Toyota's Scoop and the Coming Oil Shortage

[brokensymmetry]

"...Toyota sees China as a rapidly expanding economy, which will continue to expand. That will produce a huge increase in demand for automobiles. The motorization of China is already pushing up the price of oil, now at $37.50 a barrel. It is likely to go further and create a world oil shortage. In turn that will create a demand for 'green' cars. The world is changing before our eyes..."

----------------------------
This isn't a long article - and, IMO, well worth a read.

http://www.dailyreckoning.com/home.cfm?loc=/body_headline.cfm&qs=id=3840

[IronLionZion]

1. Kerry will make the US independent of Middle East oil in 10 years

[strategery blunder]

2. He would have to cut oil consumption in half

short of oil going to $100 a barrel, I just don't see how that's going to happen.

Unless he wants to annex Venezuela...

(which I would oppose):grr:

[IronLionZion]

5. that's his plan anyway

he's pushing for more ethanol use and to research renewable energies

[strategery blunder]

6. I'm a skeptic. I refer you to my discussion of renewable energy sources

at <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x6071#6391>.

(This is the eighth post, a response to Reply #1.)

[IronLionZion]

8. Here's the Kerry energy plan

http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/energy/plan.html

some excerpts:

Reducing Oil Dependence by Two Million Barrels of Oil a Day

As much as we currently import From the Middle East

Americans should drive the cars, SUVs, minivans and trucks of their choice, but that these vehicles can be safer, more efficient and affordable. Kerry believes that we should increase our fuel economy standards to 36 miles per gallon by 2015 and will also provide tax incentives for consumers to buy the vehicles they want and incentives for manufacturers to convert factories to build the more efficient vehicles of the future. Taken together these proposals will enhance national security, strengthen the American auto industry, and protect and create jobs.

A Plan to Use Hydrogen Throughout the Nation By 2020

While John Kerry believes our nation needs a strategy to reduce dependence on oil today, he knows we can harness technological innovation and ingenuity to develop a hydrogen-based economy for the future. Hydrogen has great promise as a clean, domestic, and reliable energy source for the future. It has the potential to power our cars at 100 miles per gallon without pollution and, with the right technology, can be produced efficiently from natural gas and coal. Eventually, John Kerry believes that we can build a truly clean and secure economy based on hydrogen -- a clean fuel that we can eventually get entirely from renewable sources from our farms, the wind, solar energy, hydropower and geothermal sources.

Assuring 20 Percent of Electricity Comes From Renewable Sources by 2020

John Kerry believes that America needs a national market for electricity produced from renewable energy, such as wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and hydrogen. Kerry supports a national goal of producing 20 percent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2020. This standard will encourage the market to respond by finding the most efficient and effective way of meeting that goal through a credit trading system.

[strategery blunder]

9. It's a start, but it isn't perfect

please review my discussion of the limitations of alternative energy sources

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x6071#6391>

[NickB79]

10. Increased ethanol use would require MORE oil

Seeing as how ethanol is an energy sink. You use more fossil fuels running the tractors, producing the petroleum-based pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, harvesting, transporting and processing the corn into ethanol than you get back when the ethanol is burned. Biodiesel from soybeans would be preferable, as you do get a net energy gain from that source.

[brokensymmetry]

3. That would be a grand accomplishment.

If he can get it done, he will have earned a place in the history books. But if we could even reduce the dependence, it would help - a lot.

[Ricdude]

7. If he can get it done...

...we can sell the technology rights and patent licenses to other countries as they get more desperate to reduce their fossil fuel consumption.

If we wait, we'll have to buy it from them.

Phrase it as a money-making scheme, and you can get some Republicans to buy into it, too.

[nodictators]

4. The Bu$h devaluation of the dollar is pushing up oil prices

OPEC has considered denominating oil in Euros instead of the dollar. However, so far they haven't done that. Instead, they cut production, which pushes up the prices for the US.

The Europeans have a more valuable Euro which offsets the price increases for them.

If Bu$h "takes" another term in the WH (God forbid) don't be surprised if OPEC switches to the Euro, or a basket of currencies. If so, that will kneecap the US economy.