[extropy-chat] cheap alcohol

[Emlyn]

On 21/09/05, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 08:27:47PM -0700, spike wrote:
> > US lawmakers made our sugar prices 3 times the
> > global price, just as the EU made their motor
> > fuel 3 times the global price.   I'd like to
>
> I don't. I want the fossil fuel to remain expensive, and to become
> slowly, steadily, even more expensive. I just want the entire revenue
> from fuel taxes to be spent on R&D for alternative fuels and damage
> remediation.
>

Amen, but don't bother with the R&D spending. The taxes on petrol can
be increased and then squandered on something stupid, who cares? Maybe
someone could even fund a social welfare program sometime :-)

Just let petrol prices go sky high, and let the market do its job. So
many alternative energy sources seem to struggle with trying to match
mainstream sources in pricing, so they don't get the same work put
into efficiency that a mainstream energy source gets, so they never
get cheap - it's a catch 22. Which is solved only by pushing the price
of the mainstream fuel sources though the roof for long enough to
kickstart the alternative industries.

--
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *