How to Afford Gas

I've been hearing lots of ideas bandied about to help people with the insane spike in gas prices. They started hand ing out the The only one that makes any sense is repealing the gas tax. That's because it means rolling back a tax that politicians would have to reinstitute with only a couple of months to go. And I'm for ANY tax cut. Period. Credit to Hillary Clinton and John McCain for at least seeing the short-term gain for us.

I've heard a few solutions as well. And since I always have a few cents to throw in the arena of ideas, here are the Three Pillars to Cheaper Gas:

First Pillar - Use Every Technology We Have. This is simple. I've already elaborated on this before, but it bears repeating. Anything that can grow our energy supply and our energy independence should be used. This means dig coal, extract from oil shale, and drill in every place we have oil, an the environazis can go get a spoon and eat my ass. It also means getting every clean technology we can. This includes solar, wind, and tidal (where practical) and especially nuclear. I'd even be up for burning waste cooking oil, even if my car smelled like a grease fire. And we need to stop mandating and producing shit that is inefficient, like ethanol, at least until it can stand on its own without government subsidies. An addendum to this is that we have to cut red tape. We can't build nuclear because the envirogoons are ready every time with pictures of Chernobyl, streams full of three-eyed fish, and dire warnings of a nuclear winter (a global warming solution?) ahead. Refineries can't expand, and producers can't build new ones. For more details, try this article from the Heritage Foundation, which I read after writing most of the last paragraph.

Second Pillar - Conservation and Common Sense. This one comes down to a country of people taking personal responsibility. To clarify, you have the right to do whatever the hell you want with your life, but if you commute an hour every day to a palatial suburban dwelling in a Hummer, you are small part of the reason gas is so high. The fact is that demand for oil worldwide is skyrocketing. And for those liberals out there who lack the capacity to understand economics, when you have X number of barrels, and more people want them, the price goes up. So as we ramp up to get more oil, we also need to cut back some here at home. I've bought my last two cars with fuel economy in mind, and I'm salivating over the idea of a Prius or something. This brings me to common sense.

Third Pillar - Research and Development. We are a nation with boundless opportunities and a knack for solving problems. The problem is that we are too often directed by agendas, politics, and taxes to plod along in the specific direction. Ethanol is an example. Here's an idea I had while mowing on Tuesday: If we could take field remnants, grass clippings, and many organic things that get thrown away and produce fuel (ethanol) or energy from them, that might be a way to get it without impacting food supplies. And if we can produce it using nuclear energy, then it doesn't impact our fossil fuel usage. Another idea: With an increase in nuclear and clean energy production, and the increases in battery efficiency and formulation over the past decades, then the electric and hybrid cars are becoming more practical. With gas prices as they are, we could see some really creative retrofits showing up out there. After all, there are all kinds of ways to rework vehicles. The point here is to start taking everything ever suggested and try finding ways to implement it. And get red tape out and tax incentives (but not subsidies) in.

The point is that there is no one solution to this problem. Our problem is cultural and political. We need to change the mindsets that are contributing to this problem. I'm not talking socialism, though. I'm speaking of the mindset that we had that won World War II. We knew we had to do a lot of things in the short term to be free in the long term. With all the inane and insane schemes to 'solve' the problem that have only exacerbated it, we have come to the point of crisis. And it will take a war on gas prices to solve it.

And another point. This war will solve a few other problems in one big sweep:

Energy independence - Self-explanatory.

Global warming - Not that I care to 'solve' the pseudocrisis, but some of the solutions I have outlined happen to fit there too.

The impending recession - The rush to develop technology and build energy plants will trickle down to all sectors. And as these things come online, there goes energy prices right down. It's a ripple effect.

Part of the war on terror - We are so involved in the Middle East because they have oil there. Whether directly or indirectly, energy independence and less dependence on fossil fuels (globally) will take away part of the power of countries that breed terrorist sons of bitches. The rest of the war, of course, involves killing every terrorist alive.

There. Now all we have to do is stop having congressional hearing about gas prices and start actually solving the problems.