Originally posted by: Arkaign
Originally posted by: blackangst1
Originally posted by: Arkaign
Originally posted by: blackangst1
Originally posted by: Arkaign
Step #1 - Nationalize all energy production, development, and distribution.
Step #2 - Install a transparent national energy administration (all policy-level dialogue open for public review), with a strong board of elected but term-limited oversight officers. The goal is to eliminate high energy costs, so that the heavy costs otherwise sunk into energy can be otherwise invested in the economy at large.
Step #3 - Nationalize a maximum-priority new federal agency focused purely on developing existing and new energy technologies, such as wind, solar, water, nuclear, cold fusion, quantum entanglement, etc. Keep the agency as politically independent as possible.
Energy is a national-security-level issue now, and cannot be trusted to private enterprise, the same way our national defense system cannot be outsourced. The military is a purely government-run institution, and has performed with pure excellence during its history. If free market prices are unrestrained on such an integral part of our economy, a major international energy crisis (such as a total nuclear war in the ME) could send our domestic economy into a terminal tailspin. Can you imagine what $50/galllon gasoline would do to prices on EVERYthing? It would make the great depression look like a 10-point drop in the Dow. Total chaos would ensue. Full energy independence should not only be a goal or a catchphrase, it should be the only acceptable plan for our future.
Our security is simply too important to leave hanging in the balance of free-market chaos.
So your answer is
complete government regularion? Yeah, thats been sooo sucessful in the past :roll:
Also, you forgot the ONE key thing in your vision of Utopia...
how do you deal with the fact that energy is a world-traded commodity?
(1)- Our Military is a totally goverment-regulated entity, and it performs with oustanding excellence. While I generally prefer private ownership and management when possible, the government can manage things just fine, so long as politics are kept to a minimum, and oversight is emphasized to the highest regard.
(2)- We simply must step above the rest of the world when it comes to energy. The nature of 21st-century US society and economics are utterly dependent on relative energy stability to leave it in the hands of fickle global markets. Let the rest of the world rot in the 20th century, if total war breaks out in the ME, their economies will self-destruct.
OK but you didnt answer my question. How would a country who is NOT a member of OPEC be able to control what OPEC does? And...how does a government control a commodity that is traded and priced worldwide?
I hear you, and understand that it would be a monumentally difficult task, but it remains one that I believe is indeed worthwhile.
Answer to how we would control OPEC : we wouldn't. In the interim, the US Federal Domestic Energy Agency (what I propose) would have to pay Opec for it's product, at market prices for a period of time, while domestic production and refineries ramp up. It would be up to a gargantuan national effort to replace our entire energy supply with domestically-produced components. It is conceivable that during the early stages of this endeavour, that subsidies would be required in order to keep prices reasonable for domestic economic vitality, particularly in the service and supply sectors. When energy prices rise rapidly and without prior warning, the little guys take it on the chin first, and then the effect begins to hit retailers, banks, etc as secondary and tertiary effects, as people have dramatically reduced funds with which to buy anything that ISNT gas/fuel/heating. Taken to an extreme, this is a legitimate threat to our national security.
To reiterate somewhat, the goal is to replace ALL energy supply with federally-produced domestic supplies. A prerequisite for this rather ambitious idea to even take shape is a massive focus both on efficiency in refining such assets as shale-embedded crude, as well as replacement energy/gas sources. The agricultural possibilities have as yet not been exploited to their optimal potential, as well as a lack of a full push towards fuel-cell/hydrogen tech. A big negative on fuel-cells/hydrogen has been the expense of extracting it from natural gas, which is complicated and dangerous to this point. I have read of recent developments of hydrogen reactors which extract from Ethanol, and the reactors are tabletop-size! A google search will show some fascinating projects.
