"The pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handle." Or maybe it's that my debit card was declined again; I'm not sure.

Pajamas Media has two articles up on high gas prices; they seem contradictory (high gas prices are good; high gas prices are bad). But they really represent different sides of the same coin.

Kate Berry discusses high gas prices in the context of reshaping our habits into ones more appropriate in a wartime economy (though she doesn't quite put it in those terms). At this point, we are importing an alarming amount of oil from unsavory people, so her advice is important. I especially like the fact that she advocates married people having . . . sex. After all, staying home is great for the nation's oil reserves. I hadn't quite thought about it that way.

Tom Blumer talks about existing high gas prices—and the even higher ones proposed by those who would like to see us paying Europe-crazy fuel bills—in the context of what it is doing to our mobility, and to the auto industry. (Though I am not sure the overall trend is downward; I do realize that truck and SUV sales are down, possibly for good. I think the "family truck" bubble may have burst. But smaller cars are doing quite well, for obvious reasons.)

Blumer's most important point is that the U.S. still has tremendous untapped petroleum reserves that we need to develop. This is true: even if we are in the twilight of petroleum's heydey, we must buy time to develop the next generation of fuel alternatives. High prices push us to do this, to some degree, and they certainly make it more cost-effective to do so. But we are still working on excellence in our hybrid and electric cars, and we are still investigating biofuels. We cannot present people with a choice between supporting foreign dictators or absorbing a violent shock to the nation's economy by trying to rely on alternative fuels prematurely. Both the raw research and some of the distribution issues will take time to work out.

There is also the issue of energy apart from out transportation needs (though if one of our solutions to the car problem is hybrid/electric, these need not be separate issues). And for that, of course, we must look to France. Less-draconian regulations there allow the French to enjoy both better-quality cheese and environmentally friendly energy. Yeah, I'm going there: we need to start building more nuclear power plants in this country, The Simpsons' rather quaint characterization of nuclear power notwithstanding. (Does Matt Groening work for the French? Just askin.')

Drill. Conserve. Research all our options for transportation. And go nuclear for some of our electricity.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:51 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 463 words, total size 3 kb.