If you're a regular reader of my blog then you might suspect that today's title , coupled with a picture of gas prices here in San Diego, is a little ironic...snarky even. You however would be wrong.
Let me be clear, I am not excited about paying 4 and half dollars for a gallon of gas, I'm the one without a job remember. It's just that I understand nothing motivates policy change better then economic pressure, it's the basis of a free market economy. Supply and demand dictate prices, wages, whatever.
So for me, when I see gas at $4.49 and 9/10ths, I see motivation to switch our national dependency on oil, most of it foreign, to something cleaner, less expensive and domestic. Something like natural gas, or solar or wind power.
I understand a switch like that will cost a lot of money but it's not like we aren't already spending a lot of money on our oil addiction. According to T. Boone Pickens we are currently importing 5 million barrels of OPEC oil a day. At $100 a barrel, that's a a serious chunk of change. If we could convert the 8 million 18-wheeler trucks on the road her in America to natural gas engines, the US could save about 3 million barrels of oil a day.
That's 60% of what we import from the Middle East, that is significant. That, in my opinion, is a worthwhile goal.
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