If we get into a serious food crisis, the US stands to benefit big-time, since we are only producing a small fraction of the food that we potentially could produce in this country.
Yes, but that is long term...what about the short term? I'm afraid there will be huge riots etc. as the people in the suburbs wont sit there and quietly starve to death while the farmers gear up to grow more.
As far as the high price of oil goes, there are so many alternative sources of energy that we have not made much effort to tap into. If oil hits $200, then you will see Americans get serious about wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal energy. There is loads of energy out there. Plus there is an abundance of coal for export, and nuclear is an option.
Sorry, wind is not an option...it simply cant produce even a fraction of the power needed to replace fossil fuels. Solar is an option but would require covering an area half the size of the state of California...cannot be done quickly. Tidal has been researched to death and I don't know of even 1 tidal generating plant...do you? From what I understand about geothermal, there are only a few very rare sites on the planet where it is feasable. Regarding nuclear power, if we were to power the planet using only nuke power, there would only be enough uranium to last 20 years. The other one you didn't mention is hydrogen power...it looks good on paper but requires massive amounts of fossil fuels to produce the hydrogen fuel; we are 20 to 50 years away from any large scale hydrogen use.
The bottom line is that there is a great abundance of energy, which has not been tapped into much, because the Arabs have supplied us with dirt-cheap oil for the past 60 years.
That is what the optomists like to think. They think that while we are cruising the strip in our V-8 that there is a team of scientists working around the clock developing alternate fuel sources. The reality is that nothing is being done on the scale that is necessary to enable a "painless" transition from fossil fuels.
BTW, Honda is coming out with a line of cars propelled by fuel cells this summer in limited numbers in the LA area. It is called the FCX Clarity, IIRC. It is an attractive car, and can be seen at
Honda - The Power of Dreams - The Fuel Cell Vehicle. This is not a regular car, which has been modified to run on fuel cells, but was engineered from the ground up for that purpose. The fuel cells run on hydrogen that is produced from natural gas. The hydrogen is turned into electricity to run an electric motor. IIRC, fuel cells are about 25 to 30% more efficient in obtaining power from fossil fuel than the internal combustion engine. This will create a much greater supply of fuel for vehicles, which are the major consumer of oil worldwide. This innovation alone can cap the price of oil at less than $200, as at that price, they would be selling these cars like hotcakes, and hydrogen stations would be popping up like dandelions. Plus there are absolutely no carbon emissions from these vehicles. These cars are totally quiet, and are no dogs; they have a top speed of approx. 165 km/hr. Another plus for these cars is that you can have your own fueling station right in your garage, where your own equipment can change natural gas into liquefied hydrogen safely. No need to stop at gas stations then!! F*ck you, Exxon!! F*ck you, Saudi Arabia!!
A great idea, but hydrogen fuel technology is in its infancy...it still requires (massive amounts) of non-renewable fossil fuels to manufacture hydrogen fuel.
Chevy is also putting out an electric car in 2010, which will be good for the places where cheap electricity is supplied by nuclear plants.
First of all, nuclear isn't cheap...if it is cheap then it is subsidised by the government. Secondly, nuclear is not a long term solution as explained above...so we are still using fossil fuels to generate the power to charge the electric car...hence not a long term solution.
For all these reasons and more(biofuel, etc.), there is a limit to what people will pay for oil. The faster the price of oil rises, the faster you will see competition develop in the energy market. By allowing speculators to drive the price of oil sky-high, the Arabs are killing the goose that laid the golden egg for them, because oil can be replaced by cheaper fuels, especially by nuclear generation of electricity and by using natural gas to power cars.