Electric Cars, Hydrogen Cars, Cars That Run on Water: How to Choose?

See the previous entry about T. Boone Pickens and his crusade for NATURAL GAS vehicles as the "solution" to our reliance on foreign sources of oil, resulting in transferring 700 billion dollars a year into foreign hands out of our economy.  Bill O'Reilly's "solution" (to be MANDATED, just lke T. Boone Pickens wants to mandate his, although Pickens says we should d EVEERYTHING) is FLEX-FUEL vehicles.  There was a whole MOVIE about how the "solution" is ELECTRIC CARS.

 

Yes, there are AT LEAST the following types of vehicles and fuels being pushed by SOMEONE:

 

1.  Electric (GM is again testing an electric car, and is evidently providing one to Rush Limbaugh to promote--GM now being a sponsor of the Limbaugh radio program).

 

2.  Hydrogen (don't ask)

 

3.  Natural Gas (combined with--see previous entry--a quixotic replacement of natural gas as a fuel for producing electricity with unreliable "wind power", or more reliable nuclear power).

 

4.  Flex-Fuel

5.  Hybrids

 

6. More efficient GASOLINE (still the most efficient feul) and diesel engines (no SUVs)

 

7, 8, 9. 10, etc.:  Who knows?  Biofuels?  Coal liquification?

 

The point is that NO ONE knows which of the above is BEST.  There is coal liquification, which is hardly perfected or ready .  There are ethanol and biofuels of all kinds (inefficient as they are, with potential of depriving us of FOOD).

 

Why not try them ALL?  If you say that (as I heard T. Boone Pickens stupidly do), you are NOT LISTENING TO THIS BLOG (shame on you).  CENTRAL PLANNING cannot "try them all".  Are we really going to FORCE gas stations to sell MULTIPLE kinds of biofuels, natural gas, electric power, HYDROGEN, and every other conceivable kind of fuel?  If you believe we should do that, you are nuts--or, like T. Boone Pickens, you are just trying to sound "reasonable" while PUSHING the government to support your own CENTRAL PLANNING solution.

 

There IS a method by which we can "try them all", AND others no one has yet thought of.  That is called the FREE MARKET, where ideas COMPETE for acceptance on something like a level playing field.  Oh, we could give LIMITED tax credits to gas stations who buy equipment, or other kinds of investments in "alternative" fuel technology, and we can fund SOME basic research.  But once we give MASSIVE subsidies, or PREFER a "solution" to the point of making the government money the real economic incentive--as distinguished from free market success in the real economy--we are into the realm of CENTRAL PLANNING IMPOSING A "SOLUTION", where disaster waits.  Make no mistake about it.  This is what Bill O'Reilly, T. Boone Pickens, and so many others WANT.  They WANT the government to FORCE their pet "solution" down our throats.  Now they may be willing, in the interest of getting their solution pushed. to have the government THROW MONEY AT EVERYBODY WITH A SUFFICIENT LOBBY.  Does not change a thing.  They want an IMPOSED "solution" or "solutions"--either directly imposed or hidden.  For example, as I actually heard O'Reilly say (illustrating the real central planning AGENDA here!!!), if you PAY General Motors to put out electric cars, and PAY people to buy them, that is FORCING electric cars (for O'Reilly, flex-fuel vehicles) down our throat.  It is the same kind of DISTORTION of the market that CHINA and INDIA are accomplishing by subsidizing OIL and GASOLINE (to keep their economies growing, more than offsetting any "reduction" in carbon emissions we manage).

 

It illustrates to me how far conservatism has fallen that we can't seem to explain that the FREE MARKET is the way to AVOID being subject to the whims of DICTATORS forcing their "solutions" on you--not to mention ruining our economy as a sacrifice to the religion of "global warming".

 

ANY "solution" that cannot compete in the free market, and be economic without large subsidies, is the WRONG solution (again, you can provide "seed" money, or "jump start" money (to buy or install initial equipment), but if the main profit comes from the GOVERNMENT SUBSIDY, it is the WRONG "solution").

 

P.S.  You may have thought that the headline above meant this entry was about Barack Obama.  Not so.  You fainters have to read more carefully.  Barack Obama is the one who WALKS on water!!!!!  Unfortunatelyh, that kind of parlor trick is all he does.  Rational policy is not his thing--much less inventing cars that run on water.