I’m probably speaking out of my backside, so there is some pretty good info here: http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/presidents/george-w-bush/

“People like to assume that George got rich from oil speculation. It’s a simpler and more inspiring explanation than the truth. He did launch an oil business, Arbusto Energy, in 1978. But it was a financial disaster from the very beginning and never turned a profit. Fortuitously, it got swallowed up in a 1982 merger with another energy company named Spectrum 7. The merger was engineered by a couple of Bush family friends. For some reason they opted to rescue the son of the Vice President of the United States from his own financial catastrophe and make him the CEO of the merged entity.
Four years later, Spectrum 7 was itself floundering underneath $3 million in debt. Which is when Harken Energy, yet another company run by a family friend, came in and bailed out Bush’s enterprise a second time. George was given a fat wad of stock options and a $120,000 annual salary, but no actual work to do.

Technically, Bush’s official capacity was as a member of the company’s audit committee, charged with overseeing the major deals and transactions to ensure that everything was on the up-and-up. But as the son of the U.S. President, Bush’s true function was to act as a lure for investment money. His task was schmoozing business contacts and outside investors, interested in converting cash into a friendly acquaintanceship with the President’s offspring. And he was good at it. Hi, my name is George Jr. My Daddy lives in the White House. Let me show you around.

This investment capital really helped prop up Harken as it was secretly bleeding money out of every orifice. As a matter of fact, Harken was hiding massive debts through shell companies and byzantine practices masterminded by the now-infamous accounting firm of Arthur Anderson. One such deal was the putative “sale” of Aloha Petroleum to Intercontinental Mining and Resources Ltd in 1989. In actuality, IMR Ltd was just another company owned by three members of Harken’s board. And the terms of the sale were extremely sketchy: although IMR agreed to pay an exorbitant $12 million for Aloha Petroleum, they wouldn’t be required to make any payments for three years. Nevertheless, Harken immediately booked an $8 million profit.

The technical term for that is fraud. But you can’t really blame George for that, can you? It wasn’t like he was serving on the corporation’s audit committee or anything… oh wait, he was. In fact, Bush signed off on the Aloha Petroleum deal. This deception helped maintain the illusion that Harken was — what’s the word? — solvent for several months after it had actually run out of money.

A few weeks before the house of cards finally came tumbling down, Bush engaged in a little insider trading and sold off $848,560 in Harken stock. Then he waited eight months to notify the SEC of his sale.”

Now, regarding alternatives to gasoline powered cars, in Europe they allegedly pay a lot more for gas (I’ve heard $5, $7 a gallon, not sure right now) but they still drive around in regular gasoline or diesel powered cars just like here. The only difference is that the typical car in Europe is a lot smaller than the typical car in America (where huge SUVs are quite popular). People just don’t appreciate what a great and inexpensive technology the gasoline powered combustion engine is.

If a hydrogen economy does happy, we’ll see huge reservoirs of water being used to create huge amounts of hydrogen, or we’ll see thousands of smaller tanks being linked so that the power can transfer through them.

When you’re creating hundreds of millions of “litres” (how is hydrogen measured?) at once, using renewable sources of energy like solar and wind all of a sudden becomes quite feasible.

I too share your enthusiasm for alternative fuels, but I also would like to see us drill ANWR and open up the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The more we can do to mitigate the massive wealth transfer of Americans to religious fanatics and dictators, the better.

There are several ways to get hydrogen out of water, one of which is essentially (really, really simplified) high-powered electric current through the water.

Because water is nearly totally conducive, roughly the same amount is required for 1 litre as any amount above that.

Strictly speaking that isn’t true (more harvesting of the hydrogen does require more power), however the ratio isn’t 1:1 (power required per litre). It’s much more like 1:20 with current technology.

Some of the hydrogen guys I know say this could easily be 1:1000 with proper investment and proper scaling.

I’m not sure if this helps, though I’d be quite happy to put you in touch with some industry insiders and resources you could poke at specifically :)

This is pure bunk. It’s bullshit of the hightest order.

First, there are no major oil companies that see themselves as “oil companies.” They are ENERGY companies. They make their money off of producing energy. And when it makes economic sense to produce energy from sources other than oil, they will do so. It’s either that, or go out of business, because once alternatives make economic sense (which so far, is not the case), then the fuel producers either get on the bandwagon or go out of business.

The only mitigating circumstance here to this assertion is that sustainers often to not recognize disruptive opportunities soon enough (see Clayton Christensen).