I would imagine that a nice, fat tax of say 2 bollars a gallon would be helpful.
All of a sudden, instead of making more sense, $$-wise to buy a Honda Civic,that gets 35 mpg, it now mkes more sense to buy the Honda Civic Hybrid model, even though it is thousands more in price. All of a sudden, it is cheaper to spend more to insulate you house, than just pay a little bit of oil monthly. <this insulation, of course helps out in the summer too.> All of a sudden, it really starts to hurt getting 11 mpg. Maybe you earmark this "oil dependency tax" and instead of disbursing it on pipedream 25 year programs that may not get you anything, you can use it to give tax credits to buy new super-efficient cars. This has a nice bonus of keeping the auto market booming.. too bad only for imports right now.. We could all put stickers on our discounted Hybrids and jetta Diesels that said.. "Honk if you helped me pay for my car..!" I think the cycle lifes you have given will be smaller at a higher $ per gallon. I don't know if you could do it, but if you only taxes imported oil, then all of a sudden, it becomes more worthwile to drill locally. ... even if you dont give fat tax credits for efficiency..- There is a nice market for used Honda CRX's here, where people pay lots of money to drop in more powerful motors.. for racing..etc. I imagine with a stiff 'oil dependence' tax, there would be a nice market for replacing engines with fuel efficient ones. ditto for the transportation industry. ..anything has to be better than "conservation is not the answer" but it has to be something more than "we will have more fuel efficient cars". Its the same with cheap bulk food at warehouse stores.. at 99 cents a bag.. you can just leave chips out at the picnic and throw them away. at 10 bucks a bag.. you'll be more likely to bag up your extras and bring them home. higher oil prices will also get people to insulate their homes more.. which helps efficiency in the summer too. cheap prices mean you might rather pay a little mor a month.. rather than go through the extra cost of insulating more. Message: 2 Date: Fri, 09 May 2003 17:39:19 +0200 From: Hakan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: "Energy plan mathematics" was:Lieberman energy plan would slash US oil imports To even suggest that oil dependence could be slashed in 7 or even 20 years is pathetic, as both Bush and Lieberman does. To get it down with two thirds in these time frames, is at best dreaming and at worse political scam. Let us look at facts. Private autos have a replacement cycle of around 10 years. This mean that if we had general availability of hydrogen cars today, it would take 10 years to replace existing cars. Transport vehicles have replacement cycle of 15 to 20 years. Buildings have 50 to 100 years replacement cycle and 20 years renovation cycle. Oil for heating and electricity production is nearly as large as for transportation. HOW CAN ANYONE TALK ABOUT "SLASHING OIL DEPENDENCE" IN 7 OR EVEN 17 YEARS???????? WHO ARE THE IDIOTS THAT BELIEVE IN THIS, COULD IT BE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE????? The developing countries have a golden opportunity to have a sustainable growth. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Rent DVDs from home. Over 14,500 titles. Free Shipping & No Late Fees. Try Netflix for FREE! http://us.click.yahoo.com/BVVfoB/hP.FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/