[ExI] Ignorant fear mongering (was Re: Doomsday Oil Price: (was RIP: Peak Oil))

[James Clement]

BILK said, "I have always found that it is much easier to make decisions
when you are faced with no alternative. I have the feeling that is what our
politicians are waiting for."

We've had numerous technologies that would save us lots of fuel, but
there's not only no political interest in doing so, but the OPEC countries
actively engage in "dumping" to ruin our alternative-fuel industry.

A few years ago, an American consulting firm admitted to advising Saudi
Arabian oil ministers that if they randomly dropped the price of oil every
few years, for six months, that they'd completely disrupt the alternative
energy startups, and cut off all investor funding to them (which relies on
stable, high oil prices, for their projections). This seems to be the case,
and most VC funds won't touch alternative energy companies for this reason
(unpredictable prices). The only way around this was proposed a few years
ago by a 3rd-party presidential candidate (I don't remember who) that we
should impose a high enough tax on oil to keep the price stable, regardless
of the market price.

In Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan suggests that the
industrial food chain primarily benefits agricultural corporations like
Cargill and ADM because they are able to buy corn at a consistently cheap
price and then process the cheap corn into “value added” products. He
points out that corn is production is inextricably tied into hydrocarbons,
both directly (fertilizers) and indirectly (fuel for the tractors,
combines, etc.).

Quote from 2009 Popular Science
article<http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2009-08/electric-hummer-challenges-hybrid-volt-fuel-economy-claims>
: An electric Humvee may still sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to
environmentalists, but the company developing a plug-in Hummer H3e claims
its green version can get 100 mpg on average. And what's a little boasting
without taking a shot at the competition?$5/gallon adjusted price at the
pump would be added to an alternative fuels fund. Raser Technologies calls
its revamped Hummer a "Prius-Stomping Green Machine," based on an E-REV
powertrain that supposedly enables large vehicles to drive the first 40
miles in all-electric mode. The company calculates that a typical driver
who goes 65 miles per day would average about 100 mpg, and that driving
over 200 miles per day would still get about double the fuel economy of a
regular Hummer."

Johnathan Goodwin <http://www.hlineconversion.com/> has been profiled
by several
magazines <http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2010-04/diy-auto-industry>,
for his ability to double the gas milage of nearly any vehicle, including
Gov. Schwarzenagger's '89 Jeep Wagoneer, by converting them to biodiesel.
He uses nothing that Detroit couldn't use, but don't.

If you don't start getting a conspiratorial view of what goes on regarding
alternative energy, then you don't see the whole picture... IMHO.

Best regards,
James
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