My response to Sheih's posting:
Sheih on Sheih: Pariah Leadership and Death of an Economy
Dear Sheih;
at global consumption rate of 1,000 barrel per second (read: Peter Tertzakian - A Thousand Barrels A Second, The coming oil break point and the challenges facing an energy dependent world.) there has to be change of lifestyle. instead of using carbon fuel for burning to power up our car, these molecules can be used as feedstocks to produce new innovative materials that add more value to the economy. i’m a believer in hybrid and introduction of energy efficient cars.
yes, natural gas is cleaner than oil, but keep in mind whatever price you are getting at pump station is highly subsidized! have you ever wonder why shell, bp, caltex, or esso do not retail natural gas? first building pipelines to gas station is expensive and secondly, transporting natural gas via trucks is highly dangerous!
back to government. it’s scary this administration taking the easy way out by cutting spending which only trickle down to contraction in allocation for research in renewable energy for example. or perhaps the recent cut in higher institution budget that can only means less money for research grants!
another disappointment in the measure to cut down subsidy is the failure of government to spell out in details what they will be doing with the savings. what exactly are they going to do to improve the public transport system? how are they going to improve human capital investment to produce more innovators? what sort of long term plan they have in place to solve food supply (esp. rice) shortage in the future? are we opting for nuclear or wind farms or methanol for new source of energy to power up our increasingly reliance on private ownership of automobiles. if brazil has successly introduced biofuel based on ethanol, we could do it here as well. it’s a matter of intention which mechanism will follow through!
My sentiments exactly. I'm also wondering, if Petronas can develop townships via KLCCB, and fund educational institutions like UTP, ALAM, INSTEP (or whatever name it is called now), why not fund a solar farm? a hydroelectric plant? why not fund a renewable energy research facility attached to our many fine universities and fly in experts to figure out which method works best in our part of the world (biofuels?). Why not create a new subsidiary that focuses on mass rapid transportation when it already does ports?
Why everything else, and not things that directly benefit the rakyat?
Posted by: Najah | Friday, June 13, 2008 at 12:14 AM