in subsidies to corn growers, etc. for the alleged promise of ethanol.