Brilliant solution to gas problem

This isn't entirely my idea, I'm not clever enough.

Everyone's complaining that our dependency on foreign oil is causing not only economic problems at the pump, but ecological problems in the world. Greenhouse gasses are drowning polar bears and making crushed ice out of the polar regions.

The problem is, that we need a cleaner burning, cheaper alternative to petrolium products.

The further problem is, that oil companies have so much money invested in the production of fossil fuels, that they can, and for all we know are, preventing the production of alternative fuel sources to protect their profits.

What if.....and this cramps capitalizm HARDCORE, but it sure would be a solution.

Every dollar in profits that oil companies make selling petolium based products, they keep fifty cents. The government gets the rest to put into research and development on alternative sources.

HOWEVER. Every dollar made by these companies on the production and sales of alternative sources, they keep it all.

This would serve two purposes.

1. It would give the government the funds it needs to speed up production of alternative sources.

2. It would provide incentive for oil companies to either shift their focus to alternative sources that would benefit the economy and environment, or at the very least diversify.

But.....it'll never happen. Ever.

But its not a rotten idea.

Even thought that particular proposal failed, there are numerous government initiatives to foster alternative energy sources, at the state and federal level.  These initiatives include grants for R&D, renewable energy requirements for utilities, subsidies and tax credits for investment, and others.

One can question whether we are doing "enough", but there is a certain amount of time and money being put into this.

Oh, its far from a flawless idea, thats one thing that makes me glad its not my idea.

Maybe.....a price cap? Hell, if we're gonna violate the principals of capitalism once, lets do it again.

tallen, we can't build new refineries, or even update the ones we HAVE. It looks like its for the same reason we're not tapping into out own natural reserves of crude oil. Environmental lobbyists are fighting the production of such facilities tooth and nail, and as a testament to the power they have, we haven't made progress in terms of new refineries in many years.

I'm not saying that the hippies are the only reason we're stuck in this oil quagmire, but its a pretty solit reason from where I sit.

Clark Kent wrote: welcome guest wrote:  Exxon and the like are given Billions to stop Alternative fuel and thier production Please, do tell - details?

You ask and now you shall recieve.

welcome guest wrote: You ask and now you shall recieve. POLITICAL PEDDLING The return ExxonMobil gets for the millions it spends on lobbyists and campaign contributions comes back in the billions. The industry as a whole receives up to $113 billion per year in direct federal subsidies, according to experts. http://www.exxposeexxon.com/ExxonMobil_politics.html

Non-responsive.  $113bn/year in "subsidies" just means they get a bunch of money.  How much of that is actually paying them NOT to do alternatives?  I'm guessing close to zero, unless you are talking about just general incentives for pro-oil behavior?

Many millions, at least, of those subsidies are actually supporting alternative energy.  Millions more have nothing to with energy at all.  So that number is quite misleading.