Yikes, I agree with Aaron on almost every point. This is a first. Seriously!

The only thing I outright disagree with is the issue of broadband subsidies. He's very right that broadband is useless without a computer, but I still think making it cheaply _available_ to everyone is a good thing. I think the internet is a great vehicle for democratic deliberation, and thus should be made more broadly available. Also, I think as the education and skillsets of foreigners improves, one of the few things we can offer as an advantage to doing business in the US is infrastructure. This includes transportation, something else that could stand some federal investment. Our infrastructure could definitely use some investment on many fronts. It's not very sexy, but it could be crucial.

Another point of disagreement is about energy. While I agree that the democrats aren't offering anything here, I don't think this administration provides a useful contrast. Steps in this direction have been miniscule and symbolic. If you look at the projected production of ANWR, it's not significant. The **ONLY** way we'll achieve anything resembling energy independence is if we develop significant new technology. Wind-power, solar, and a couple stray oil fields are not going to cut it, not even close.

This is an important issue for another reason: the approach of peak oil. Some say it may have already passed, but even the most optimistic government reports place it around 2035, 2045 at the latest. That's not much time in the grand scheme of things. And I really don't buy the "market will handle it" shrug-off that one often encounters. Sure it might, but the market doesn't care if you starve. The invisible hand could easily turn into an America-crushing fist. Let's hope those tales of accoustically-driven fusion from Purdue are onto something.

>>President Bush has been advocating this for a long time

HAHAHAHA...but no, really...he's only changed his tune in the past few months. Jimmy Carter - now there's a man thats been preaching energy independence for a while.

I'd love to see either side take a strong stance on energy. We need more nuclear power in this country. ANWAR is a joke - it would do little to reduce our dependence on oil

Bush can't REALLY move away from oil - that would be biting the hand that feeds him.

When the building the architect helps design is pre-fabricated in another country before it's purchase and erection in the US, the architect will soon become a weak link in the economy.

When the auto worker can no longer afford the car she/he helps build. When the carpenter can no longer afford the house she/he builds. When the Wal-Mart employee can't afford (never has never will) health care, they are all weak links in the US economy.

In the last five years the wealthy have gotten wealthier and the poor have stayed the same or gotten poorer. The backbone of Americas economy, the middle class, has (depending on your view) been stretched or squeezed.

As a service oriented economy we give India our nuclear technology and what do we recieve in return......what'd he say; "uh, Mangos?" MANGOS!!??

Aaaaah, peace and serenity, who said I wasn't happy!

SF - the liberal opinion is that conservative solutions are miniscule, counter-productive, and symbolic.

Many conservatives (fancy thought) happen to think thier solutions will...you know, solve the problem.

But we will never know if democrats continue to obstruct and prevent conservatives from even attempting thier solutions while offering a big fat 'nothing' for alternatives.

I think you've crystalized it for me, MJ. Faced with the choice of Bad Ideas and No Ideas, I choose...neither. In the meantime, I advance what I consider to be good ideas, and if at any point I have the power to influence things, I'll do so. But a choice between democrats and republicans implies a false dichotomy that I reject.

I gladly oppose a provably useless program like drilling in ANWR while patting ourselves on the back for "doing something". That's about as useful as democratic cum-ba-yas in the college union. I'd be glad to be called an obstructionist for useless ideas. You want a good idea? We need to invest in energy technology, especially energy efficiency, as though we actually give a damn. I'm sure republicans think drilling ANWR and lowering taxes for oil companies are going to help us oncoming energy crises, but I disagree and I'd rather invest our efforts elsewhere. I think that if we try things like ANWR and tax "relief" for producers, we will be screwed when they are unable to return the favor 20 years down the road.

But as for the democrats, they don't offer anything. I think the way of thinking of the democratic mainstream is that modern society has arrived, and now is the time for us to set about perfecting paradise. In this way, they have bought into the idea of the end of history. That is why it is all about child care and health care and unions and walmart. They simply lack the imagination for any kind of future.

Maybe I'm just a perfectionist, but neither party comes close to offering a sober adult vision of the future.

Neither party EVER will.

Because the 'energy crisis' is the same as the Y2k crisis, the bird flu crisis, the "wrap your house in plastic to stave off terrorists and thier dirty bombs in your rich nowhere suburb" crisis, and the overpopulation crisis.

We have been refining, finding new, and decarbonizing our energy sources for 200 years and continue to do so. Those who predict the oil will run out too fast, before we find an alternative, are those same who predicted the same 30 years ago, saying we'd be all out of oil.....15 years ago....

Those who think we'll never stop using oil unless we're forced to are ignoring 200 years of history and apparently denying the possibility of any superior energy source humans are capable of developing...

Short term : keep oil cheap if that's what you want, by expanding the supply. ANWR, gulf coast, left coast, oil sands, oil shale, ect. ect. ect. There's really much much more oil then most people think there is oil.

Long term : high prices encourage market forces to produce alternatives, if that's what you want.

Point being, neither is a 'bad' thing. Either is a natural and normal state of affairs. In 50 years, people will look back on the 'energy debate', and they'll have no idea what the hell we were talking about or why we seemed so worried.

WHAT oncoming energy crisis?

MJ, I recognize that the peak oil people love to cry wolf; half the problem is that these people make fools of themselves. Anyone should be skeptical of such people.

However, the fact remains that oil will run out, and a lot of people are starting to say it's going to be in this century. Of course, the bad times start long before it runs out; that's the whole deal with peak oil. While demand rises and supply drops, price shoots through the roof.

I don't think we're in disagreement about these basics. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that the market will "adjust". However, considering the integral role that petroleum and natural gas play at every level of our economy (fuel, energy, plastics, agriculture, etc.), my feeling is that the market adjustment could be extremely painful, to put it mildly.

Let me put it this way: I think this could be several magnitudes of greater threat to our way of life than some rag-tag Islamicists. I marvel that some people could talk like these maniacs are the Greatest Threat to America while I see peak oil as a far more real danger. Real people (not kooks) are talking about peak oil within a couple decades. The alarmists are saying we've already crossed it. Nobody doubts that the market will adjust, but the adjustment can be compatible with even large scale human suffering, civil war, famine, etc. These are not certainties, but while all the people are getting excited about terrorists, I don't think they will be able to do anything like this.

There's really much much more oil then most people think there is oil.

Where do you get this, and what people are you talking about? Are you a geologist? My father is, and we talk about this periodically. Most credible estimates assume there are undiscovered reserves; although that is a highly uncertain process, I have no idea why you would assume they are erring towards underestimation.

"However, the fact remains that oil will run out, and a lot of people are starting to say it's going to be in this century."

Ok. Much similarity to Y2k. The year 2000 was, indeed, coming. The problem was no where near as bad as most people claimed it would be, but there was a small problem. However, even though the 'Year 2000 is coming! It's getting closer!' there was more then ample time to easily address the problem 50 times over.

OK, oil runs out "in the next century". No big deal! Look:

We ALLREADY HAVE the alternative fuel technology. Let it come. 100 years is PLENTY of time, we'll have switched over to another fuel source by then, the research in this field will be much more advanced and it's hard for me to beleive they won't have perfected other sources to the point of being cheaper then eternally rising oil prices.

You see, that's the only problem: Oil is the goddamn cheapest most efficient source there is! That's what people don't get. That's why we friggin use it (not because we like smog, because we like cheap. YES, even at 4 dollars a gallon, oil is the CHEAPEST THERE IS).

BUT, 100 years is plenty of time! Research in the next 100 years will lead to outstanding progress in these fields, it's ample time to develop other sources and switch to them. FURTHMORE: If time is on our side (the longer it lasts the less we will need it to last longer), then so is procrastination - extending the time the supply will last by increasing the supply - ANWR and the like. Will they give us OIL FOREVER? no. Will they give us oil for a little bit? Yes. That little bit of time will be well used.

"Of course, the bad times start long before it runs out; that's the whole deal with peak oil."

What bad? No bad. This is normal. As the oil begins to run out the prices will rise yes....this isn't bad! This is insurance! This is a safety net! The rising price of the oil will ensure that, as the price eventually surpasses the costs of the alternative fuels we allready have (whos costs are dropping at the same time do to research advancement and increase of market interest) we will switch fuel sources, slowly, comfortably, before the oil is 'all gone'. We won't run out.

I don't GET the chicken-littlism. No 'crisis'. No 'catastrophe'. This whole thing looks exactly like it is supposed to look, exactly like it was predicted to look, exactly like it looked for other such situations in the past. This is the way it works. I don't understand the worry. Everything is really going rather fine.

It was going rather fine in 1999 too, and in fact, I had been telling people that since 1997! I told them to sit down, shut the hell up and sip thier juice and catch thier breath because the world wasn't freakin ending.

Most people didn't listen then either....My aunt bought a years worth of canned food and 2 gasoline generators.

Whatever.

Like Pascal said - without a God, life is meaningless and miserable. People can only create thier own obstacles and overcome them with token victories in an eternal fight against boredom. People like watching horror movies, riding roller coasters, and peeing thier pants when the world fakes a blow-up, then patting themselves on the back for being the superheros who reversed time to save it.

At any rate - famine, war, pestilence, rioting in the streets, lawlessness, collapse of civilization, yes, yes, been there done that. Not as exciting as it sounds.

Funny thing is - people have a history of crying 'CRISIS! NEED IMMEDIATE ACTION! DRASTIC ACTION!' over things that are allready happening. When we all heard about the 'population boom' being such a great peril, the population rate was ALLREADY dropping, even as 'scholars' were warning us it was going too high.

"Real people (not kooks) are talking about peak oil within a couple decades."

Were you absent all those other times? In matters like this, history aptly demonstrates that real people ARE kooks when it comes to falling skies. Especially in regards to subjects they are mostly totally bloody clueless about - like computers - and especially like economics.

"I have no idea why you would assume they are erring towards underestimation."

Well, there is the unknown unknown. We don't know how much oil there is that we haven't found...but I bet there's some...BUT THATS NOT WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT.

'people' as in Joe Sixpack. He thinks we're going to run out.

How many people realize that the middle easy ISNT the richest oil source in the world? It's not. It's the richest production of oil in the world. It's the largest riches that have been exploited.

There is oil gallore in Canada, and in the US even. There is oil in the gulf. There is oil on the seafloor, we haven't ever tapped. There is oil in the pacific, we haven't ever tapped. There is oil in Colorado (trapped in shale) we have not yet been able to tap (CHEAPLY enough that is). There is oil in sand, same deal.

In the mideast the geology is different. The oil is all trapped on plates of rock. It justs sits there, in a nice little bubble, waiting for someone to stab a straw in it and suck it out.

When the oil is mixed with the rock, or when the oil is mixed with sand, or when the oil is under a thousand feet of water, things are more complicated.

But the point is: the oil trapped in the obvious places in convienent ways is running out. But most of the oil out there we have not even yet BEGUN to exploit and explore.

"But most of the oil out there we have not even yet BEGUN to exploit and explore."

And I don't think we EVER will.

Another 10-20 years and you'll see oil being replaced by other sources of energy. That's happening right now, but it will be quite significant by then and probably accelerating exponentially.

MJ, your caution against overreaction is warranted, but the majority of your response is as much an attitude as a set of ideas. Of course people are always looking for the next apocalypse (even God-fearing people do that). But does that mean there will never be any big disasters? I think people get trapped into thinking that because the world hasn't changed much since they were born, or much in the last fifty years, it's not going to be very different in the future. I'm sure the Romans thought that at a certain point. Yes, caution against overreaction is warranted, but that is not sufficient to dismiss a credible issue (i.e. end of cheap oil). Disasters do happen, empires do fall.

I am more than well-aware that there are other sources of energy. It's pretty much built into my argument. The problem is not the inaccessibility of other forms of energy, but their expense, portability, output and convertability. You are very correct in lauding the virtues of oil. It is not easily replacable to say the least. There is no doubt that EVENTUALLY some replacement technology will be found. But it could actually make a big difference if we invent this in ten years versus fifty.

I do not think the world is going to come to an end, or we'll be fighting in Thunderdome anytime soon. What we might see is horrible worldwide suffering and the end of the US supremacy. At the minimum, I predict a much more austere lifestyle, and (more) war over oil (and uranium). If you actually look at the data, you will see that cheap petroleum is currently irreplacable. Just as you dismiss my scenarios as crank-like apocalypse-lovin, I think your approach is hopelessly naive about the power of the market to keep life happy and unchanged. Sometimes the invisible hand has a bitchslap in store for you.

If you want to look at this deeper, take a look at your alternative fuel sources and how much they cost per calorie. When I talk about cost, I'm talking about both the monetary cost AND the energy cost to get the energy where it needs to be (in your car, for example). Ask yourself what would happen to our economy if energy actually costed this much. Keep in mind that the energy cost represents an absolute threshold; if it costs more energy to get the energy, then it's a non-starter.

If I had good links for this, I'd send them to you; my references are of the paper variety, and I don't have them with me to even tell you the names. And though you haven't mentioned it, let's just leave biofuels, hydrogen and similar nonsense out of the picture. If you need me to tell you what's so absurd about those pseudo-options, let me know.

If you really beleive the great evil here is the price at the pump and the impact it will have, you should support ANWR drilling.

Because yes, all ANWR will do will buy time, but that will ease the pump prices. Because, as we speak, the cost of alternative fuels are dropping. As interest increases and as research continues to improve and refine these methods.

When alternative fuels are cheaper then oil, then we'll start to see people switching. The longer we can keep oil cheaper (even only temporarily) the less high oil will have to rise in order to past the ever-dropping cost of alternatives, saving people that pinching period in the middle.

This comes at a cost however! If you ease it like that, you will make it take longer. Higher prices will make it happen sooner. We have global warming nuts claiming the earth is going to blow up if we don't stop using gas right now so, that's something you have to sort out with them. Either way works for me, slow or fast. But fast WILL be painful and slow WILL take time and there is NO other option. Those are simply the choices. You must choose 1.

It's no wonder to me you don't like any of the "plans" out there for dealing with the "oil crisis" because what you want is IMPOSSIBLE. You seem to be concerned with the price of oil....Oil is the CHEAPEST STUFF man! Converting to alternative fuels too soon will be MORE EXPENSIVE NOT LESS. By switching early, you're not saving people money you're costing them more by forcing them to buy into other sources before they've been refined, and before the oil has gotten quite that high. You want something that doesn't exist.

"I think people get trapped into thinking that because the world hasn't changed much since they were born, or much in the last fifty years, it's not going to be very different in the future."

Oh no! I'm sure there will be disasters. If there aren't, then we'll make some. Seriously. There will be.

I dont think you know what they are. I don't know what they are. They will be something that surprises us, not something we expect and predict. When they happen, we will deal with them and move on. That's all there is to it.

As for the oil deal - no, I don't think we shouldn't deal with because crisis can't happen, but because it's not a crisis. I'm looking at the facts man.

You are providing mostly arguments by concensus. That is a logical fallacy but one rarely ever finds logic included in doomsaying.

Can you provide an argument for why this is a crisis without citing concensus?

"Well, there is the unknown unknown. We don't know how much oil there is that we haven't found...but I bet there's some...BUT THATS NOT WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT."

Things you don't know, that you don't know! Oh my GOD you've been taking the "Donald Rumsfeld Communication Classics", available only through Rush Limbaughs must have library. Limited time only, how'd you scoop this one?

Give us all a break McJ! Your anemic argument is a poor excuse for keeping the wanna'be muscle car. There are electronic devices available that make the sounds of screeching tires and air freshners that smell of burning rubber and all use considerable less energy. OK, those who know you understand you're a tightwad so just kick for a kazoo. If you present the argument as fact, at least give the rest of the world the inside track on the supporting info.

"What we might see is horrible worldwide suffering and the end of the US supremacy."

Then the very least you can do is stop citing people and cite numbers, look up the numbers. If you really beleive that, it's well worth your time I think.

You'll find things just don't add up that way.

Alternative fuel sources are not THAT expensive. We could afford them RIGHT NOW. That's why there IS NO crisis. We can afford those sorts of prices RIGHT NOW.

We just don't want to - and why would we? Why pay more then you half to? Why kick yourself in the ass? (Unless it's about climate change)

There's plenty of bitching to be done about future prices, but no room for doomsaying. Many countries have lower PPP GDP per capita and pay much more then we do and do just fine. The government still taxes the piss out of oil. The cars still don't get 70 mpg (which they can do, Ford could be rolling those out in 2007 if it chose to).

But we don't choose to because it's not really a crisis. We still go to the 2.46/g station because we don't want to go through the hassle of making a left hand turn to get to the 2.26/g station. And drive our 8mpg beater cars.

Again, if the price of gas exceeds the price of alternative fuels, we will switch over within 5 to 10 years. That is more then 5 to 10 years away, and the price of those alternative fules are dropping, bringing the cost ever lower and closer to current prices of gasoline.

But, we could afford it RIGHT NOW. So it won't be a crisis in 5 years, it will be even less of problem then, then it is now.

And this is without adding in the fact that, god forbid our spoiled little asses would suffer a bit of headache without thinking the sky is falling. We might have to *Gasp!!!* carpool! Totally greater threat then terrorism!

Sorry for being facetious, but...I'm not. That's only HALF facetious....

We can use less, we can use it more economically when we do use it, we can augment it with other sources which we are doing slowly but surely, and we can afford to stop using it completely if we had too. $7 a gallon will not KILL the US. It warrants bitching, but no doomsaying. Life will go on, it's really not THAT bad. We won't EVER pay more then that because for $7.50 a gallon we can be driving on ethanol or biodiesel or hydrogen cells or natural-gas cars. And if it's REALLY that painfull to people, if they can't afford it, by and large they don't need to! They will just have to make do, drive a hybrid, carpool, conserve! We have that option available to us, if we are not too spoiled to take it without hyperventilating.

BUT, if it still worries you so, DRILL ANWR. Because ANWR may only last a year, maybe 2, maybe 5. But maybe, hope and pray, it will last long enough and delay us long enough for the price of hydrogen (or whatever) to drop to $4/equivalent unit. ANWR is only biding time, but that's really all we need to do - no, scratch that, we don't NEED to do EVEN that, we can suffer the full brunt of this without a nice soft delay. But it might be nice.

And yes, I know plenty of the problems with the hype fuels.

It takes more gas to make ethanol then the gas ethanol replaces. Same deal with hydrogen, which also has many OTHER problems. Fuel cells are really just batteries, not fuel sources. Hydrogen is a gimmick.

This is why all these people demanding we pour money into hydrogen cell research are doing more damn harm then good with thier fear-based reactions.

Look SF: You might figgure this yourself - you talk the politicians into funding energy research for the sake of us, what do you think they'll spend it on? If the 'crisis' is money, what good will wasting what money we have now do on fuel cells?

Don't be so sure you're not just exacerbating the problem with your call to action.

There's ALLWAYS a crisis, we're running out gas, we're running out of copper, we're running out of uranium, we're running out of food, we're running out of earth. There is a finite amount of EARTH, you know. EVERYTHING is limited to some degree. So if you really want to play it safe, revive the overpopulation bandwagon and start calling for mandatory sterilization.

The 'overpopulation' chickenlittism is one that had me going for a while, and it has appeal to me. I happen to think earth would be nicer with 4 billion less people on it. But though it tempts me with 'epic saga for a better future of mankind'-ness, there's PLENTY wrong with those theories, not to mention morally repugnant but thats morals, not logic, and another conversation entirely.

We've been having this problem since we learned how to have problems...In my own opinion - MAYBE we buy ourselves some time going from gas to fission. Then maybe we buy ourselves some time and end up going form fission to fusion. I don't think we're going to run out of fusable materials.

Maybe then we'll go back to food, or land, or raw metals (How bout Iron? We haven't had that one yet. We've been using that stuff up for 4000 years maybe we'll run out).

So maybe it is in part my attitude. But we've been having this discussion for several hundred years at least now, you and I. I know of no way to predict the future save for looking at the past.

I think, in the next century I would like see at any rate, and think it very possible, we will begin moving to entirely renewable 'environmental' energy, and by 'environmental' I mean 21st century versions of steam engines and water mills. Like....well, 21st century watermills and windmills for one.

The 'hype' is mostly hype, hydrogen has problems...but hiddin under the hype, we have some guy who has invented a giant toilet-paper tube. Yes, a tube. With a turbine at the top. The tube is so tall, that there's a 15 degree difference in temperature at the top and bottom.

That creates the draft that spins the turbine. Infinitely. It's a new sort of solar. So simple yet so clever.

This stuff is going to be around in 50 years. It's going to be all over - power utility is going to become decentralized which I think has many advantages, and some people are going to power thier own homes without any grid. Talk about a libertarians dream come true!

(this is part of the reason I dismiss the econuts too. All the changes they demand happen anyway - they just want to make what I'm allready doing painful for me)

I think we'll see this sort of stuff in 50 or 100 years on the long side. We see some of it now! We don't need to stretch the oil much further - If you'll let us friggin drill somewhere else, it will last.

A couple addenda:

We won't EVER pay more then that because for $7.50 a gallon we can be driving on ethanol or biodiesel or hydrogen cells or natural-gas cars.

Well, the problems with these particular fuel sources I was alluding to is the difficulty generating them (as you probably well-know). The problem with natural gas is of course that it is almost a direct substitute for petroleum for many needs, so you might as well lump it in with oil and increase the effective reserves. This leads to the problem with biofuels, which is that they require arable land, and far more critically, fertilizer. How do you make modern fertilizer? Huge natural gas inputs. As for hydrogen, it is a byproduct, not an energy source. Extracting hydrogen from water via electrolysis is the most common (current) source, and that's a real energy loser. Yes, this is basically a low-efficiency battery system; the actual energy must come from elsewhere.

Then the very least you can do is stop citing people and cite numbers, look up the numbers. If you really beleive that, it's well worth your time I think.

Like I said, I just don't have that data in front of me. To be honest, some of it I read about five years ago so I'd have to dig it up from geology books. In an even further disclosure of honesty, when it comes to the kind of consequences I'm citing, I'm obviously not crunching the numbers. I'm just assuming that if you push the price into the $10 and up range, it's going to have a lot more effect than forcing some carpooling.

People have a funny tendency to dwell on the personal motoring aspect of higher oil prices, ignoring the fact that electricity, plastics, agriculture and many other industries directly rely on oil. When the price of, oh, everything goes up, the economy goes down. Take a look at Walmart's business model. Is it sustainable to ship stuff all across the world and country when gas is that expensive? Who is going to pay for that? The effects of expensive ENERGY (not just driving) ripple through the entire economy.

Anyway, I guess we'll see. Even if I'm right, given human nature, I don't expect anyone to do anything until it's already quite painful. So maybe I expect too much from the political parties. And I was also with you on the population thing. But it was a reasonable thing to be concerned about. Just as it is foolish to take every apocalypse story seriously, it's obviously just as dumb (maybe dumber) to ignore it out of course. Given what we knew, it was a justified concern. We were wrong...that's a good thing! It doesn't mean we should assume any such thing is bullshit.

"I'm just assuming that if you push the price into the $10 and up range, it's going to have a lot more effect than forcing some carpooling."

Well this is precisely what I am talking about. No time now, but I will find some numbers for you. Check back some time or another...I shall return...