old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
That's just nuts. Pie in the sky lunacy. You can't just transform & restructure a sprawling USA, which covers a continent.
What do you think we're going to do when the Middle East oil reserves are gone? Surrender to the French? Give up? Drink Kool Aid?
Adapt. It's the beauty of free market capitalism. Taking oil by force has stunted that mechanism, which is part of my point.
You're assuming so many things here. You're assuming if the US isn't over there, the oil will stop. You're assuming the only energy sources are in the Middle East.
old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
We didn't have fracking in '91.
Actually. We did. Read about it for yourself. Invented in the 40's. And that's my point. Now why weren't we fracking? Is it a complicated tech heavy invention? Nope. It's because gas has been cheap all this time, making the method financially inefficient, and making R&D pointless. War-for-ME-oil ruined that math, my friend. So we shelved the idea.
old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
We'd stopped building nuc power plants (go watch Jane Fonda in China Syndrome)
We haven't broken ground on a new nuc plant since 1977 & a new one hasn't come on line since 1990.
Yep. Why? Because instead, we CHOSE to send our military in to solve our energy problems. It was a CHOICE.
Where do you think these energy policies come from? They just fall from the sky? Santa tells us what to do every Dec 25th?
We CHOSE this path. You are laboring under the illusion that we have no choice in the matter. I have no Earthly idea why. Doubly so as you think that Trump's tariffs are no big thing....yet you want to go to war over one component of our economy.
old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
Sprawl was driven by more influential factors than gas prices.
Double gas prices in America for a decade. Watch where people choose to live. Watch how "magically" interested citizens become in mass transit options.
old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
How much innovation has high gas prices brought to Europe & Japan ?
This serious? Have you been to either? Europass ring a bell anywhere? Or high speed trains that we will never have in the US?
old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
Look how much more energy efficient our vehicles, buildings, heating & AC have become, thanks to better design & innovation.
And government forcing the issue. Mileage standards. Market shortages---the ones you think we need to avoid at all costs--- pushed Japanese and EU makers as well as Americans to work on lighter, stronger materials.
You want to halt natural market shortages with blood and war. And you don't seem to get that's what you're advocating. And don't understand that these prices effect where we live, what we drive, where we focus R&D.......you think these things are random. They're not.
old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
Our economy & our way of life are based on motor vehicle travel & cheap gas.
Yes. That statement makes my point. Thank you.
It can 100% work without it.
old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
We're not compact like Europe with dense housing & reliable public transportation.
Yup. And that's a direct result of cheap gas. One led to the other. Get rid of cheap gas, and that will change. And we'll invest in fracking. And nuclear power. And natural gas. And solar. And wind. And, and, and.
We'll adapt. You think if we lose cheap gas we'll sit in the corner with a blanket over our head, and listen to the Cure's greatest hits on repeat.
old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
It's insanity to think you could flip a switch in '91 or '79 & convert our way of life which developed based on motor vehicle transportation
Bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?
After all these years, you think that the ME would simply not drill if the US wasn't there? What would they do?
That stunt they pulled in the 1970's? Why do you supposed they've never done that again? Did OPEC forget? Or did America cut its ME oil demand in half inside of a decade?
Oil is trade. Something you and Trump don't seem to get. The ME needs customers. If they show the market that supply is erratic..what happens?
That's right. The market reacts. It's why we're no longer driving 8mpg cars.
old salt wrote: ↑Thu Jun 13, 2019 12:29 am
You & ACO need to run off to a hippie commune together or live among the Amish.
And you need to grow an imagination. If you were in charge, we'd have never made it to the moon.
Innovate. Adapt. It's the most American thing we do.
Ever notice how much time your party spends telling us how many things we can't do as a nation? Can't provide health care. Can't educate our citizens. When did we get so weak and ineffectual? What happened to your party? Weak sauce.