tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post3685346988202263629..comments2024-02-18T23:52:40.165-08:00Comments on Citizen Warrior: How to Achieve Energy Security and Fair Gas PricesCitizen Warriorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06265844262699107352noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-5959153044132515882011-05-30T15:01:02.405-07:002011-05-30T15:01:02.405-07:00Citizen Warrior, I bring your attention to the fol...Citizen Warrior, I bring your attention to the following article on Newsmax <br /><br />http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Oilprices-Saudi-prince-US/2011/05/30/id/398219<br /><br />"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," - Saudi Arabia’s Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal<br /><br />Looks like some of the major players are getting a big worried with legislation like this being actively pushed.<br /><br />On the comment about free market. Sometimes you need regulation to push the market in the direction you want it to go. I'll give a good example because it has had an impact. In the past, Hearing impaired and deaf people tried to get TV manufacturers to include closed captioning on their TV sets. We were given the excuse "Its too expensive", "It's not something the public wants" excuses for many years. Despite the fact that there are 36 million deaf or hard of hearing individuals in the US, TV manufacturers went out of their way to make excuses why not to include this in their TV sets. Finally this was included in the ADA law that forced TV manufacturers to include Closed Captioning on all tv's made after 1995. This gave TV manufacturers two years to come up with ways to include it at an affordable price. Now all TV's made in the US have Closed Captioning and it only costs $1 to put the chip in. How hard was that? Why did it take forced regulation to make manufacturers include this simple option on TV's for 36 million americans who couldn't enjoy Television without paying $300 - $500 for a box to convert the lines on their set? Most deaf are not rich and have a hard enough time finding work when hearing people decide to hire us. So its not like we are made of money to pay the $300+ for the closed captioning box.<br /><br />In some cases, forced regulation can be a good thing that will achieve a good result. Yes, it can be used badly and in the past there are examples of that. Not all regulation is bad.wri7913noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-58233699378242178322011-05-30T10:54:39.499-07:002011-05-30T10:54:39.499-07:00In response to Timly5000s concerns about yet more ...In response to Timly5000s concerns about yet more government interference.<br /><br />The free market should be allowed to operate and competing alternatives to oil for powering cars should be the natural result of free market practice.<br /><br />Prohibiting alternatives to oil would be against the free market.<br /><br />Now assuming a simplistic segmentation of say:<br /><br />a) one third of US voters being of the Left and “anti-imperialist”, hence anti-West;<br />b) one third of US Voters being politically correct – hence enabling the Soft Jihad by default;<br />c) one third of US Voters being informed about the dangers of Islamic Global Jihad.<br /><br />Then in this model us “c) folk” would favour alternative fuel as consumers to help mitigate against Soft Jihad (although as such consumers we would boycott say alternative options transmitted hypothetically from Solar Maghreb, which would be Green Energy under Islamic control).<br /><br />Fortunately the PCs are also Green so that would swing more consumers our way.<br /><br />And some of the Left prioritise Green as much as their "anti-imperialist" war cry.<br /><br />So more there as well ...<br /><br />The free market would demand that our consumer choices be respected without interference from the government.<br /><br />Hence the supply starts swinging away from oil through consumer choice. <br /><br />So it is about less interference from government - not about more!<br /><br />Unfortunately what often passes for “free market” practice is often not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-17828949210196147232011-05-29T11:27:34.245-07:002011-05-29T11:27:34.245-07:00Fossil fuel may be illegal? I guess that's pos...Fossil fuel may be illegal? I guess that's possible. But it doesn't seem very likely, at least for a very long time. The U.S. is producing 40 percent of its own oil right now. And most of these alcohol fuels are part petroleum. They are commonly M85 or E85, which means 85 percent methanol, 15 percent gasoline, and 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline respectively.<br /><br />This bill goes one better than Brazil. They have been focused on ethanol only. The US may get so good at making our own diverse fuels we shift from an oil IMPORTING country to an oil EXPORTING country. That's what happened to Brazil.Citizen Warriorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06265844262699107352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-28413303663911912952011-05-29T11:23:28.278-07:002011-05-29T11:23:28.278-07:00Funny you would mention California. The woman who ...Funny you would mention California. The woman who really made flex fuel cars feasible started in California, and she was using methanol as the fuel. She worked with Ford and they eventually had a fleet of cars on the road, but fuel stations were hard to come by, so eventually the project was a flop. <br /><br />That's exactly what the Open Fuel Standard is designed to avoid. When all cars on the road are capable, alternative fuels will be widely available, and when you're in a place where they're not available, or where gasoline is cheaper, you can always just put gasoline in the car.<br /><br />Brazil has had a very similar law for years, and it is working very well for them. Check it out:<br /><br />http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4581955.stmCitizen Warriorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06265844262699107352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-46019138096611645822011-05-29T10:55:36.634-07:002011-05-29T10:55:36.634-07:00I admire your optimism and I truly hope you're...I admire your optimism and I truly hope you're right. Being a California native I see this sort of legislation all the time, and it always ends the same way...... mandating that the technology(eg.alternative energy source) be made available to the masses winds up being the easy part, getting people to use it isn't that simple. If California is any indicator as to how HR 1687 will unfold, fossil fuel may be illegal somewhere down the road, for better or worse. Again, I hope you're right, I prey you're right.Timly5000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-91926405503498313642011-05-28T20:21:29.741-07:002011-05-28T20:21:29.741-07:00There are already viable alternatives to gasoline,...There are already viable alternatives to gasoline, but most cars don't have the right kind of fuel lines to use them.<br /><br />This bill is an improvement on the previous one introduced into the last Congress. Specifically, it doesn't favor any one fuel. It is all-inclusive. And because it includes methanol, which can be made out of practically anything, including waste and something the U.S. has in abundance, natural gas, it will likely out-compete ethanol, which would eliminate your concern.<br /><br />Right now methanol is cheaper than ethanol, and that's without subsidies. Methanol doesn't get any subsidies. Ethanol does. And those subsidies will probably be dropped, anyway. In fact, they're dropping already:<br /><br />http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=0A908CC9-925B-4636-960B-9E2EF916164B<br /><br />The reason: There is a steadier market for corn. So subsidies are no longer necessary.<br /><br />According to Anne Korin and Gal Luft, this bad press about ethanol raising food prices is a concerted effort by Big Oil and Big Food. <br /><br />http://www.openfuelstandard.org/2011/05/question-since-corn-is-such-important.html<br /><br />Oil companies don't like ethanol, of course, because it competes as a fuel. But food companies are against it because it will take away their subsidies.<br /><br />Take a look at this bill. You'll see it is a clean, technology-neutral, subsidy-free bill. Here is the bill:<br /><br />http://www.scribd.com/doc/56286702/The-Open-Fuel-Standard-Act-of-2011<br /><br />Give it a few seconds to load. It's a PDF document.Citizen Warriorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06265844262699107352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-78615492356130504352011-05-28T18:29:06.442-07:002011-05-28T18:29:06.442-07:00The free market will naturally move away from foss...The free market will naturally move away from fossil fuels once there is a viable option. No matter how vehemently the greenies propagandize for "green energy", we are not in a post fossil fuel era. Subsidized fuel that is crafted from what most of us consider food, is not a viable alternative to fossil fuel.Timly5000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-85926440125061841592011-05-28T11:39:59.629-07:002011-05-28T11:39:59.629-07:00The bill contains no fuel-economy standards. The b...The bill contains no fuel-economy standards. The bill simply makes it a law that by 2017, no cars will be sold in America without the small, 100-dollar tweak that makes the car capable of burning other fuels in addition to gasoline.<br /><br />We bailed out the car companies. They owe us this small thing.Citizen Warriorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06265844262699107352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-61955525138398402042011-05-28T08:40:09.705-07:002011-05-28T08:40:09.705-07:00This bill would attempt to jerry rig the free mark...This bill would attempt to jerry rig the free market sale of automobiles by incrementally imposing unreasonable fuel economy standards on the auto manufactures. This bill(H.R.1687)is just more government meddling.<br />Judge for yourself...... <br />http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h1687/text?version=ih&nid=t0:ih:18 <br /><br />-Timly5000Timly5000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-86181135049363592902011-05-28T01:56:17.386-07:002011-05-28T01:56:17.386-07:00I think you're right. It took me awhile for th...I think you're right. It took me awhile for the importance of this bill to sink in, but I finally got how much of a linchpin it is.<br /><br />The main objections to the bill are that it is a government mandate, that we should drill our own oil (which isn't really an objection because it doesn't conflict), and that food prices will rise or it will cause starvation (this was a deliberate propaganda campaign in 2008 by Big Food so they could keep their corn subsidies). <br /><br />The mandate one is the only objection that really has any legitimacy, but it really doesn't either because the purpose of keeping government out of business is so the free market can decide.<br /><br />But the free market is not deciding because there is a virtual monopoly in two different ways: OPEC is a large enough cartel it can control the worldwide price of oil, and at the pump there are no options. The reason there are no options (except oil) is that our cars cannot burn anything but gas.<br /><br />So this "mandate" is actually a counter-mandate. It introduces freedom by law where there is at present no freedom (if you want to drive, you have to use oil).<br /><br />What OPEC does is illegal. And technically they should be sued. But nobody will sue them. Why? We need oil. Why? Because that is the ONLY thing our whole transportation sector (and therefore our whole economy) runs on.<br /><br />It is the responsibility of our government to protect us from monopolies that harm our citizens. OPEC is a monopoly that harms our citizens. <br /><br />The government's responsibility is to break the monopoly to protect its citizens. It can do that by passing the Open Fuel Standard Act.<br /><br />Every voice counts. Please PLEASE contact your representative and let him or her know you want him or her to co-sponsor the bill. Please do it today. We have no time to lose!Citizen Warriorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06265844262699107352noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503986435514614182.post-79633018201668814392011-05-28T01:43:39.660-07:002011-05-28T01:43:39.660-07:00On re-reading this perhaps it is the single most i...On re-reading this perhaps it is the single most important counter-jihadist focus point in the US.<br /><br />If Brazil allows such consumer choice how on earth does the US not allow it?<br /><br />Does anyone know what the Europeans are up to in this regard? They need to be weaned off OPEC oil as quickly as possible.<br /><br />They also need to stop rushing into Solar Maghreb - that will be their next Islamic Noose.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com