Why didnt the U.S. look into alternitive fuels in the 70's?

Question

when we had the first gas crisis. Instead of letting car companies continue to make bigger and less efficient engines. Now we have no choice but to pay high prices for fuel. We're stuck. They knew this was coming years ago but did nothing to stop it.

Answer 1

because money is king.

Answer 2

We didn't learn...gas went down so we kinda overlooked it until now(since gas is soaring again). now we did look into it a lil but now nearly as much as we should have

and now that we have another scare we'll look into it again

california actually passed a law a few years back that if car companies didnt make a certain amount of zero emission cars then they wouldnt be able to sell ANY cars in cali. but car companies fought it and got it lifted.

Answer 3

Its all about keeping the rich rich.

Answer 4

Car companies make what people want to buy.  If they made a bumblebee with wheels, no one would buy it because gas was still cheap.  You have plenty of choices for high mileage vehicles.  Didn't you see the handwriting on the wall?  What are you going to do when gas is $10 per gallon?  Have you bought your Prius already, or are you waiting for the plug-in version coming in two years that will get 80-100 mpg?

BTW I do know the government has funded research on fusion energy since the 1970's, which is trying to develop a small, contained Sun in a laboratory.  (Magnetohydrodynamics)

Answer 5

because the gas companies want more and more money and the government and them arrange deals.

Answer 6

I think a few programs started up, but soon after the oil shocks of the 70's, oil got real cheap again.  Crude oil meandered between $10 and $20 a barrell for about 2 decades until it started it's recent climb higher. We had really short memories and soon didn't care how much gas we were using because it was so cheap.

Brazil, on the other hand, learned from their experience, and was able to make themselves energy independent after that crisis by promoting sugarcane ethanol.  So now we're trying the same thing with corn based ethanol, and unfortnately corn ethanol gets a lot less power than sugar based ethanol, so we have to use lots more just to drive the same amount of miles.  We could just import ethanol from Brazil, but first we'd have to repeal all the taxes we slap on them to protect the sugar industry here in the US.  

So basically, we're shooting ourselves in the foot just to protect the profits of a few farmers!  God bless the USA!

Answer 7

1-Fuel wasn't "so expensive" as today , so maybe the need  for "alternate fuel research "wasn't so much a pressing need as today?

2-Also , maybe why should they have "2ND-guessed" the future when there was so  much profit to  be made?~THEN?

3~Research always costs lots of money>

Answer 8

In the 70s,  car companies started making smaller,  more fuel efficient cars.  Before the first fuel crisis,  8 MPG was not uncommon.   By the mid 80s,  40 MPG cars were fairly common.  Then fuel prices started to drop and consumers started buying larger, more powerful cars.  Now,  fuel is expensive and demand for small,  fuel efficient cars is increasing.  Let the market decide,  not the government.   The auto companies will build what they can sell.  Over the last few years,  snowmobilers have been complaining about how much fuel their sleds burn.  The industry has responded with sleds that go 60% further on the same amount of fuel.  Auto manufacturers can and will do the same thing.

Answer 9

We did, ethanol, coal liquefaction, algae oil, solar power, etc. We looked at it all, in fact the studies done in the 1970’s showed the just using algae oil we could replace ALL our fuel needs plus. There were a number of test plants to show that it could be done. The downside was cost, it cost MUCH more to use the alternatives then it did to just buy oil. It just now with oil at over a $100 some of these alternatives now have a chance to succeed. Had we tried to switch in the 1970 it would have really hurt our economy.

Sorry but came down to dollars and jobs.

Answer 10

read "the prize"..history of world oil... in the 70s oil went up to 30/40 a bbl in the 1980s it went to 10 a bbl...any alt fuel would loose large amounts of money