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Well, let me clarify a few things.

First I agree with Dan that conservation is indeed the way to go - not only in energy, but in all things. Waste not, want not. Hey - one of the most important conservationists was Theodore Roosevelt! Conservation - absolutely - I agree TOTALLY, Dan. No question or argument with what you are saying.

And, just to clarify what I was saying, concerning the Hummers - is there really any rational reason to get something like that- or an SUV - or a Runamuck 10,000 that gets 5 gallons per mile? It is wasteful - inefficient.

Now, Reg is correct about the economics of the issue. I'm NOT going to bore people with a lesson of Microeconomics. Basically, it can be boiled down to an issue of Supply and Demand. Supply reflecting how much you wanna pay which will accrue to the supplier (marginal cost), and demand reflecting how much utility (benefit) you derive. (Total benefit can be found by integrating over the interval from zero to the point of intersection with the demand curve. If there was some way to attach a dollar amount to all costs - monetary, social, and perceived).

The demand curve is a function that can be derived from the marginal rate of substitution of gasoline/hydrocarbons verses all other sources of energy. Again, total costs can be obtained by integrating the function over the interval from zero to the intersection with the supply curve. (Further, total cost, if it could be quantified would be all monetary, social, and perceived costs.).

(BTW - for those whom I haven't lost yet, you can probably see there is a market failure going on here, in that we have included social costs - externalities.)

Let's just lump all other sources of energy together rather than anaylize each one separately - such as solar, nuclear, fuel cell, electric/battery, and so on.

The truth is that yes - you could concievably make a loaded semi truck or a freight train run around the world on the energy contained in a paper clip - that is, if you were willing to invest the needed time, money and whatever else to obtain an acellerator to break down the nuclear structure and convert that paper clip to energy.

So, ok... we invest 100 billion on our little car to go to the store. We could've done it on say a half gallon of gas.

Exaggerated and silly example certainly, but you see my point. Right now, hydrocarbon/fossil fuel is the most cost-effective method we have. Until we get economies of scale and advanced technology to make alternative forms of energy cost-effective, we would be costing ourselves a self-imposed tax by not using oil-based fuels.

Ok... so how can we spur the demand for these alternative forms of fuel to be developed and cost-effective? Well, present market conditions by themselves will have little effect until the scarcity of oil (coupled with demand - let's ignore any increase in demand and keep it static) drives the price up high enough to make alternative fuels viable. Still, we'll be paying say, $300/bbl of oil while the alternative sources are still up there. Not a solution we want. What we DO want is to bring the cost of the alternative sources DOWN to where they are comparable or perhaps even more efficient (read - cheaper) than the cost of oil-based fuel at that time. Perhaps tax incentives or rebates designed to spur demand and incentive for alternative sources - thereby subsidizing and artificially lowering the cost of alternate energy i.e. - lowering the marginal cost of substitution. I don't like bringing the government in here, as this can work both ways, and one of them is bad. The bad solution is to raise the taxes on oil making it rise in price, then it becomes artificially comparable to the more expensive alternative energy. This is inefficient and not optimal. Coming back to our cost/benefit equation - (marginal cost = marginal revenue/benefit) We end up paying more and getting no more benefit, and in the process, diverting more of our scarce resource (in this case, money) away from other means of consumption, such as savings, food, clothes, vacations, airplanes, avionics.... on and on. The contraint of the production possibility curve - oil against all other goods. Not a good outcome.

My solution? Well, nothing really novel that hasn't already been rehashed. Although I don't like government interference in the economy, ole Poobs here favors tax and investment breaks to develop alternative sources. But, do it in a meaningful way. The token breaks and incentives we've seen so far are pretty ineffective because they're just too small - like trying to put out a forest fire with a five gallon can.

I do believe there are alternative and economically viable forms of energy to be developed and refined via a technological "black box" progression of knowledge. If we had, for example, taken the advice of an advisor in Lincoln's cabinet to shut down the Patent Office because everything that had to be invented had already been invented, imagine how that would have negatively impacted mankind. We'd still be using whale oil and gaslit streets.

The solution of increasing supply was mentioned. Increasing supply is only a stopgap measure at best, given a finite resource. Oil is a non-renewable resource and is very difficult and expensive to obtain additional recoverable resources in played-out fields via secondary and tertiary means. It's also possible that the price of oil could rise so high due to demand that it chokes off any growth and we see a worldwide recession - part of a self-correcting mechanism. Supply and demand. Harsh rules in an unforgiving science.

Economics - it's earned the moniker "The Dismal Science".

I'm optimistic that there are solutions to this issue out there and that they will be developed. And they will. However, the real thing is how to implement the solution. it will become increasingly painful the longer we put it off. Problems will be solved - it's a matter of how painful the solution will be.

Anyway, enough economic theory.

Gotta use that MS, MA, MBA and 2 BA's somehow, even if it is for bathroom tissue.