Day in and day out, we constantly hear on the new how oil prices are too high, how the barrel of oil has dropped, how McCain and Obama have different ways to save the poor from outrageous gas prices at the pump.

Some want more drilling, others want us to simply move away from oil all together. It’s my opinion that many people are a tad bit to short sighted over their ideas of going from today’s fossil fuel lifestyle to alternative energies such as electric and hydrogen over night. I often wonder if these people ever consider the consequences of such a change towards the lifestyle we have in the US?

Let’s make a list just to get a general idea:

Cars – Imagine having to replace every car in the US with an alternate energy vehicle. Considering the normal way of introducing a new gadget, product or item to the market is to sell it at the highest price possible before lowering the prices for those who could not afford it the first time around. How many people do you think could simply replace the cars they currently own for a new alternative energy car? What about those who can’t afford one at all? With so many used vehicles on the road, some more than a decade or 2 old, unless we plan on making old, used alternate energy models (which makes no sense what so ever) all those people would be forced to get rid of their vehicles, which brings up another problem. What will we do with all these useless cars? Send them to another country? Would we not simply be hypocrites for not truly resolving the gas issue by simply moving the problem to another careless nation? Looks to me like going from fossil fueled vehicles to alternative vehicles is more of a pain that one actually thinks about. This “throw it in the garbage and get a new one” mentality is what drives the average person to believe this can be solved over night. And don’t get me started on Hybrids (which still use gas BTW) or the time it takes to charge an electric car, or the fact that today’s battery technology still sucks when it comes to getting more miles per charge than a gas engine. And BTW, how will we dispose of all the gas vehicles? And what about the people who collect cars, spending so much money on them (antiques, special editions and stuff) and like to drive them? Too many problems cause by what some deem a simple solution.

Airplanes – We all do know airplanes fly on jet fuel, which (I believe we all know) comes from oil. Just think how much a passenger plane cost, hell even a private jet. Imagine having to replace these suckers with some kind of alternate energy flying vehicle that currently does not exist. Last I checked warp engines and anti-gravity devices are still part of sci-fi movies. Anyone seen the hybrid plane around yet?

Trucks – I heard about hybrid trucks from our very own JU certified truck driver Mason. I believe he said they could be good but very expensive. Trucks are expensive as it is. Can you imagine Freightliners, couriers such as Fedex, UPS and DHL, city Buses, being replaced with alternate energy vehicles? I don’t see it happening anytime soon and without crippling the economy in the process by shutting down many of these businesses. Anyone got a real solution to this problem I am all ears.

Businesses – Do I really need to go there? Lay-offs will be the talk of the town, companies will go out of business faster than Burger King can make you a whopper with cheese.

Sports – Hmm, sports? Since when does gas have to do anything with football, baseball or basketball? Not much, those concepts are covered by the car, airplane and truck section. But what about NASCAR? Monster Trucks? Stunt devils, go-carts, motorcycles races and yes, the constant attempts to break that land speed record. All these would either change (and probably go much slower) or disappear all together.

BTW, apply the same concept of getting rid of the cars to all these other examples. I can see it now, a massive graveyard of useless cars, trucks, buses, airplanes (big and small), race cars, motorcycles, go-carts, rocket cars, etc. Of course some of this stuff could be recycled, but that would also cost billions, something Bush ahs been beaten over the head about for using so much of.

So to recap:

To change from fossil fuel to any alternative energy source over night ( a pipe dream I think is what they call it) will reduce or destroy the car industry, truck industry, airplane industry, many businesses, and even NASCAR will never be the same (sorry Jeff Gordon) eventually bringing the US to it’s knees to the world, which will probably be screwed as well. And for those who think we can replace these gas cars with alternate energy vehicles just picture the following vehicles with Jeff Gordon’s car designs on it and you tell me if that is not disturbing:

Wake up people. Alternative energy vehicles and devices are the perfect solution to our problems with oil. But its not gonna happen over knight. Hell, it may not even happen for another decade or 2. We need to deal with today’s oil problems with more oil and more efficient vehicles, fossil fueled vehicles that is. Hybrids are a good start but not the only solution.