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And as I sit here and ponder filling my gas tank tomorrow on the way to the hospital at $3.25 a gallon, I wonder WTF is wrong with us?!?!
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As oil becomes more expensive, alternative energy sources become economically viable. It's really just as simple as the fact that alternative energy is more expensive to use than combustible fossil fuels.
At some point this will change, (already happening), and we will start to see more and more alternative energy options.
For example, Canada has tons of
shale oil, (I know, still fossil fuels) but it isn't economically feasible to extract until oil hits ~$70/barrel. Now that oil has been over that threshold for quite sometime, you will start to see investment into the refinement of shale oil.
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Why doesn’t the government force us to make use of more renewable forms of energy?
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Change should be adopted because people have an economic incentive to do so. (i.e. they are paying more for oil than other energy sources), not because the government forces action.
Government action has tons of unintended consequences, some of which lead to creating a bigger problem than existed in the first place.
Corn based ethanol comes to my mind. The U.S. is handing out large subsidies to corn farmers to produce corn for ethanol, which in turn is driving up the global demand for corn, which in turn is driving up the price of corn on the free market, which in turn is making corn (many third world countries primary food source) much more expensive.
Corn is also the primary grain used in livestock feed, so as the price of corn goes up, so do items such as milk, beef, chicken, eggs, etc.
Other problems with corn ethanol, is that the amount of energy required to create 1 "unit" of ethanol energy, is greater than the energy required.
Sugar ethanol (primarily produced by Brazil) is much more energy efficient than corn ethanol, yet due mostly to tariffs and import regulations, the U.S. doesn't produce it, and instead hands out government subsidies to U.S. farmers who grow corn for ethanol.
Sorry if this belongs in politics, people's misconceptions about economics and energy is a pet peeve of mine.