From the US Presidential Election campaign trail: Presumptive Republican nominee for President, John McCain, touts the Chevrolet Volt as the key to energy independence. A couple of problems with the Volt: it still takes gasoline (read: foreign oil) and it isn't the first electric car on the road. Does anyone remember the General Motors EV1? I guess not...
Let's review simple economics. Remember supply and demand? If the price of something is high, then that means there is high demand for something of limited supply. To lower the price of oil (and consequently gasoline), the Republicans in Congress are proposing drilling domestically (read: increasing supply). There's one big problem with that: in our best case hypotheses, it won't help us much. So then, let's try and reduce demand.
Former oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens has the initial sketches of a plan for American energy independence and reducing demand on oil. From my initial readings, it lies in having natural gas for automobiles and wind power generation for domestic electricity. I found a video of Mr. Pickens explaining his plan from a recent Trains for America blog entry:
if you cannot see the video, click here
And one more thing: remember Sen. McCain's gimmick of having a gas tax holiday? The revenue generated from that tax funds the US highway trust fund, which is heading towards a serious crisis because people are driving less (similar to the gimmick).
Cheers-
Edward Jensen
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