Quote:
Originally Posted by onlydarksets
That comment was part of a chain of posts discussing the government's role over the past 35 years. It wasn't an out-of-the-blue "let's be mad at the gov't" post.
And of course it serves a purpose - examining our historical approach to this problem should be the basis for choosing a path going forward. We have historically failed to provide oil companies with incentives to find alternative fuels, because they can achieve higher profits without them. Even now, at $4/gallon, consumers are still willing to pick up the tab.
How do you get the oil companies to spend the necessary money to develop alternatives when, as firstdown and SGG have pointed out, they are able to report record profits to Wall Street simply by maintaining the status quo?
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I think SGG has made the point abundantly clear. The incentive already exists for anybody, an oil company or a garage inventor, to develop an alternative fuel source or a mode of transport that does not depend on oil.
The amount of money said inventor stands to make is staggering. I'm not sure why you think we need to incent the oil companies?