Out of couriosity, why would you name biofuels, wind, and solar instead of the obvious realistic alternative fuel which is home grown: natural gas?
One would expect that he was thinking along the lines of renewables. Natural gas of course is not renewable (and of course is also a hydrocarbon). I presume then that the implied vision was one of self-sustainability over a long run, as well as compeitive technological edge.
War.
With?
Which does begs the question, what happened to Belgium ? How did they get out of that level of debt (which I assume they did as they are part of the Euro, which has requirements w.r.t. government debt levels)
As I recall (memory is dim and I am too lazy to look this up, errors apologised for in advance) they had to go on a quasi austerity budget for a bit, jigger their taxes and reform this and that. Generally a bit of a mix of controlling spending (although as memory serves not truly brutally), reforms to increase growth as well as tightening up revenue collection. They remain quite high tax overall and are not that lean… but can be cited as a case of Muddling Through semi successfully.
I would cite them merely as an example that one need not pose the false dilemma of the OP between various disaster scenarios in effect. Not that I would recommend being Belgian mind you.
Changes on the margin in multiple areas (somewhat higher taxes, lowered spending, better investment for growth, etc) can cumulate for larger effects than any single one considered in isolation.
I wonder how Belgium’s budget would have compared with the US in terms of non-discretionary items. I don’t recall exact figures offhand, but I have the impression that the big problem with the US fiscal budget is that there’s only a small and shrinking percentage over which Congress has effective control.
Eh? I think you have confused your state of California with the national government. As far as I have understood, your Constitution grants final and sole bugetary authority to your Congress. Period.
As far as I’m aware in the UK (and the rest of Europe, such as Belgium) pretty much everything is discretionary, there is nothing constitutionally speaking to stop the government of the day abolishing the public health, welfare or defense budget at the stroke of pen (except the political suicide that would result).
Is that not the case in the US ? If the democrats and republican in all branches of government woke up morning and decide that Social Security was the work of satan, would there be anything to stop them saying “Sorry old folks, no free money for you!”, and shutting it down completely from that day forth ?
Well sure, discretionary insofar as Congress could pass a budget that defaults on the national debt or strangles Social Security: but in practical terms, either one would be political suicide. What I’m talking about is the narrowing slice of the budget that is not growing under its own power (either via interest rates or demographics) and is not politically radioactive.
Then DC sanitation workers would be busy cutting down bodies from 535 lamp posts.
Agreed. To stop importing oil is the (long term) goal.
Sort of agreed. The most viable option at this time seems to be ev’s, and those aren’t exactly taking off like a rocket. Large investments in solar and wind-as they are today- can supply a hefty percentage of our energy needs in the long run. Other alternatives can contribute, and then there is always nuclear and domestic hydrocarbons. The million dollar question is do we have the resources to mass- deploy ev’s. Will we run out of lithium for batteries? Are other alternative battery technologies viable? (NiMH batteries can surely play a role)
I dunno, you may be right. Options better than corn ethanol exist- sugar, switchgrass, aquatic plants, cellulosic, maybe hemp, other crops. Any smart option yields better than corn. I see the long-term role of biofuels as backup for hybrid ev’s and so used in much smaller quantities than oil is currently, though if I’m being a fuzzy thinking Green I really ought to be corrected.
If there is a breakthrough in algae oil technology, all bets could be off. But yah, you could say the same thing about a cure-for-cancer technology.
I wonder just how significant of gains? To me it looks like there is an annual $500 billion waiting to be claimed.
My biggest concerns with imported oil are economic. That is followed by supply security and environmental concerns. If we could adjust to the point that we were only importing from this hemisphere I’d feel like it was good progress and a more stable situation, though a lot of countries would be miffed by our taking this approach.
Agreed. We’ll have to wait and see how this little bit of common sense gets pounded into oblivion by the political process.
Good point. Personally I see an overlap between security and energy independence. If there was a way to recruit the military into domestic infrastructure projects-you know, like we do in Iraq- to the tune of $100 billion maybe the war hawks could be satisfied.
wmfellows:
I don’t much like natural gas as a motor fuel. Partly in agreement with wmfellows. And using natural gas as just one source of electricity for ev’s makes more sense. Also, I am not sure how far we want to go with the current techniques of extracting natural gas. Furiously pumping toxic chemicals deep underground to crack up the natural structure seems exactly the kind of thing that could come back and bite us later. For this reason I suspect reserve estimates will turn out to be inflated.
Aside from that, I still think natural gas has a role. Coal too.
Likewise I’m sure to any UK government that decided to abolish the NHS, but the distinction between “Political suicide” and “unconstitutional” is still an important one to make. If there is constitutional barrier to cutting certain services (or to raising taxes), as there is in California, the “Belgian solution” becomes much harder.
What is today’s “political suicide” becomes tomorrow’s political necessity.
Eh, if it comes to that it’ll be six of one and a half dozen of the other. I think there might as well be a constitutional provision in place on Social Security: there’s probably no other issue that would galvanize the states and create momentum for a constitutional amendment in short order.
You do realize that 99% of the fluids used for fracture stimulation is sand and water, right? Also, frac’ing has been used for more than 50 years on millions of wells. I think it is safe to say that it is a pretty safe and reliable technology.
I thought the primary point of the thread was how to reduce the deficit. It was then brought up that much of our energy use is from foreign sources. It then seems like the obvious extension to this would be how do we reduce our dependance on foreign sources of fuel and possibly raise revenues domestically to help our budget. I don’t see how using a renewable which requires government subsidies and is unrealistic to make much of a dent in the usage of foreign sources accomplishes either of the thread’s goals.
Further, while natural gas is clearly a hydrocarbon, it is the cleanest and it is also abundant in the United States. Also, I think it is safe to say that the U.S. has a huge technological edge in production of natural gas.
All debts are resolved in one of two ways, being paid off or written off.
At some point the US will ask for debts to be written off just like every other country since the original national debt of the kingdom of the upper nile.
Yes, the reduction of imports of course not actually being directly related to reduction of the government budget deficit, despite the confusion.
Oil is oil. Foreign or not. You buy it in dollars, and the price is set internationally.
As for renewables, the obvious case to be made is long-term technological competitiveness, given exhaustible hydrocarbons are rather definitely going to see important real price increases in the next decade.
The argument would then be that a near term investment in a long-term competitive edge in technology in this area would carry long-term economic growth benefits.
That is in fact a rather more colourable argument than the fuzzy “reduce imports” line of thinking relative to reduction of budget deficit.
“Foreign sources” is of energy is not the key problem for economic growth, the cost of the energy is, over the long term.
Why do you think the US has a “huge” technological edge in natural gas production?
Leaving aside that peculiar statement, natural gas remains an exhaustible resource, and generically a “legacy” technology relative to energy (of course efficiency progresses, etc). I would suggest that Nat Gas is not going to see major technological advances in terms of methods of usage - technology of energy as it were. Renewables have that potential for long-run gain.
Of course this is not an either or question, but relative to long term economic growth AND thus the impact on a national budget, the technological leap forward has greater potential.
That is not going to happen except in some overheated imagination of the extreme Left or extreme Right.
The US and other industrial nations have worked through far heavier debt loads.