Most of the American people have finally become aware that if you spend a lot more than you take in, eventually you go broke. That’s as true of countries as of individuals. Exhibit “A” is Greece. The American people are not economists, but they have finally gotten worried enough that they are beginning to rebel against the really, really smart people – those who fancy themselves as our natural aristocracy – and are telling them to stop the madness, or else that natural aristocracy is going to find itself out of office.
Other than budget busting spending, the other big, big project of our really, really smart class is getting away from fossil fuels, NOW! The answer is electric cars. The government part of this is to make gasoline and coal so expensive that people will turn to electricity to run their cars. And the electricity for those cars is going to come from … the plug in the wall. And that plug in the wall is going to be connected to a power station, via a “smart grid” (wouldn’t want a “dumb grid”) which is going to run on … and then a miracle happens.
A real miracle because the government is going to make coal and oil prohibitively expensive. So that power is going to come from wind and solar power and … stop with the questions already. We know what we want, the rest is a detail that’s for the lower classes; the nerds who engineer and build things to make electricity and stuff. We really, really smart people create the concept and it’s up to you guys, you peons whose job it is to actually bring our grand plans to reality and to work out the details. You don't expect us to do all the work for you, don't you?
We know our way works so well because we see what happened when The One gave the order to “plug the damn hole.” Instant success!
So let’s follow Woody Allen’s advice (or was it Tom Friedman) and make Barack Obama dictator. And he can wave his dictatorial wand and scrap the auto fleet and decree that everyone who wants a car shall have an electric car. And if you can’t afford one, you’ll get a free car from Obama/UAW Motors.
And all the people cheered and rushed out to pick up their new electric cars and plugged them into the wall and crashed the electrical system. Because nearly half or our electrical power used to be generated by coal, the rest by natural gas or nuclear power so when the edict went out to stop the use of fossil fuels, the US lost about 75% of its electric generating capacity. In fact, there was barely enough electricity to turn on the lights but not enough to run our air conditioners, electric appliances, factories or office machines. Not a problem, because the White House is supplied by its own stand-by generator and Obama’s golf cart is not air conditioned.
It turns out that if we want to have our electric cars actually, you know, drive us to the store or to work, we’ll have to actually increase the amount of power generated by that dirty old coal. And the pollution from those coal fired plants will be greater than the pollution that those bad old gasoline powered cars ever produced.
But don’t tell that to the really, really smart people because they will call you a class enemy, and accuse you of being in the pay of Big Bad Oil. Because when it comes to really, really smart people who have big ideas, if you come between their dream and reality, the dream always wins. It’s just a little hard to remember when a dream becomes a nightmare.
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