Energy
Posted in Automobiles on December 10th, 2007It seems to me that we use gasoline to power our automobiles for the same reasons that we use glass in the windows of our homes, or paper for books and newspapers.
In each case we could use some substitute. Our windows could be rice paper or Plexiglas or wood. Our books could be flexible plastic.
With near total freedom to use whatever is available in the market at market prices, our builders and home buyers pretty much settled on glass windows (they keep out the rain, don’t cost much and let in the view), book publishers pretty much settled on paper and newspapers pretty much settled on newsprint. These products must have had some major advantages because they have near total domination of their markets. Just as gasoline has near total domination of the automobile fuel market.
No one in Washington decreed that we use gas, or glass for windows or paper for books. They were the best solutions to a particular need. Now Washington plans to decree that each utility must use 15% renewal energy or each car must be filled with 10% ethanol on pain of imprisonment. They are simply commanding that we use a worse form of energy because of the way politics makes decisions. Shameful