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Oil is great. From an engineering perspective it is energy dense and relatively stable and easy-to-use. I can put a small amount of it in my pickup truck and d

Oil is great. From an engineering perspective it is energy dense and relatively stable and easy-to-use. I can put a small amount of it in my pickup truck and drive up the side of a mountain. A pilot can fly to the other side of the world in a few hours time with a plane powered by the stuff. A few hundred years ago that level of mobility and conevnience would have been seen as a magic power - the domain of witches and demons. I don't think Americans are addicted to oil. We are addicts of the capability, the freedom, if you will, that oil enables. In the short term limits on oil limit our ability to do the things we want, many of which require oil to enable. When an alternative technology comes along which gives us the same capability and is cleaner and (most importantly) cheaper, we will gladly move on from oil. I personally would even support a tax on oil (and thus marginally reduce my freedom) in order to invest in whatever is next and facilitate the change before we permanently impair the earth. Alas my fellow countrymen do not have it in their hearts to tax themselves for this purpose.

gedy 10y ago
> Alas my fellow countrymen do not have it in their hearts to tax themselves for this purpose. It's not about heart, it's that most people aren't doing well enough to care for more taxes. Reduce asset prices for housing, NIMBY politics, etc and maybe they would.
kinnth 10y ago
Not everything should revolve around cost. There are other factors to consider. Also these freedoms that you talk about come at a cost to others, so consider this the next time you want to drive over that hill.
- orangecat 10y ago
  Not everything should revolve around cost. Whether it should or not, it does. If you altruistically reduce your gas consumption, you're decreasing total demand and thus lowering the price. That makes it profitable for the evil corporation down the street to use even more of it.
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    > "Whether it should or not, it does." Then we should be considering a carbon tax.
    - orangecat 10y ago
      Exactly. A tax creates the correct incentives whether you personally care about the externalities or not.
ams6110 10y ago
In a perfect world I could support a tax, however in the real world tax revenues first go through the fingers of politicians and they often are diverted to pork. Just a couple of local examples, the "road tax" on gasoline is supposed to fund road maintenace and construction, but it doesn't. It goes into the general revenue fund and is spent on anything and everything. Meanwhile the roads crumble. My state allows casino gambling with the tax revenues going to "education" but again they go into the general fund and the schools still beg for money every chance they get. Government simply cannot be trusted with tax dollars so they should get the absolute minimum needed to do their lawful duties. So let the private sector figure out what technology can replace oil, prove it in the market, and then you won't even need a tax.
- orangecat 10y ago
  however in the real world tax revenues first go through the fingers of politicians and they often are diverted to pork True, but in this case it doesn't matter. The goal of a gas tax is to incorporate its negative externalities into the price signal, so that if burning a gallon benefits you by $1 but costs $1.50 in environmental damage, you won't do it. What the tax revenue is spent on is basically irrelevant.
  - schiffern 10y ago
    >What the tax revenue is spent on is basically irrelevant. The just thing would be to compensate/protect the victims who are on the receiving end of those negative externalities.
  - ryanwaggoner 10y ago
    Not if the revenue is spent on something worse than the externality. Also not if the revenue creates a self perpetuating monster that will devour more revenue even when the externality is gone. And while we're on the subject, doesn't it seem the least bit concerning that funding specific pork through taxes on diffuse externalities creates a pretty huge incentive to keep that externality going? Who came up with the idea to let the people responsible for eliminating the externality also benefit from the taxes you get from it?
cpprototypes 10y ago
Oil is great for energy storage and we have over a hundred years of infrastructure built for it. And that oil technology is still being refined and advanced. The big issues with oil are due to the source, not the technology itself. Right now the source is underground carbon sinks (fossil fuels). But what if we produced synthetic oil using excess solar energy during daytime? It would pull carbon from the air. And would burn cleaner than any fossil fuel source. It seems many dream of a battery future. But is it really better to produce millions of batteries instead of just finding better ways to make oil? It kind of reminds me of the classic desktop app vs web app debate. One big advantage of web app is that upgrages are single source, just update the server. But desktop apps, there may be many multiple old versions out there because users don't always update. In a similar way, why are we focusing on the very difficult and slow task of upgrading all cars to EV? Why not improve the source of oil itself?
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "In a similar way, why are we focusing on the very difficult and slow task of upgrading all cars to EV? Why not improve the source of oil itself?" Some people are pursuing this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel Personally I think it's a mistake to rely on any single energy source as heavily as we have with oil, so I hope the EV car market continues to grow, but biodiesel may be better suited for some applications.
- bubbleRefuge 10y ago
  EV's have other benefits. Ultimately, when economy of scale is fully realized, perhaps electric motors are cheaper, cleaner, and easier to maintain than ICE's. Perhaps automobile supply chains will become similar to laptop/Iphone supply chains ( ie extremely efficient) . Perhaps EVs are easier to re-cycle. Perhaps they perform better on the road. For ex, accelerate and stop faster . Perhaps there will be a 5x 10x 20x breakthrough in battery technology?
  - cpprototypes 10y ago
    When comparing just technology, EV cars are superior. Far greater engine efficiency, less complexity and moving parts, efficient transmission of energy from power plants to vehicle, etc. But we live in an oil world. There are billions of cars out there. Cars are big investments that are handed down generation to generation like houses, especially in developing countries. EV car sales are still a drop in the bucket compared to ICE car sales. If we want fast and rapid action on climate change, the quickest path is not pushing EV. It would be massive investment in reducing the cost to make synthetic oil. This may seem impossible, but that's what many said about solar competing with fossil fuels. EV car enthusiasts often talk about how EV cars get immediate environmental benefits from power plant upgrades such as burning coal to solar. But how much more orders of magnitude environment improvement would we get from carbon neutral oil creation? If a cost effective way was found that could compete with fossil fuels, billions of cars would immediately benefit environmentally. Again, another computer analogy. Imagine someone invented a beautiful new elegant programming language that reduces CPU energy use by 50%. At the same time, someone found a way to reduce JVM CPU energy use by 20%. If we wanted the shortest path to worldwide energy reduction in CPU, what would be faster, just update the JVM for millions of servers or rewrite everything in the new programming language?
civilian 10y ago
Rather than taxing oil, we could simply remove it's subsidies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#United_States However, the user should be aware that the tax or subsidy-removal would be regressive. Poor people and small businesses spend more of their income on gas than richer people & businesses.

gedy 10y ago

> Alas my fellow countrymen do not have it in their hearts to tax themselves for this purpose. It's not about heart, it's that most people aren't doing well enough to care for more taxes. Reduce asset prices for housing, NIMBY politics, etc and maybe they would.

kinnth 10y ago

Not everything should revolve around cost. There are other factors to consider. Also these freedoms that you talk about come at a cost to others, so consider this the next time you want to drive over that hill.

orangecat 10y ago
Not everything should revolve around cost. Whether it should or not, it does. If you altruistically reduce your gas consumption, you're decreasing total demand and thus lowering the price. That makes it profitable for the evil corporation down the street to use even more of it.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "Whether it should or not, it does." Then we should be considering a carbon tax.
  - orangecat 10y ago
    Exactly. A tax creates the correct incentives whether you personally care about the externalities or not.

ams6110 10y ago

In a perfect world I could support a tax, however in the real world tax revenues first go through the fingers of politicians and they often are diverted to pork. Just a couple of local examples, the "road tax" on gasoline is supposed to fund road maintenace and construction, but it doesn't. It goes into the general revenue fund and is spent on anything and everything. Meanwhile the roads crumble. My state allows casino gambling with the tax revenues going to "education" but again they go into the general fund and the schools still beg for money every chance they get. Government simply cannot be trusted with tax dollars so they should get the absolute minimum needed to do their lawful duties. So let the private sector figure out what technology can replace oil, prove it in the market, and then you won't even need a tax.

orangecat 10y ago
however in the real world tax revenues first go through the fingers of politicians and they often are diverted to pork True, but in this case it doesn't matter. The goal of a gas tax is to incorporate its negative externalities into the price signal, so that if burning a gallon benefits you by $1 but costs $1.50 in environmental damage, you won't do it. What the tax revenue is spent on is basically irrelevant.
- schiffern 10y ago
  >What the tax revenue is spent on is basically irrelevant. The just thing would be to compensate/protect the victims who are on the receiving end of those negative externalities.
- ryanwaggoner 10y ago
  Not if the revenue is spent on something worse than the externality. Also not if the revenue creates a self perpetuating monster that will devour more revenue even when the externality is gone. And while we're on the subject, doesn't it seem the least bit concerning that funding specific pork through taxes on diffuse externalities creates a pretty huge incentive to keep that externality going? Who came up with the idea to let the people responsible for eliminating the externality also benefit from the taxes you get from it?

cpprototypes 10y ago

Oil is great for energy storage and we have over a hundred years of infrastructure built for it. And that oil technology is still being refined and advanced. The big issues with oil are due to the source, not the technology itself. Right now the source is underground carbon sinks (fossil fuels). But what if we produced synthetic oil using excess solar energy during daytime? It would pull carbon from the air. And would burn cleaner than any fossil fuel source. It seems many dream of a battery future. But is it really better to produce millions of batteries instead of just finding better ways to make oil? It kind of reminds me of the classic desktop app vs web app debate. One big advantage of web app is that upgrages are single source, just update the server. But desktop apps, there may be many multiple old versions out there because users don't always update. In a similar way, why are we focusing on the very difficult and slow task of upgrading all cars to EV? Why not improve the source of oil itself?

ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "In a similar way, why are we focusing on the very difficult and slow task of upgrading all cars to EV? Why not improve the source of oil itself?" Some people are pursuing this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel Personally I think it's a mistake to rely on any single energy source as heavily as we have with oil, so I hope the EV car market continues to grow, but biodiesel may be better suited for some applications.
bubbleRefuge 10y ago
EV's have other benefits. Ultimately, when economy of scale is fully realized, perhaps electric motors are cheaper, cleaner, and easier to maintain than ICE's. Perhaps automobile supply chains will become similar to laptop/Iphone supply chains ( ie extremely efficient) . Perhaps EVs are easier to re-cycle. Perhaps they perform better on the road. For ex, accelerate and stop faster . Perhaps there will be a 5x 10x 20x breakthrough in battery technology?
- cpprototypes 10y ago
  When comparing just technology, EV cars are superior. Far greater engine efficiency, less complexity and moving parts, efficient transmission of energy from power plants to vehicle, etc. But we live in an oil world. There are billions of cars out there. Cars are big investments that are handed down generation to generation like houses, especially in developing countries. EV car sales are still a drop in the bucket compared to ICE car sales. If we want fast and rapid action on climate change, the quickest path is not pushing EV. It would be massive investment in reducing the cost to make synthetic oil. This may seem impossible, but that's what many said about solar competing with fossil fuels. EV car enthusiasts often talk about how EV cars get immediate environmental benefits from power plant upgrades such as burning coal to solar. But how much more orders of magnitude environment improvement would we get from carbon neutral oil creation? If a cost effective way was found that could compete with fossil fuels, billions of cars would immediately benefit environmentally. Again, another computer analogy. Imagine someone invented a beautiful new elegant programming language that reduces CPU energy use by 50%. At the same time, someone found a way to reduce JVM CPU energy use by 20%. If we wanted the shortest path to worldwide energy reduction in CPU, what would be faster, just update the JVM for millions of servers or rewrite everything in the new programming language?

civilian 10y ago

Rather than taxing oil, we could simply remove it's subsidies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies#United_States However, the user should be aware that the tax or subsidy-removal would be regressive. Poor people and small businesses spend more of their income on gas than richer people & businesses.