Cheap Gas

It's pretty exciting to see lots of news about new energy sources and better technologies that will make using it more efficient popping up pretty regularly now. I think one of those that will make things better soonest is cheap solar. Some photo-voltaic solar cells on the market now have broken the dollar per watt price barrier and can be produced fast enough now that they should be major player in short order. A little more distant on that horizon are cells that convert much more of the light spectrum to electricity making them even more cost effective. Still newer solar cell technology for producing hydrogen from sunlight and water will have an important place in the energy spectrum very soon.

Algae that produce oil that can be used as motor fuel will be taking their place at the energy market sooner than most thought possible even a year ago. They may even be great fuel sources for power plants replacing coal. That would get rid of lots of nasty by products from those kind of power stations and take a load off of petroleum reserves at the same time because they would free up natural gas for other uses. Or maybe stationary power plants will be running on hydrogen from solar and producing fresh water as a by product.

Getting more of the carbon emissions out of the exhaust and waste stream and back in the fuel stream would a great idea too and now that looks more than just probable in the near future.

But the best thing is that more people are paying attention to the problems because of the price at the pump for gasoline, the political mileage from climate change and the economic value of doing green stuff. Real green stuff not like the ethanol fiasco brought to us by the corn farmers and Bushco in the last few years.

More folks are going to want to spend our hard earned national resources on funding the research and engineering to put these things in place now that the cost of this past administration is becoming painfully clear. The bunch we've had running the show have done us a huge favor. In just eight years they have exposed vast numbers of bad choices that would otherwise have taken maybe a century to discover using conventional research and experience methods. Now we can clearly see where to put our money and effort on just about every front of human interest. Wanna know if something is a bad idea, just ask yourself - what would Bush do.

I think all of this means more people will be buying far more efficient cars and light bulbs that will have a real and massive affect on the petroleum industry. I think the demand for gas will start back down soon and along with it the price of gas will start to go down. That will be good news for me. That means gas may get to 75 cents a gallon and I can probably drive my old pickup truck till the world runs out of parts for '96 Chevy C fifteen hunnerts. The bonus item will be knowing the Saudis will be as poor as I am.