Oil jumps above $100 on refinery outage

[Shawnee123]

Originally Posted by lookout123

OK, so we want the government to step up and push money into alt fuel? How? What areas? Who gets the money? How much? Who decides? What benchmark must they hit to receive the money? If something proves viable, who gets to profit? How much? If the price of oil comes down should we quit spending money on something that is more expensive and less efficient than oil? Where is the cutoff?

I'm not saying alt fuel is a pipe dream. I'm not saying it isn't a worthy goal. I'm saying it is more complicated than having a schmoe in a suit say "we need to ween ourselves from foreign oil".

As the price of fossil fuels goes up, alternative energy becomes more attractive and research and testing ramps up. It takes time for new ideas to be explored, tested, approved, and developed to the point that they can go to market with an expectation of profitability. Remember, companies aren't making products because of the warm fuzzy feeling they get. They have to harness new ideas into profitable scenarios before they can bring them to you. Part of the process is preparing for any backlash as well.
New high efficiency light bulbs? Awesome. They are more hazardous when disposed of? damn.
New hybrid cars? Love them! oh, they're more expensive and the manufacturing process vs savings takes 8+ years to offset? Hmmm.

I don't want my government to just throw money at the problem so they look concerned. I fully support a reasonable and rational expenditure that has a reasonable chance of proving effective.

bold mine

So you want them to do things completely differently than they've done everything else?