Bizarro George

US President George W. Bush urged Congress to encourage development of alternative fuels, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil supplies.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this.

On the one hand, this is welcome news to be celebrated. I have quietly championed alternative energy solutions for a couple of years now, though I haven't been able to actively use alternative power sources all that much myself. Access is limited (BioDiesel), or prohibitively expensive (solar power). However, if Congress makes it a point to incent the development of alternative energy sources, perhaps access and affordability will become less challenging.

On the other hand, Bush has never really come across as the "Environmental President". The cynic in me supposes that his cronies are ready to take advantage of the uptake in demand for non-fossil-fuel sources, therefore now is just the right time to start doling out tax breaks for their efforts. If that's the case, I won't begrudge him too much for it. He'd still be doing the right thing, even if it's for the wrong reasons.

What is troubling to me, however, is that there is no backing off on his plan to drill in the Alaska Natioal Wildlife Preserve. Also, he still wants to invest in additional nuclear power plants and oil refineries. These are not initiatives that I support.

Furthermore, and perhaps most maddening, is that there doesn't seem to be any talk of actually conserving fuel, especially that used by automobiles. There is really very little need to encourage people to buy gas guzzling SUVs. In fact, given the technology that already exists, there is no need for SUVs to guzzle gas the way that they do. Automobile manufacturers complain that it would be too expensive to implement this technology in automobile production - but don't the costs ultimately get passed down to the consumers? And if they're afraid that the consumers will balk at paying the higher prices, why don't they provide tax incentives to people who drive fuel-efficient automobiles? Ultimately, that works as the government subsidizing the auto industry (by increasing demand for their products), just someone else gets the tax refund.

(Also, people are willing to wait to pay full price for a hybrid vehicle. Doesn't it follow that they might be willing to pay a little more for a readily-available fuel-efficient car? The demand for this product isn't driven by cost, it's driven by the fact that fuel conservation is a desired goal for many consumers.)

I clearly have a good-sized rant in me on this topic, but I'll need time to complete some research to do it justice. I believe that one of the most important things that this country can do in the name of national security, is to make it fuel conservation seem Patriotic. Hell, we already think that we don't need anything from any other countries, why can't we extend that to, "We're Americans, we don't need your stinkin' oil"?

In the meantime, I'll take Bush's speech to be a good sign. At the very least maybe the Alternative Energy industry will become mainstream, and make more jobs available to people who care about the cause. (Like, for example, me!)