Decades of cheap gas has it’s price

July 17, 2008

Gas Prices From Around the World

For decades the US has paid far less for gasoline than the rest of the world.  Now we’re playing catch-up. We’re all feeling the pain: higher grocery prices, jobs are being cut, and traveling is far from affordable.

Is the solution really drilling for oil — a finite resource — off of our shores and in Alaska? Or would we be better off investing in RENEWABLE energy like wind and solar and alternative fuel like sugarcane based ethanol (Brazil is having huge success with this)?

The Pickens Plan has real promise: T. Boone Pickens’ wind-based plan to reduce dependency on foreign oil.  The plan is to dramatically increase windpower generation and natural gas in an effort ween America off of fossil fuels.

Pickens, himself, acknowledges that this is not a long-term solution, but would buy time to develop a larger strategy.

We can start drilling today, and have cheap energy for a short time, but in the long run, I think we’re better off getting off the black liquid crack.  Let’s face it, it is making people crazy, and lessening our dependency does mirror drug addiction to an extent.  It’s painful, lives are changing dramatically, and it’s an extremely tough process to go through.

The upside is that producing alternative energy would offer substantial growth in new industries — that means JOBS people.

One last thing worth reading: Energy Challenge Issued

Posted by seth | Filed Under rant, Blog 

Comments

One Response to “Decades of cheap gas has it’s price”

  1. Jules on July 18th, 2008 6:08 pm

    I can’t wait for the new all-electric cars to start hitting the road. The new battery technology is expensive at $10,000+ per car, (http://www.altairnano.com or http://www.a123systems.com - hopefully costs will come down with economies of scale) but they are small and lightweight, you can pack lots of energy in the car, and they should last for a decade or more. An average electric car will use 250 watt-hours per mile. At today’s electricity prices (about $.07/Kwh), that works out to $1.75 every hundred miles or so.

    Unfortunately the new batteries are so expensive that it’s prohibitive for lots of people, but the technology is getting better all the time. Lots of people have converted their gas cars to electrics in spite of the 30-40 mile average range allowed by lead-acid batteries: http://www.evalbum.com

    Given the energy cost of food production, a lightweight electric vehicle is arguably more energy efficient than a human-powered bicycle. http://www.ebikes.ca/sustainability/Ebike_Energy.pdf

    Of course, food and exercise provide benefits which far outweigh the importance of energy efficiency. :-)

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