Saudi prince wants to keep US tied to oil

[bargainman]

Interesting article:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/05/29/us.saudi.prince.oil/index.html?hpt=T1

 

"We don't want the West to go and find alternatives, because, clearly, the higher the price of oil goes, the more they have incentives to go and find alternatives,"

 

One idea I thought was very interesting was for the US to enact a price floor on oil. It would be done through a tax which would then go to fund alternative energy sources.  The advantage of doing that would be first that producers could rely on a certain price and hence would develop alternative oil sources, and also alternative energy could become feasible since oil would remain relatively expensive and not go through massive dips that could undercut alternatives.

 

I'm not sure how feasible that idea would be, and I'm sure it's full of holes, but found it interesting nonetheless.

 

 

[Myth465]

This is what I have been wanting for quite a while. The problem is few things are competitive at $60 oil and oil tends to cause rolling price spikes. Its quite interesting. I think the Government should make oil $105 regardless of the market price. Anything more goes to oil companies, anything less and the government gets the difference. That difference should go to a Manhattan project on finding the next big thing. The project would have to find a renewable energy source that is cheaper then $105 oil.

 

I dont see any holes inmo.

[manualofideas]

I like your ideas but you have to be quite jaded about the U.S. doing anything big if it can't even use its own natural gas for simple things like new government vehicles or 18-wheelers.  I have come to believe that the U.S. political system is incapable of producing big change, even if necessary and desirable, until there is a major crisis.  Heck, not even the latest financial crisis has produced much of a change on Wall Street.  Look who is getting the biggest bonuses today -- many of the same people as in 2007!

[Myth465]

I like your ideas but you have to be quite jaded about the U.S. doing anything big if it can't even use its own natural gas for simple things like new government vehicles or 18-wheelers.  I have come to believe that the U.S. political system is incapable of producing big change, even if necessary and desirable, until there is a major crisis.  Heck, not even the latest financial crisis has produced much of a change on Wall Street.  Look who is getting the biggest bonuses today -- many of the same people as in 2007!

 

I agree with you. I invest as if we wont be rational, until we have no choice.

 

This quote describes me well - "Behind every cynic is a disappointed idealist"

 

This quote inmo describes America best - Winston Churchill You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.

 

[seshnath]

I have come to believe that the U.S. political system is incapable of producing big change, even if necessary and desirable, until there is a major crisis. 

 

Sounds like something out of a 2000 report commissioned by the neocons. 

 

I am with you there, though.  One of the reasons I am working in the Middle East these days.

[Packer16]

I think Snajeev's article points out that incremental changes and better extraction techniques will solve this problem while alternatives are economically developed.  I think spending money on a Manhattan-type project would be a waste of money that the US cannot afford.  Money and economic incentive are present so any incremental $ spent has a smaller and smaller effect.  This was treid in the 1970s by Carter and it turned out to be waste also.  Give the science time as the incremental cost can be very lerge for very little gain (look at all the biofeuls prjects today funded by the gov't).  The real question is do we want to give up Medicare for a Manhattan-type project (sounds like the old Soviet Union to me)?  The idea of raising tax $ through oil and gas taxes as an additional way to balance the budget sounds better.

 

Packer