What If?
Friends, what if I told you that the future of the automobile in our car-culture country is with the internal combustion engine? What if I told you that electric cars (or wind-powered energy) will remain a very minor, veritable novelty act?
The US is going to establish total energy independence in the next decade, due to:
• Discovery of increasing oil sources on both land and at sea
• Advanced technology to capture what was previously not obtainable
• Greater and greater mileage efficiency of car fleets
• Increased taxation of “gas guzzlers” and gasoline
• Lower emissions acquired through advances in engine technology
What if we need to understand and prepare for that future, and not one of predominantly solar, or turbine, or wind, or electric, or hydrogen power? How much money, energy, and political capital are we wasting today on what won’t be used or needed?
The US will be a net exporter of petroleum, which will change the geopolitical landscape. The Gulf of Hormuz becomes unimportant, the prices will plummet in Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iran. I’d suspect that there will be a revolution in Saudi Arabia, with the very narrow and disliked royal family overthrown, and that other governments may radically change.
Perhaps it sounds like a novel to you, but what if we’re inured to the wrong future, the wrong warnings, the wrong possibilities, the wrong opportunities?
Sign up for Alan Weiss’s Common Sense™ World View video series. It’s only a couple of bucks a week, and produces more energy than it consumes! We start in June. You can find it here:
http://www.summitconsulting.com/seminars/Alans-Common-Sense-World-View.php
What if I’m right?
© Alan Weiss 2013
Noah Fleming
I’ve subscribed!
Jared Lazaro
Another factor that doesn’t get touted as often is how incredibly efficient and effective we are at processing and distilling petroleum here in the States. We are in many ways already exporting more than other countries, as we do the refining work here and ship out. North Sea crude, tar sands from Canada, bulk importation and redistribution from Central and South America. That doesn’t even include in-country facilities American companies set up around the world.
We don’t yet have a complete picture of how much Russian and Chinese reserves and consumption truly modify the landscape, but it’s a wrinkle.
Thanks for the jog to my brain on this subject. 🙂
Alan Weiss
Good points, thank you!