What is going on with this alternative fuels "strategy" is that politicians and the general population are not scientists and engineers and have not got a single clue what they are talking about. The oil industry conspiracy theories... "monopoly nonsense"... has been disproved around the globe now for the past 40 years... 1000 times over. Countries with monsterous programs researching alternative fuels... and if you can't believe that China, India, Japan, and most of Europe have not tried to figure out a way to come up with an alternate source of energy in every imaginable way... you are a moron.
When you refine a barrel of oil... the components that emerge are unimaginable to the products we utilize in every walk of life. You do not crack a barrel of oil into the numerous hydrocarbon chains and leave anything to waste. In order to get what we aren't discussing doing away with... you get the rest. The ignorance of our "shutting off oil as the primary source of fuel and so much more" is so shortsighted, it borders on retardation. A refinery makes a huge amount of gasoline, diesel, kerosene and avjet just from boiling oil... the initial treatment. We are not going to get plastics, polymers and everything else that goes into medical, fabric, home and automotive and everything else... out of wind, hydro, solar or any of the other elements in our surroundings.
And yes... just like in the housing industry... the market goes down... it hammers 500 other support businesses. The same is true of the oil industry. It is far more reaching into the entire US business culture, for good or bad, than people realize. If the public thinks the price of gasoline is far reaching... just wait to see what the price of jacking the oil industry (a global business) around in this kindergarden approach to "alternative fuels utopia" does to their lives. It isn't going to happen anyway... but watch how much our politicians mess things up in order to find out what they can't ever learn.
Is the general public so stupid after all these years to believe that some other element is yet to be discovered on earth or reachable space... or that scientists haven't attempted just about every chemical combination to transform sources of energy into safe, practical human contraptions? When they talk of alternatives... how about miraculously coming up with an alternative to oxygen. It is one step off of that ridiculous. Even battery materials require petroleum bi-products. The proposed arguments are so non-scientific... the general dumbass public, politicians, and the media are talking pure nonsense. We have entered a zone in our human existence where too many are the recipients of such unbelievable wonders of modern science without having a clue as to how they got them. The general public is so ignorant now... despite being the operators of "Star Trek gadgets"... they don't even realize they are lacking the common sense of a chromagnon man.
We can go back to sticks and stones... "that" is the more probable route. The US, in order to curb the dependence on foreign oil has but limited, practical measures at its disposal. And the word is "curb". More fuel efficient automobiles (gee, that took a lot of thinking)... and that is a decade process when you are in a huge recession. Second, we need to build more nuclear energy facilities... which we are starting to do... another decade process... and who do you think was blocking that path in the last 2 decades... the same neanderthals in the Democratic party that can't figure out what to do about our climate propoganda and CO2 emissions. The other path is by federal "encouragement" for oil drilling off the Florida and California coasts... and in Alaska. You talk about putting people to work while you slowly curtail the use of gas and diesel, work on clean coal and other processing technologies that clean up green house gases... there are a lot of ways to work on these items than to ignorantly go on some stupid "green mission" to tax the crap out of our incredibly large and far-reaching petroleum industry and a population with a megolithic tax burden they have yet to realize.
I haven't even touched on the severity of how stupid and non-scientific the left has approached this subject. The bottom line is... the only people that need be asked... and the others need to shut up... are scientists and engineers that have worked in the petroleum and alternative industry theatres... ask those that are no longer in the industry... if you are so conspiracy-minded (and those people are generally the most ignorant souls I've ever encountered) make certain that they have no monetary or political gain for speaking the absolute truth. They will tell you without a shadow of a doubt what the only practical path forwards are. These absolutely stupid politicians, public blowhards, and university "never have done anything directly in those industries" spokespeople do not have a clue.
Politicians have given the dumbed down public this belief that we can bulldoze trillions of dollars in US infrastructure, and yet achieve tax growth while it declines, while in a monster recession, and convert our economy into alternative businesses... in order to climb out of this deep recession. Can you believe this stupidity?
Ummm... Geaux Cajuns!