The American Way of Life is Not Negotiable

Why wouldn't there be any profit in it? Did the coal barons prevent the oil age? Did the bronze age end because we ran out of bronze? No, better things came along and old industries died.

Any replacement for oil has to be MORE expensive, or else we'd already be using it. That means that whatever replaces oil will be an even bigger business. So who isn't going to want to get in on that?

Bush should be sabre rattling. They are breaking agreements and potentially building a nuclear arsenal. But invasion is not on the list of options. How long is it going to take for people to admit that the invasions of Syria and Iran and the draft were ghost stories? These things are not happening.

 

my problem with this model is that it assumes economic growth can go on ad infinitum. well it can't because the natural resources of the earth are finite. there are already many alternatives to oil that might work as substitutes but there is no orderly transition being planned for the day when we cant rely on endless supplies of oil anymore b/c the market doesn't do central planning. nor does it do the massive r&d that would be required to figure out how to shift everything that currently depends on petro-chemicals to something else. and if u sit down and think about all the things that do depend on it, it's just about everything that our modern consumerist way of life depends on. only govts could undertake and coordinate something as massive as this, not markets. and in the current economic orthodoxy that aint gonna happen. i wish i shared ur faith that something good to fix this will turn up on the day. i just cant see that happening.

 

That's Bull, Hemp Oil is 100% renewable and is VERY cheap, Henry Ford made his first car and ran it off of hemp.

 

And hemp oil is used in products, but hmmm, I'm not sure if we should be basing what's best for modern technology on the 1st prototype over a century ago.

 

yes that's the standard story any of course the big oil corporations are preventing us from using this wonderful resource...


...but America isn't the only country in the world. There are plenty of countries deeply hostile to the US and US oil companies, who have no oil. Why don't they convert to hemp oil if it is so great? What is holding back every country in the entire world from using hemp oil if help oil is so wonderful?

 

thats a good q. maybe, pb, no one country can cover the r&d and organisation that's necessary to come up with a comprehensive alternative. remember that it's not just petrol 4 cars that's required: petrochemicals have their fingers in just about every other kind of manufactured good. and i'm sure it's political too because we're not short of ideas. i know there's a man here who invented a car to run on cooking oil and he's just tested it and it seems to work but he's had no assistance from the govt or industry at all from what i gather. it's a real amateurish one man show. that's what i mean about capitallism being unsuitable 4 these kinds of emergencies. u need a coordinated and sensible plan to do this. to r&d things through their whole cycle. and of course, 2 succeed we must have a body that's strong enough to stand up to the monopolistic power of big oil, who naturally enough will always put their own, not meagre, interests ahead of all other considerations.

 

You don't need anything. You just think you do.

 

If Henry Ford could do it nearly a century a go, I can't see why a country like China couldn't do it today. Also, why does it have to be comprehensive? If China could solve any one problem with Hemp oil, why wouldn't they just because they couldn't solve ALL their problems with hemp oil?

The assistance from the government is that the cooking oil is not taxed heavily, like gas.

I have no faith in centally planned mega projects. Capitalism has a pretty impressive track record when it comes to R&D. And there is plenty of capital around that would love to steal a piece of the big oil pie. Capitalists are very happy to take business from other capitalists.