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blessedinnyc -> RE: Taxing oil companies (6/14/2008 2:40:48 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: colliefan
Then why do they want to invest millions in drilling.
And wind will do [size=-1NOTHING in
Helping a framer plant/sow/reap his fields
Getting that produce to the production places
Getting it from those places to the markets
Getting the customer to the store
Running emergency vehicles
Running school buses, garbage trucks, mail trucks, service trucks for power/phone companies
Of course it will. Chevy is coming out with plug-in hybrids, and in another 5-10 years, we can expect hydrogen powered vehicles to hit the market. Already, Honda employees are testing them out.
quote:
Since you are such an expert on wind power, please explain how this cam be done within the next five to ten years without bankrupting the country,
It's already being done. 2000 MW wind capacity costs $2 Billion and can generate roughly 40 thousand barrels per day oil equivalent of energy. Multiply that by 75, and you have the same amount of energy that Exxon Mobil produces on a daily basis at a cost that is 1/3 Exxon's market cap.
This energy can either be converted to hydrogen on-site or passed into the electrical grid, where users can plug in their cars at home.
If the market caps of existing gas pipelines are any indication, it might cost $100 Billion to set up an infrastructure for getting hydrogen to gas stations. This is roughly 1/5th the money we have spent on a certain oil producing over the past five years, and the amount of money we spend on oil in roughly a month at current prices.
Best of all, because of the high price of gasoline, the market is willing to fund all of this. The money you're currently spending on gasoline should be enough to get the energy monkey off our backs by encouraging investments in alternative energy.
I'm not saying the government needs to fund anything. All I'm saying is that the market fundamentals for alternative energy look very good with current oil prices. Even if we drill for oil in ANWR, Yellowstone, and the Everglades, that still won't be enough to bring gas prices below $3.50/gallon. Government subsidies might speed up the process, but I will make a bold prediction and say that if oil prices stay the way they are, only 80% of America's transportation energy will come from oil in 10 years, and 50% in 20.
One way that the government could help would be to grant rights-of-way for hydrogen or ammonia pipelines like they did for railroads back in the 1800s.
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