@ A "Kryten" forgets to look into his history
I love Llewellyn, Loved him in Scrapheap Challenge, and in Red Dwarf. I love his rants, even if he's missing some common sense and historical perspective. First, oil/gas companies are "energy" companies. They make money no matter what the source. There's no need for a Petrol Conspiracy.
Second, you can only fill a battery for "pence" now because the rate currently charged for it. When it is the only source of motivation, it *will* go up in price by orders of magnitude. How do we know this for sure? Let's look into the history of everyone's favorite overpriced petroleum distillate. Gasoline, in the early days, was practically a waste product. Oil was needed for many other things, greases, heating oils, and other heavier stuff. What a person paid for at the pump, was for the service to their vehicle (early gasoline cars were even finickier than anything Lucas or Stromberg equipped!) and for the transport and storage of the fuel. The gasoline itself was practically free. Once it became a commodity, that people sought for the product instead of the service, the prices went up. And soon, taxes came along with it.
When states lose the revenue from fuel sales, they will tack them onto whatever fuel comes along to replace it. If our cars were powered by sewage, sh*twater would sell for $3.00 a gallon or higher. Electricity will get the increased tax burden. Speculation and commodity action during CA's last gubernatorial administration, along with Enron's help, made energy vastly more costly than elsewhere in the country even though it was generated here. And that was with a quick bit of mismanagement and fraud. What do you think happens when the terawatts of gasoline energy now have to come from electrical sources? Do you think commodities traders and speculators aren't going to increase the costs of electricity to maximize their profits *like they do now*?
This doesn't even touch the infrastructure expenses, the extra taxes required to handle the tripled, or even quadrupled maximum power transmission needed if everyone changed to electric. main transmission lines would glow and melt under the increased load, houses, apartment buildings would burn their wiring assuming their people could even plug in. In order to fund the extra power plants, the higher capacity wiring substations, there'll be more tax, more fees. Your "pence" for fillups becomes "pounds" comparable with your fuel expenses today. Except now, you pay even if you don't drive. That new big screen plasma TV? You'll be watching episodes of Dr. Who at miles per gallon. Lights will not be rated by wattage but by fuel efficiency.
History has shown us already, repeatedly, that anything that is both necessary to and manufactured by society, will become as expensive as possible. A former waste product becomes the political and financial cornerstone of culture and industry, what couldn't be given away now is the king commodity. Once it was coal. Then steel, then oil, next, lithium, and electricity. You wait and see.
But, I admit, that's not as funny as Llewellyn dropping F bombs like a typical American redneck high schooler..:)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
