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Are you Hy?

With “An Inconvenient Truth” winning the Oscar for best documentary, we're sure to see even more political pressure driving Washington and the American public towards Hybrids and petroleum alternatives.

With “An Inconvenient Truth” winning the Oscar for best documentary, we're sure to see even more political pressure driving Washington and the American public towards Hybrids and petroleum alternatives. What you don’t already own a Prius?? Well you better find a big landfill for that H2 and get ready ... fossil fuel is about to hit the fan.

Now far be it from me to shout at the wind, but lets not get too hell bent on shaping a world sans gas powered vehicles without first checking our oil so to speak.

What will happen to the world economy without oil and gas? There are 500+ million people in the world, whose countries, lives and futures are predicated on 12 hour days of drilling. If you think Jihad strikes fear in the hearts of the west, make their primary export irrelevant and see what Jihad on hi-octane looks like. Not to mention the power brokers, lobbyists, oil barons, Exxon CEOs and on-the-take politicians. There are several layers of corruption to get through before this ever becomes a reality.
Has anyone talked to the rest of the world about their growing oil needs? Can they afford the new technologies in light of relatively cheap fossil fuels? If you think the world looks bad with US and western gas consumption, wait till the third world starts honking their horns. There are 3+ billion people in southeast Asia that are just starting to get the itch to drive a 2007 Suburban (instead of a bicycle) that might have something to say about constriction of economic growth. Can you imagine someone coming up to the US, say 50 years ago, and saying ..."screw burning coal and gas for energy and driving your economic prosperity. Try a few solar panels and laptop batteries instead"?
The multi-platform dance. Remember when beta and VHS were pounding it out for platform supremacy. How about PC and Mac? How about Netscape and IE? How about … oh you get the idea. Our economic system is predicated on a single big winner with several lesser players. Not a classical monopoly but close enough to drive the market forward in an orderly direction. Financial markets hate instability and chaos. In the hybrid game, there are several contenders each backed by a strong moral center and political body. None have taken a true leadership position. Until they slug it out and a dominant technology takes hold, we’ll all dance around adoption. It's one thing to pick the wrong platform when it comes to a $250 VCR and quite another thing to purchase an unsupported $65,000 electric car (http://news.com.com/Electric+sports+car+ready+to+challenge+Porsche/2100-11389_3-6080269.html). Personally, I like the laptop battery solution so long as Sony isn’t building them (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15254251/).

In summary, I can’t say which technology will finally win out: Hybrids, electric, bio-diesel, hydrogen, air, water, …. But I can say with perfect certainty that two things will happen.

A bunch of people in this world will get very upset by whichever outcome arises and at least one armed conflict will result when US oil consumption drops like a rock.
The winning technology will be powered by something that will instantly become more expensive to buy. The Earth may be 80% water, but the second I need it to fuel my car, it’ll be worth $3 a gallon.