Saturday, January 19, 2008

Energy Policy - $100 Per Barrel Oil

Sorry, but I have to consider $100 barrel for oil a good thing, and Bush's attempts to beg Saudi Arabia to reduce the price another example of his incompetence.

Higher prices for oil mean more investiment in alternative energy and in conservation. It is a better incentive to reduce carbon emissions than any law the government could possibly pass.

The way that Saudi Arabia and others lower the price of oil is by producing more - more to be burned. This stifles research and development of alternative energies, which in turn keeps us dependent on the Opec countries because we are promoting the use of oil over the use of alternatives that we can produce at home.

If America is smart enough to put its investment dollars and intelligence capital to work building alternatives to $100 barrel oil, this would in turn provide new jobs, and give America new products to export itself, rather than keep us dependent on oil imports.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Somewhat ironically, one popular "alternative" to oil is coal, which can be even more polluting...