Your calculations are fine if they could be implemented instantaneously. But nobody waves any magic wands and has nuclear power plants and US manufactured hybrids on line in a matter of months. It is a matter of years and you’re talking about a plan that would impose costs on those least able to afford them for years before they reap the benefits. That’s the fundamental problem low-income people have – they can’t absorb cost today for ROI tomorrow.

It has nothing to do with environmental religion.

It has to do with capitalism:

Wind is now cheaper than natural gas for electricity production.

In 5 to 15 years it will be cheaper than coal.

Mr. DenBeste (who is not an energy engineer) was right about a lot of things. Wind energy wasn’t one of them.

The Lithium ion batteries in the hybrid cars take more energy to produce than they will ever cause to be saved in gasoline consumption in the hybrids.

How are the Lithium batteries made? With lots and lots of electricity. Where does this electricity come from? Coal and Oil in Japan and PRC China.

Anyone who thinks they are “saving” energy by driving a hybrid car is stupid beyond belief!!!!

Assume your typical 20,000/miles per year low-income driver in Calif, for ex., may get maybe at most 25 miles to the gallon on average, as most are driving older cars whose efficiency sucks.

So low-income drivers need ca 800 gallons per year @ $2.50/gal = $2,000 per year in out-of-pocket, non-dedictible expense for consumers whose disposable income isn’t more than a few thousand dollars per year, if that.

If these drivers can get 60 miles to the gallon with a hybrid, then, assuming an increase in gas price to $3.00/gal, the above consumer would spend 333 gals x $3 = $1000 per year on gas. $1000 savings there.

Of course the hybrid purchase would cost them out of pocket, but the hybrid subsidy could be used to defray the first year’s payments– maybe eliminate them entirely. Right now the hybrid subsidy right now is several thousand $ per car, which could easily be increased to maybe $5,000 per car if you raised another $50B through a national $0.50/gal tax.

So the benefits to the poor aren’t just in lower gas expense but in getting them into new, state-of-the-art cars that are vastly superior to their 20 year-old ramshackle Dodge Spirits etc. Pride, responsibility, perhaps increased aspirations and a willingness to work hard to satisfy them: I’d say these benefits, collectively, merit the modifier “huge.”

NUKES NOW. Subsidize new construction of nuclear plants, and also American-made hybrid cars, with a national gasoline tax of maybe 50 cents/gal. This would hugely benefit low-income drivers who shifted to hybrids and also give a boost to Ford and GM, who otherwise will be sliding toward bankruptcy within 10 years. Win-Ford and GM could also develop hybrid trucks, which would easily dominate anything the Japanese can come up with due to the tariff. Win-win all around.

While I certainly believe the US should move toward nuclear fuel for power plants and willing to listen to any case that this should be subsidized (or even owned by the federal government as national infrastructure) through a tax on gasoline specifically targetted for the purpose, and that this subsidy should be extended to US auto manufacturers for the development of hybrid or even hydrogen fuel cell powered autos and/or trucks, I fail to see how this would “hugely benefit low-income drivers”.

Gasoline is somewhere near its “all time” high price per gallon. This cost is especially burdensome to “low-income drivers” who, presumably, need to spend a larger portion of their income on gasoline than a “high-income” driver does. If “low-income drivers” are being pushed toward bankruptcy by the relatively high-cost of gasoline how does immediately increasing the price of gasoline through a larger federal tax on gasoline help these low-income drivers stave off impending bankruptcy at all, let alone provide them “huge benefit”?

If such a plan were passed and put into effect by the end of 2005, how long would it take for a significant level of power to be generated by nuke plants? Three years, five, ten? I’d guess ten years of serious effort before we’d make a 30 or 40% impact in petroleum use for power generation. How long before these US hybrid cars are developed and on the market? Two years, three? Are we also going to subsidize the purchase of these vehicles? If they cost 15% (pulling a number out of my ample butt) more to purchase than a comparable non-hybrid) how would that help low-income drivers who, normally as far as I know, are more likely to purchase used autos. How does it help them to send their low-income to GMAC rather than Exxon? If it takes two or three years for viable product to hit the market and another two or three or four years for a sufficient inventory of “pre-owned” vehicles to start hitting the used car market place and you’ve taxed the heck outta gasoline for those 4 or 5 or 6 or more years until these low-income drivers can start to gain some benefit, what favors have you done them?

In addition to the notion of a “Manhattan Project” to reduce petroleum consumption I always get a big kick out of the notion of a “gas guzzler tax”. Who do people think is paying more tax dollars into the various gas taxes: those driving “gas guzzlers” or those driving greeniemobiles? Who gets better gas mileage: gas powered autos or diesel powered autos? Who pays more per gallon?

The tax system for petro products is a mess. Maybe it is time for the people of the US to start paying more gas taxes. Maybe its time for us to revisit what we should own as national infrastructure or what we should subsidize the building and/or operation and/or purchase of. But please don’t try to pawn off a large federal gasoline tax as something that would yield huge benefits to poor people. No poor person needs the price of something essential to them driven up 20% by a federal tax.

I don’t have a news reports, as this is local to me.

What’s standing in the way? Could it be the fact that our energy policy-making process is dominated by congressmen and executive officials of both parties who come from states like Louisiana, Wyoming, Texas?

NUKES NOW. Subsidize new construction of nuclear plants, and also American-made hybrid cars, with a national gasoline tax of maybe 50 cents/gal. This would hugely benefit low-income drivers who shifted to hybrids and also give a boost to Ford and GM, who otherwise will be sliding toward bankruptcy within 10 years. Win-Ford and GM could also develop hybrid trucks, which would easily dominate anything the Japanese can come up with due to the tariff. Win-win all around.

My favorite Piss and Moan along these lines is, “We need a new Manhattan Project to find a viable replacement for oil!”

I just love that one. Yo, I may be a knucklehead of the first order, but didn’t we already have a Manhattan Project, isn’t the deficit spending from that project long since all paid off, and didn’t it show us the way to run big, honking power plants without oil?

Maybe what we really need is a Manhattan Project sized effort to ’splain the basics of how “energy” is produced and consumed to the Vast, Didn’t Pay Any Attention Whatsoever in Science Class Conspiracy.

There are only a couple ways to significantly reduce pertroleum consumption:

- reduce lifestyle (of course the other guy always has to go first in this game or nobody wants to play)

- use other fuel sources for power plants (new-kew-lar, new-kew-lar!)

We’ll get some of both eventually.