Since the American Government...... just got 11.7 billion dollars from the GM IPO, why wouldn't they use this money to kick off Natural Gas incentives?
They could use the incremental price between importing offshore oil with the cost of domestic NG at the pump and repay the coffers with the savings.
Basically, they would:
- spend 5 billion for the incentives; thereby converting 100,000 trucks to NG
- the 100,000 trucks would burn roughly 2 billion gallons of NG (per year) instead of imported oil
- the pay back time for a truck would be between 6 months and a year
- limit the availability time for the incentives (max. 3 years) to ensure deep penetration of NG conversion sooner
- then after the incentives are withdrawn, further incentivize the switch to NG by adding a "premium" to the licensing of a non-NG truck for commercial use.
After 3 years, the 100,000 trucks would burn roughly 6 billion gallons of imported oil equivalent... the U.S. imports about 5 million barrels of OPEC oil per day... at 40 gallons per barrel that means to U.S imports 20 million gallons of OPEC oil per day... which means the U.S. could essentially see a full pay back for their 5 billion dollars in 300 days worth of oil imports and the other 795 days of the 3 year program would be money in the bank!... at $80.00 per barrel, it costs the U.S. $400 million dollars per day for "OPEC" imports... that does not include the rest that is not OPEC oil (like tar sands oil from Canada)... that means the U.S., over the remaining 795 days of the 3 year program would save $318,000,000,000.00... a 5 billion dollar investment that would return almost 630% in 3 years... what an opportunity; and day by day those savings are ignored.
For any Americans wondering where their tax dollars are going: that is over $1,000.00 for every man, woman, and child, alive in the U.S. today... or $333.00 per person, per year, to ensure there is an ongoing threat of terrorism from "somewhere" in the Middle East.
* Someone check my numbers here, my calculator does not do billions reliably.