A couple of days ago, Jason Vines, vice president of communications for DaimlerChrysler, blasted the oil companies for allegedly manipulating prices and maximizing their profits instead of keeping prices low to help consumers. He said the car companies are developing new technologies and vehicles that are very energy efficient and yet the oil companies are just running to the bank with record profits. Not surprisingly, many environmental groups and anti oil types are smirking a bit while watching the companies battle in the press.
Car companies can accuse big oil of obscene profits only because the auto sector is making so little, but don’t think they wouldn’t trade places in a heartbeat if they could. Oil is riding high because oil is getting scarce due to supply issues both geological and political while demand keeps rising and at the same time, major energy substitutes like nuclear power have been kept offline for so long with massive resistance from environmental groups and unbelievable regulation. Petroleum products are great as a mobile fuel but a poor choice for power generation or heating.
Low cost and widely available electricity from nuclear would keep oil in it’s high value position in the automotive sector. Low cost electricity would also make hydrogen production less costly and would provide inexpensive recharging for electric or plug in hybrid vehicles. A number of environmental advocates like Stewart Brand, previously anti nuclear, have come around entirely and the sooner the rest of that crowd looks at nuclear again we may finally get the energy we need in the quantity we need. For those who think “conservation is the new supply” I may just add that no matter how slow you burn it, sooner or later you have to chop more firewood. Rather than shiver and conserve, lets discover, build and produce alternatives.
Supporters of the free market, like The Kneeslider, don’t believe for a minute that companies are run by angels, in fact, we firmly believe most companies try to maximize their own profit at all times, as they should, leading them to produce what we need and want. Left unchecked, they can make enormous profits at everyone else’s expense but competition from other companies or suppliers of substitute goods, keeps that from happening. Keeping oil’s competitors tied up in regulations just gives oil a free ride and environmental groups who have pushed the resistance to nuclear are actually working for the oil companies’ benefit. Keep thinking windmills and the oil companies chuckle.
It’s puzzling that environmental groups so aware of ecological balance, who say don’t kill the predators off or the prey will get out of hand, seem to miss the competitor relationship in the market and blithely ignore the results of their tinkering. The market, combined with ingenuity and creativity, will supply us with all of the energy we need, unless of course those groups really don’t want us to have lots of energy.
Let the car companies and oil companies take shots at one another, ignore it. Don’t buy into their finger pointing and “those are the bad guys” accusations. Just don’t get in the way of substitutes and competitors for energy products and we’ll have a long future of affordable transportation and vehicles for every use from pure utility to pure fun and I think most of us can appreciate that.
Chrysler Blasts Big Oil – Detroit News
What Jason Vines said
three five says
I don’t mean to harp, as I do enjoy reading this blog, but “The Market®”, unregulated and left to its own devices, will kill itself and all of its competition in order to satisfy its own gluttony. If you actually think that “those damned hippies” are all that stands between the future and new nuclear facilites, you have been reading a bit too much Fukuyama. Big oil and the market that fuels it has a much stronger and well funded interest in making sure that alternate sources of energy are shelved due to danger and whatever other scare tactics they and thier money greased spin factories can come up with. They might even resort to using “environmental” tactics to prevent things like windmills. Do not look to the free market to save you, because the whole time that it has been whispering in your ear that ingenuinty and creativity means profit and good times for all, it has been sharpening its knives to bleed you to death at the first sign that ending your life would raise its profit margins a fraction of a percent.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a couple hotrods and bikes, so Im all for burning some gas and having some fun. I also realize that business is there to make a profit, but I by no means should you trust the market to do what is right for anything aside from satiating its own lust for profit.
kneeslider says
Big oil trying to shelve competition? Shocking!! Of course they do, in fact there’s a very interesting site, Atomic Insights Blog where Rod Adams occasionally points out indications of not only big oil but also big coal interests trying to prevent nuclear power from coming online. He suggests anti nuclear activities are funded by those who aren’t happy with the potential lower cost (and cleaner) competition. “Those damned hippies” might be getting funds supporting their protests from sources they don’t suspect. (And I haven’t read any more Fukayama ever since history refused to end 😉 )
There are realms outside the market where common sense and morals are supreme but when regulating the rapacity of those who would “bleed you to death at the first sign that ending your life would raise its profit margins a fraction of a percent” the market is far better than any alternatives I’ve seen, certainly better than any political solution.
Brian says
It’s not just Big Oil in the mix. It’s also Big Government getting in the way. I had a perfect case in point example last week when I went to visit the fine folks at my local DMV. As my bike was out of state, they wanted nearly $1200 to register (of which about 1,000 of that is “use tax.”). On top of this, they wanted a smog certificate for a nearly new motorcycle. Now I’m no internal combustion pollution expert, but I have to assume any motorcycle adds signficantly less polutants in the air than probably any car on the road today. You’d think for $1,200 they’d let any motorcycle go registered without any questions. Long way of suggesting that if we really want to do something right now, where’s the incentive (tax break, registration reduction, something) to encourage more motorcycle ownership? Why should I have to pay the same amount in registration as some $13,000 Hyundai that’s emitting far more into the air and damaging the roads way more than my bike?