Posted by
lge on Wednesday, November 04, 2009 7:39:28 PM
My prescription for our dependency on imported oil:
According to the New York Times (from the Census Bureau figures for 2000), there are 36.1 million households with one car, which is "
34.2 percent of
the population . . . two-car
households account for 38.4 percent, and households with three or more
cars total 17.1 percent."
OK, let me check my math here: we have 89.7 percent of households with one or more vehicles. We have 55.5 percent of households with two or more. So 55.5 / 89.7
car-driving households, or 61.8 % of car-driving households, could replace a car with an electric one. (That doesn't mean 61.8% of cars could be replaced.)
My point is this: people whine and kvetch, saying, "An electric car only gets maybe 100 miles on a charge. How could you go on vacation or on trips with that?" But suppose 61.8 percent of households replaced one (or more) car with an electric one? They could have one electric car for commuting to work every day, and one regular car for over-the-road long trips. (I'd get an electric one,
if it was reasonably priced and
if it could be recharged with house current -- yer darn right I would!)
Anyway, one electric car in 61.8% of households could mean a 50% drop in the gasoline usage. That's worth going for! I don't know what percentage of our
oil imports a 50% drop in
gasoline would be, but I know this: it would put a monkey-wrench in the Arabs' works; it would put a crimp in their tails; it would spoil their beer. Because the main reason the medieval Muslin barbarians can cause so much trouble around the world is, they're loaded (with money).
And then for cheap electricity, we need to build nuclear power plants out the wazoo (or on the Yazoo, or anywhere -- I don't care). That means defeating the Yahoo, Luddite, fanatical-environmentalist spoiled brats on the left -- aye, there's the rub. They don't want us to have access to cheap power and transportation -- they want to return to those pastoral scenes of Merrie Olde England, in days of olde, when knights were bolde, and toilet paper wasn't invented.
I have nothing but contempt for the rotten little creeps.