A trend to watch

The Economist reports (thanks to slashdot for the link) on the trend towards finding alternative energy sources. They talk about some of the work being done to produce cars that run on something other than oil, most likely hydrogen-powered fuel cells. The importance to world peace of reducing our dependence on Arab oil cannot be underestimated.

The article talks about ways that the US government can encourage this trend, but indicates that they are not doing as much as they could. This is a huge opportunity for Israel, who would stand to gain the most from reduced dependence on oil. If Israel can encourage research on fuel-cells, then it can be the world leader in something that everyone would benefit from. One way to approach this would be through the tax on cars. Give a large tax break for fuel-efficient cars, and charge no tax on no-fuel (zero-emission) cars. Finally, use the revenue from the ridiculously high car tax (I think it's 100%) for funding Israeli research into fuel-cell cars.

Perhaps in five to ten years, we'll be seeing Americans and Europeans driving around in Israeli-made zero-emission cars.