Diary of a Mad Voter: Joan McCarter
Got Fossil Fuels?
By Joan McCarter, 7-11-08
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The Billings Gazette has been running a poll on their front page this week, asking “How high do gas prices need to go before you make significant changes in your driving habits?” At last check, a whopping 78% of button clickers in this decidedly non-scientific poll say they have already changed their driving habits.
In the confines of that little box on the front page of the online paper, you can’t drill down to exactly what habits have changed. Are people doing little things like making sure tires are properly inflated and driving 55 (I’ll admit freely, that one is the hardest for me), and reducing and combining trips to conserve or are they going whole hog and trading in their Suburbans for Priuses or using biodiesel in their pickups. Wherever they fall along the spectrum of conservation, it’s at least encouraging that 78 percent of Gazette readers are doing their part. What’s less heartening is the probability that they are doing so because they just can’t afford not to.
For those of us of a certain age, there’s a real feeling a deja vu this week. Between the president’s illegal wiretapping of Americans and skyrocketing gas prices, it’s like living in the early 1970s all over again. Back in the 1970s, Congress responded to the first challenge by curtailing the president’s powers and protecting our civil liberties. I guess that idea went out along with wood paneling, avocado green appliances, and bell bottoms as far as the current Congress is concerned. Let’s see if they can do any better this time around with our energy crisis.
With oil prices hitting another new record today, to $147 a barrel, it’s safe to say we’ll never see that once unfathomable $100 a barrel ever again. That brings the inevitable cries from the “drain every last drop” crowd that we have to open up the Arctic Refuge and we have to start drilling offshore. All this despite the fact, as one of my Daily Kos colleagues has pointed out:
- Oil companies already hold over 7,000 leases for offshore drilling that stretch over 68 million acres.
- US Oil Production peaked in 1974 and no amount of drilling will reverse that trend or eliminate imports of oil.
- Drilling close to US shores has been the source of environmental disaster and that drilling the areas proposed this time threatens both scenic and environmentally sensitive areas.
- Drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge won’t affect oil prices at all in the short term, and will have very little impact in the long term.
Ah, talk about inconvenient truths. One of our Congressional leaders, Nancy Pelosi--the one who decided we didn’t really need civil liberties so much--has at least been willing to call the push for more drilling in environmentally sensitive areas what it is, a hoax “This call for drilling in areas that are protected is a hoax, it’s an absolute hoax on the part of the Republicans and this administration” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “It’s a decoy to punt your attention away from the fact that their policies have produced $4-a-gallon gasoline.”
The plan put forward by the Democrats thus far to counter the push for more drilling sites is actually pretty sensible. It goes back to that point about the oil companies already holding those more than 7,000 unused leases. They’re calling it Use It or Lose It:
The 68 million acres of leased but inactive federal land have the potential to produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. This would nearly double total U.S. oil production, and increase natural gas production by 75 percent. It would also cut U.S. oil imports by more than one-third, reducing America’s dependency on foreign oil.
The Rahall bill would force oil and gas companies to either produce or give up federal onshore and offshore leases they are stockpiling by barring the companies from obtaining any more leases unless they can demonstrate that they are producing oil and gas, or are diligently developing the leases they already hold, during the initial term of the leases.
Congressional Republicans counter this argument by saying the proposal ignores the reality that it often takes years of prospecting to determine where accessible fossil fuel reserves exist. To which there’s a simple answer--the same holds true for all those new sites they want to get their grubby hands on. Let’s call this what it is, another attempt to use a crisis for another massive land grab for big oil. Kind of like the Iraq war.
Which again turns my thoughts back to the 1970s and another unpopular president who, nonetheless, had a pretty good plan.
The first principle is that we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices.
The second principle is that healthy economic growth must continue. Only by saving energy can we maintain our standard of living and keep our people at work. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
The third principle is that we must protect the environment. Our energy problems have the same cause as our environmental problems—wasteful use of resources. Conservation helps us solve both at once.
The fourth principle is that we must reduce our vulnerability to potentially devastating embargoes. We can protect ourselves from uncertain supplies by reducing our demand for oil, making the most of our abundant resources such as coal, and developing a strategic petroleum reserve.
The fifth principle is that we must be fair. Our solutions must ask equal sacrifices from every region, every class of people, every interest group. Industry will have to do its part to conserve, just as the consumers will. The energy producers deserve fair treatment, but we will not let the oil companies profiteer.
The sixth principle, and the cornerstone of our policy, is to reduce the demand through conservation. Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way we can buy a barrel of oil for a few dollars. It costs about $13 to waste it.
The seventh principle is that prices should generally reflect the true replacement costs of energy. We are only cheating ourselves if we make energy artificially cheap and use more than we can really afford.
The eighth principle is that government policies must be predictable and certain. Both consumers and producers need policies they can count on so they can plan ahead. This is one reason I am working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy, to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy.
The ninth principle is that we must conserve the fuels that are scarcest and make the most of those that are more plentiful. We can’t continue to use oil and gas for 75 percent of our consumption when they make up seven percent of our domestic reserves. We need to shift to plentiful coal while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy.
The tenth principle is that we must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century.
It all sounds so sensible now. Just think, where would be now if we listened to Jimmy Carter then? We might still be facing nearly $150/barrel oil, but chances are it wouldn’t be so devastating to our economy. Food for thought in the silly season of the summer before an election.
Editor’s note: Joan McCarter’s weekly blogs are part of NewWest.Net/Politics’ “Diary of a Mad Voter” feature, a group blog, published in partnership with the Denver Post’s Politics West intended give a glimpse into the hearts and minds of several independent-minded voters and thinkers in the Rocky Mountain West in the ‘08 election cycle. For more columns check in with www.newwest.net/madvoter. And for more information on each of the bloggers, click here.
No mater what you think of President Bush, the price of gas has doubled in the year and a half the Dems have controlled congress. That is pretty scary, especially if we face another 4 1/2 of the same.
You do realize that President Nixon started the 55mph don't you? It is definitely time to reinstate it now, and impose a rationing of gas. That would have to take into consideration the distance workers had to drive, truckers, buses, farmers, ranchers, miners, etc. But it would probably curtail recreational driving to an extent. That would only be in effect until we could get more of our oil and alternatives on the market.
We have to drill our own supplies, and drill now to have a supply in the next few years. It is going to take a decade at the least to have adequate alternative fuels available....and that will only be if environmental lawsuits are eliminated, and if nuclear plants are able to be built. The time and money that those who would provide us with more refineries or alternative fuels are presently at the mercy of environmental groups who make far too much money filing lawsuits to voluntarily give up even for the sake of the country.
Mineral rights that are leased and not drilled on are a red herring. They pay for leasing those parcels "just in case", and they do pay for them even if they are worthless. The same is true of privately owned mineral rights. My parents got mineral rights with their ranch when they bought it in 1942, those rights have been leased to oil companies over the years even though no one has felt there was enough liklihood to make drilling a test hole worthwhile. They can lease at a fairly reasonable rate, hedging their bets as it were, drilling a dry hole costs millions. If oil companies only lease land where they know they can get oil that is a sizeable chunk of cash not going to our government. Just because they have them leased doesn't mean they do a thing with them. You can camp, drive, whatever.
Yes, we need alternative fuels, but that takes a long time to develop, and we need fuel in the meantime. One of the best things we could do is suspend the right of environmental groups to keep filing lawsuits to prevent drilling, mining, building refineries, building generating plants, building wind farms, building nuclear plants, and anything else they can think of.
The president did not break the law when he had phone calls from terrorists intercepted. I do not believe there has been a single case of an improper intercept documented. And of course we heard all of the BS about "Bush lied" about WMDs, I'd say that 500+ tons of yellowcake would go a long way toward creating a world wide disaster in Sadams hands.
The G.O.P. controlled congress from 1994 until 2006.
The Democrats have not controlled it yet, marian.
You are engaging in dissimulation of the most obvious kinds.
When the Democrats have a veto-proof congress like BUSHISTAs had for six years, then what you're whistling may get some to dancers...
We know absolutely nothing about whose calls have been intercepted except that American citizens were involved and warrants were not. That makes it Unconstitutional by definition, and that is exactly what that judge ruled last week.
And because it is still secret, that is why there is no "improper" intercepts. I would explain to you how absence of a positive does not prove a negative, but that is one of those higher logic functions like learning that climate is not weather that you have showed you cannot grasp.
"One of the best things we could do is suspend the right of environmental groups to keep filing lawsuits." Wow.
The right to go to court is something that makes us a free nation. If you don't want people to have due access to the legal system, there are plenty of countries like China or Cuba you could move to.
Dems have had control, virtually everything theat might need discussion has been held up by Pelosi and Reid. That is why congress has now reached a whopping 9% approval rating, and believe me the Repubs have earned their share of that too. The Democrat congress and their enviro friends are the reason that gas is now doubled in 18 months since they took over.
Dems are so beholden to the enviros for support and $$$$$ that they will let the country tank rather than try to rein them in.
I realize that no kook can be forbidden to use the courts, but certainly they should not be allowed to sue hand picked judges that routinely hear their cases and routinely rule for them. It certainly would not hamper their rights to forbid judge shopping, and they should be laible for all costs to the courts and to the victim of their lawsuits.
Judge shopping is why Yellowstone snowmobile rules were heard in DC, not Wyoming, it is why a suit against Wyoming wolf management is filed in Montana, not Wyoming. They do not have a constitutional right to pick their own judge.
Right now the US is in desperate straits needing our own fuel ASAP, but the enviros just keep filing lawsuits, here is teh latest against a refinery that has jumped thru all of the hoops to get a permit to expand, which is needed very badly, but now the enviros are suing to increase the restrictions and make them start all over.
http://www.bnd.com/breaking_news/story/393190.html
In my opinion that borders on treason.
By the way I know that temperatures, precipitation, winds all make up weather and prevailing weather patterns make up climate, so yes I know the difference and the fact they all go together.
If you know what climate is why do keep saying things like: my tongue stuck to a pole today, therefore Global Warming does not exist?
And why are refiners running at around 70-80% capacity if we need more refineries?
Refineries are so old that they kleep breaking down. Nothing can run at 100% for years on end. The "new" plants are now over 30 years old.
I try to point out to you guys that the weather/climate is not universally changing. And in fact now we find out the climate has been cooling since 1998. When folks start insisting something is global, that takes in a lot of territory. The vvery fact that the antarctic ice is increasing while the artic is thinning would indicate a natural phenomenen such as the earth tilting a little. there is no money to be made, nor pwoer to be gained by trying to force people to run to the other side of the earth to prevent the tilt. Make no mistake GW is a big money maker and poweer grabber for some.
Do I believe we should mess up everything? Absolutely NOT. But we each need to start with our selves, our homes, yards, when that is clean and energy effiecient, then work on our town/community, then when that is good on to our state, etc. Trying to impose restrictions on nations is ridiculous, and it will not work.
The problem with the GW believers it is a religion that they are determined to force everybody ELSE to adhere to, but not themselves. Can you imagine the screams from the global warming believers on the left if the President imposed a 55mph and gas rationing (which he surely should do)? They would how like a coyote despite their insistence that we are using too much fuel. what they really mean is everyone else should be curtailed, not the "believers".
"The very fact that the antarctic ice is increasing while the artic [sic] is thinning would indicate a natural phenomenen [sic] such as the earth [sic] tilting a little. there [sic] is no money to be made, nor pwoer [sic] to be gained by trying to force people to run to the other side of the earth [sic] to prevent the tilt."
Marion, I am a geologist. The reason that Antarctica is seeing more ice in the interior is air hold very little moisture when it gets below a certain temperature. Now I don't remember exactly what that temperature is, but I remember from Earth System classes that Antarctica was right on the bubble of holding more moisture, but still so cold that snow doesn't really melt in the summer. Now at the present, most of Antarctica gets under 1/2 inch of snow a year, the reason it has glaciers is because almost none of it ever melts.
Now if you increase the air temperature of Antarctica to where you create more snow, but you still don't melt it, you grow your ice shield.
Geologists predicted that effect of Global Climate Change Theory a long time ago, and while you bring it up to contradict this theory, you are actually endorsing Global Warming Theory.
Now I could make fun of you for proving the opposite of what you want to, but I'm getting tired of it. Look, people lied to you, all the Rush Limbaugh's and whatnot. They keep lying to you about a number of issues. They keep doing it. Ask yourself why.
I know you are getting really frustrated and angry about it too, your spelling and grammar is going to the dogs.
Just the other day, I actually told someone about how frustrating your misinformation was (one of the contributors to this site actually), and that I could simply pass you off as a moron, but I really knew you were smarter than that because you had good spelling. So if you are starting to spell really bad, you are getting frustrated...we are all the sons or daughters of ranchers here out west. I own stock in a refiner that is getting destroyed on Wall Street because gas is too cheap (yes too cheap; look at the yearly trend for FTO --who refines in Cheyenne).
Your right wing buddies are lying to you, I'm sorry, but I'll keep pointing that out if you keep passing their misinformation along.
Talk (and misspell yourself) all you want, you will never convince me that global warming is why the temperatures are getting cooler. I'm not angry or frustrated at all, I think it is really funny that anyone thinks they are powerful enough to change the weather. I must admit to being amazed at the hatred and venom spewed by those "believers" toward those that disagree with them.
Comment By Inky, 7-13-08Wow, kinda like watching a tennis match between flounder and marion.
Marion is a perfect example of the fact that people aren't rational, so much as they are rationalizing. She has a set of assumptions and beliefs that have ossified, and although she does display native intelligence, she works overtime in defense of those assumptions and carefully cherry-picks data that supports her cause and disregards the less.
Marion is Legion, a superb example of rural, red-state Americana -- people who look at the source first, before considering the information they bear. If the bearer of information is of the red-state tribe, the information is embraced and defended as fiercely as a mother grizzly defends her cubs. Information from outside the 'tribe' is to be distrusted and destroyed.
One of the reasons that Rusho and other hate-jocks have been so successful, is that they offer the beleagured Marions of the nation a great deal of comfort, telling the marions that they're right and the rest of the world (pointy-headed academics, environmental wackos, femi-nazis and 'librul' media) is wrong, now and forever and ever, Amen.
Ironically, all these marions seem to function fairly well in the day-to-day local world, able to assess whether that neighbor is to be trusted, or that other neighbor is to be kept at arm's distance, not pre-judging data.
One idea this Marion can't seem to grasp, is that weather and climate are energy-based machines forever seeking equilibrium. As global warming brings ever more energy (heat) into the system, the system responds more energetically, with greater variability. Greater variability has produced a cooler, wetter spring and summer in the Greater Yellowstone, after years of warmer, drier weather and drought. Over time and with ever-greater amounts of global-warming energy at work within the system, we will have greater variability than we've seen before -- cold, heat, flood, drought -- extremes that are hard to grasp, coming hard upon the heels of the other.
Ultimately, it is more important for the marions of the New West to hold onto their comfortable myths than it is to deal with emerging and ever-stronger truths. I certainly don't hate Marion -- I just hope she and others will look afresh at the data, pushing assumptions and bias aside. That is very difficult and painful to do.
Northern Hemishere ice: arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
Southern Hemisphere ice: arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
Temperature trend: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1980/to:2010
and
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980/to:2010
++++++++++++++
With more ice and lowering temperatures, what is going on?????
I think you have the hatred and venom thing all wrong. It is denialists that call Al Gore "fat" and a "fag" [Ann Coulter], remember?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html?_r=1&hp;&oref;=slogin
Every time Marie Brossman writes a letter to the Casper Star Tribune about how much she hates environmentalists and Al Gore you gleefully comment about how you agree. But you don't like hatred or venom?
Well, you keep writing ignorant things, I'm going to keep on mocking them. I wish you'd get back on the whole 'computers are going to enslave mankind by tricking us with carbon dating' thing though. That was funny. And maybe a little sad.
Amen and the same to their mothers!
Comment By jwscotch, 7-14-08"From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." We're there!
Comment By milton, 7-14-08Both Nixon and Carter put in very good energy saving and conversion legislation. The great communicator Ronald Reagan reversed all of the good they had done. He even went so far as to remove the already paid for solar collectors on the white house. Then the OIL presidency of George Bush got into the white house and completely sold out the American people. Remember that oil had already tripled in price before the democrats got their majorities. This would indicate that the doubling that took place after the Dems got in was just a continuation of the president's policies in action. Marion might want to quit watching the Fascist News Channel. They do pass out a lot of wrong information which makes their followers easy to spot.
Comment By Marion, 7-14-08How many years did it take for the prices to get to the 2.09 when the Dems took over 18 months ago? The Dems ran specifically on bringing oil prices down remember? Instead they feather their own nests with the enviros who want to have total contol of the country...world actually. The enviros have been buying power for a number of years now.
Comment By Go W young Dems,California's the place you oughta , 7-15-08Flounder and Milton, Murphy’s Laws states: Never argue with a fool because some people can’t tell the difference.
You two should chill out, inhale through the nose/exhale through the mouth, relax, think more and type less.
Flounder, were there climate changes before humans and cars?
Marion, the Dems ran on bringing oil prices down, but Obama is showing us just what kind of change he means just like the Dems before him. He has already waffled on positions since confirming candidacy. Who knows what he’ll change next?
Flounder, never mind Inky answered my question.
Inky, you are correct “weather and climate are energy-based machines forever seeking equilibrium.” The key word here is “forever.” Global warming and cooling has occurred before man existed and will continue ….well forever.
Speaking of polls, there is this: http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=300928991943505
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Will To Drill Is Strong, Poll Finds; Climate Change Pales As Concern
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 7/14/2008
Contrary to claims by Al Gore and others that global warming is the greatest challenge of our time, Americans by better than 3-to-1 say the price of gasoline is a bigger problem now, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll.
Moreover, they stand willing to do something about it, including and especially drilling for oil in the Outer Continental Shelf and in federal shale reserves in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.
Even drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is backed by a plurality of Americans.
The poll of 920 adults taken last week shows that 73% think "fuel prices at the pump" are a bigger problem for the country than climate change, the new term for global warming.
Only 23% say climate change is more important.
The sentiment prevails across the board — among men and women, old and young, rich and poor, and Republicans, independents and Democrats, two-thirds of whom say gas prices are more important.
Support for offshore drilling and oil shale development is also broad-based, with the former favored by 64% of respondents and the latter by 65%.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Did I miss an election? I never heard of Dems running on bringing the price of gas down. How stupid. I heard of one where they ran against the corruption and negligence of Abramoff, Ney, Foley, Cunningham, Craig, Stevens, etc.
I'll give you they were supposed to stand up to the Decider on Iraq too...they haven't quite got there, but having contemptible Joe Lieberman in the Senate and the "Bush Dog" fake Democrats in the House really ties their hands. Those people will be less of a problem come Jan.
You should read this speech given by Jimmy Carter 29 year ago.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/mourning-in-america-by-digby-jonathan.html
You people deserve $10 a gallon gasoline.
It is beyond belief that some would suggest that oil will only rise to $150 a barrel when there are no
movements to increase supply it could rise to $2000 or $10,000 just as easy, and it is the pure folly to
believe that some windmill will replace oil, every thing that you touch eat or wear has oil in it some
where. This Congress is deleterious in its duties it has used political wind to distort fact into fiction.
Orson Wells did not accomplish what Al Gore and Hollywood have in the destruction of a world
economy
I worked 10 years as a diver in the gulf of Mexico on oil rigs and pipelines. Since then i put in 27 years as a boilermaker building power plants and repairing refineries. Drilling oil off the continental shelf will do diddly squat to relieve gas prices. With luck in 10 years they will help hold prices down a bit. Oil will not go to $1000/bar. Figure $30/gal. of gas. Simply because long before it gets there no one will be able to afford it. Already American drivers have cut back 4% of their use. That is the real answer of course. Energy efficiency. It is faster and much cheaper than drilling for new oil and the result is guaranteed. No dry holes. No wars do get oil. Europe uses about 1/2 of the oil per capita that we do,Japan about 1/3. That should be our goal,to be 50% more efficient and you don't have to drill a single oil well to do it. In 1986 president Reagan removed all of the energy efficiency measures taken by presidents Nixon and Carter after the 1973 oil embargo. If we had continued saving energy at the rate we were in 1985 we would be importing NO OIL at this time. That is according to the worlds leading expert and pentagon adviser Amory Lovins. In the last 12 months we have spent $796 billion on imported oil. This has caused the value of the dollar to drop, raising the price of every thing we use because now everything is part of a global market. This is bankrupting America.
As to windmills. Billionaire T. Boone Pickens states that windmills can replace most if not all of the natural gas used for electricity. This natural gas can then be used for transportation fuel. He is putting $100s of millions of dollars into this ,starting in Texas. Another advantage of windmills is that they don't use water to produce electricity. All forms of thermal electric power plants do. In case no one has noticed water is getting short in many places. If you start the plans to build a nuclear power plant and start building a wind farm at the same time. The nuke will take 10 years at least to get on line. The wind farm about 3 years and power will will be on line as each windmill is finished, not when the wind farm is complete. 67 out of 173 tanks of hazardous nuclear waste at Hannford Washington have leaked millions of gallons of nuclear waste into the ground and the Columbia river. Energy efficiency is by far the least polluting,cheapest,fastest safest energy source available.
"some would suggest that oil will only rise to $150 a barrel" Read that Carter Speech. You deserve $300/barrel oil Chip Westbrook, because your a Reaganite supply sider who's whining about supply and demand. There are leases to be had, I'm drilling a well right now, quit whining, buy your own lease and drill a well or two. thanks to the Bush McSame Republican economy a big shot like you should have plenty of money to do that.
Comment By Bobarian, 7-17-08Offshore, onshore, whatever. I've never seen a woman in more dire need of a good drilling than Nancy Pelosi.
Comment By Bobarian, 7-17-08Wind generators? You do realize that the brazillian tons of steel used to build a wind generator is smelted by a coal-fired foundry, right? And you do understand that in its entire lifetime, a wind generator will not produce enough power to build, say, a wind generator? No, I didn't think you did.
Comment By chip westbrook, 7-17-08The point is “every thing that you touch eat or wear has oil in it some where” even your wind mill.
this Internet is consuming fossil fuels the amount of fuel used in your car is minimal compared to all other
demands. Finding oil is tough that has been my business dry holes yes I have looked at holes 18,000 feet deep with more oil around the top then at the bottom. I can also show you flair stacks rning from fifty to one hundred years consuming as much natural gas as it would take to heat the city of Chicago
every day. natural gas is constantly being made in the earth crust and on the surface but you cant carry it in an open bucket. A good job pays $20 to $25 an hour and Gas is at $4 now in 1950 a good job payer $0.75 to $1 an hour and Gas at $0.20. Not much change.
A good modest house 1500sqft now $ 130,000 to $ 250,000 in 1950 $8,000 to $10,000. These two subjects are heavily regulated by government how much government can we afford.
By the way you can still buy potatoes on sale at seven cents a pound the same as you could in 1948 no
government interest here.
Actually a windmill pays for itself in around 5 years and that includes interest if you borrowed the money to put it up. So it produces enough revenue to pay for itself and then gives 15 years of cheap power. Maybe 25 years with some up keep. Remember refineries, coal fired boilers and nukes shut down every year for maintenance too. Actually transportation uses more like 50% of our oil. 50% of anything is not minimal. So what we use in OUR cars adds up to quite a bit of our oil usage. You are correct that finding oil is tough. that is why the guaranteed savings of conservation is so much better. Actually there are over 90 drilling rigs in the Williston basin(Montana,N. Dakota,Saskatchewan and Manitoba) hitting very few dry holes and tapping into from 5-500 billion barrels of 40 weight oil depending on how much turns out to be recoverable.
Comment By chip westbrook, 7-18-08The problem with wind is that it is not constant and the need in power is. For every wind generator there has to be a backup source and it must be kept on line in order to fill in the gaps.
We used to employ wind to pump water but the wind was not consistent enough as a source so that every wind mill had a gas engine, if the wind did not blow the gas engines were run and some times that was a month at a time. If we are truly looking at a constant source of power with few interruptions, then
we should be looking at geothermal. Spent oil well contain a wealth of this source and transfer devices have made it cleaner and easer to use. Electric cars will be in the future and not hybrids but thinking will have to change. It is not impossible now to develop a car that could be driven the same as a gas car,
but thickening will have to change to innovation.
There is an environmental cost to the batteries to store the energy from wind also. A big problem is the fact that environmentalists have zeroed in on "alternative" energy as the savior and are certain we can stop drilling at once. Unfortunately that leads them to problems like the corn based ethaol that is now causing a food shortage. Even the very popular hybrid cars come at an envionmental cost with their lead batteries, the curly q energy efficient lightbulbs have mercury. Because those groups invest nothing in research they tend to support ideas that sound good, but just are not workable. If they would put a little of the money now spent on lawsuits into research it would surely speed things up if indeed there are alternatives that are practical.
Comment By Milton, 7-18-08I have long thought environmentalists would do more good supporting research and offering up marketable alternatives. Corn ethanol is bad, always was,but don't forget the the biggest profiteers and supporters of corn ethanol are Achers Daniels Midland and Dow and Dupont,the people that own most of the ethanol plants and sell the fertilizers and pesticides and oil to the farmers. Ethanol from sugar cane is economically feasible. There is very little battery storage of wind energy. Most is just put into the grid and as the load management of the grid improves this works better all of the time. Load management it needed more all of the time to prevent brownouts in high use air conditioned areas. There is easily enough wind energy to supply the entire US grid. The good thing is we don't need to use entirely wind energy. There is also enough geothermal to supply much or the grid,but it does use water. There is enough wave and ocean energy to supply 10 times the grid if we get a little better at using it. That and the fact that we still produce around 5 million barrels of oil ourselves makes energy independence possible. I don't know of anyone that thinks it will take less than 30 years to get there. Every step taken in that direction though is a right step. Every step will lower the cost of oil. Every step will make us safer from oil wars. Every step will create more US jobs. Every step will contribute to a better trade balance. Every step will increase the value of the dollar. There is no down side if we do it right. We will as always make some poor judgments like corn ethanol. You can't blame that only on the enviros though,corn state politcos saw their chance and took it with the money from the big corporations that also stood to profit. I often ask anyone who tells me they are not an environmentalist just when they would want them to start building that nuclear waste dump in their town. I have never found a volunteer. I am not against oil. I am against burning it . There are much better and more important uses of oil. I am also against importing it if there is a way to avoid it. If you believe in America then You should agree with me. Otherwise we are going to be held in bondage by the middle east and Russia or Chavez in Venezuela. Naomi Klein wrote Shock Doctrine. An excellent book. In it she explains how certain parts of our society use calamities and various crisis to put forward their political agendas . Drilling in ANWAR is one of them. The most often attacked energy facility in the US is the Alaska pipeline. So the weakest link we have would be a pipeline from ANWAR. Also the oil companies have huge leases right next to ANWAR and have had them for 20 years and have never attempted to drill there. Too costly at 80 degrees below zero. They just try to use ANWAR to beat the enviros over the head. The same goes for offshore drilling. They are not drilling where they already have the rights. Even off Louisiana and Texas there is not that much drilling and they have wide open access there. Florida is adamantly against offshore drilling there so is California although there are some signs of changing attitude . Should states have any say in what happens to them? Or should the oil companies have the last say? Ronald Reagan banned offshore drilling not some environmentalist. George Bush the first kept the ban. George the second also kept the ban for 7 years. Partly because his brother Jeb was governor of Florida for some of that time and was against drilling. So if one wants to blame the enviros for all of this they can,but they will be wrong and short sited. As Barack Obama often says"you are welcome to make up your own opinions,but not your facts".
Comment By chip westbrook, 7-18-08In geothermal there are two systems one uses live steam the other is a transfer system where the water is brought to the surface the heat is extracted an the water is injected back into the same strata much as oil wells do, only here it would not be a by product as it is in oil it would be the product. A large portion
of electrical consumption is in cooling structures in the south this could be accomplished with roof mounted units that would be self contained and use solar energy but finding funding for startups of this kind are like pulling teeth. Bureaucratic have added very little to life. The men that set up the US were brilliant that was their industry of the time, those who came after have sought to tear down and build their own but because of the founders we are fairly well protected. The base knowledge of the citizen is
at very low point I have worked with a great number of people from Eastern Europe and I would say Americans on the whole are equal, if people wish to be taken care of from cradle to grave they should emigrate back to the old country they are in grate need of young workers. Enough politico. Back to the prime subject. When you start messing around with water you start playing with the earth rotation, the amount of water stored in reservoir across the US has slowed the rotation, back in the early 1950 the Dutch placed a flood gate across an inlet to reduce the tilde damage when it was engaged the earth took notice and the project to trap the bay of Fundy went off the radar. The inside or mantle of the earth is molten liquid if it starts depositing more Islands in the Ocean like those forming under the Arctic ice cap will they have the same effect? New subject solar desalination could produce more fresh water the city of Las Angles could use and cost nothing to operate. If you want to get away from burning
things because you believe that is problem then suggestions should support that line of thinking.
Coal to Liquid Fuel is "insane"--Al Gore.
According to Gore's speech last week, Governor Schweitzer's vision is "insane."
“The idea of turning coal into liquid fuels for our cars it's, it's insane. And here is why: it is true that if you looked only at the dependence of the United States on foreign oil and if you didn't care about anything else in the world, it would be theoretically possible, at huge expense, to squeeze liquid out of coal and put it into gas tanks. It would be enormously expensive. But the other problem is it would vastly increase the amount of CO2 from each gallon of fuel that is burned. We've got to walk and chew gum at the same time. We've got to end our dependence on foreign oil and save the habitability of the planet by switching not just from oil to coal-to-liquid, but from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”
-Al Gore, Netroots Nation speech, July 19.
Gore has nailed it--we've got to get off the fossil fuel road to nowhere. And this includes killing Governor Schweitzer's ill-fated plan for "coal to liquid fuel" in Montana. Let's focus on Montana's true energy resources--energy efficiency, conservation, wind, solar, and geothermal. These energy sources are cost effective, they're clean, they create oodles of new jobs, and they're chompin' at the bit to get on the racetrack. Let's turn them loose.
-Jon Cheever
Well Jon, do we follow what Gore says or what he does? Teh limo is kept running while Tipper is doing her shopping. A guy was on TV the other evening with video he took of confronting the driver, who insisted the car needed to be kept cool so she had a cool car to climb into. I suspect Gore's big concern about fossil fuels is that if others use any there won't be enough to sustain his opulent lifestyle.
Comment By chip westbrook, 7-23-08Enough with the co2 NASA has its funding we don’t need hysteria, real scientist are working as most professions do completely out of site and with out fan fair the evidence they are bringing forth wont sell books or make disaster films, but it is proving an on oing earth despite Hollywood. The evidence visible on the face of the earth illustrates a nasty place where grate blocks of crust ave been pushed around like play dough. Continents drift and the rust rises and lowers with out the aid of man. Human beings tend to think of them selves as the controllers of all things, the problem is we don’t even control ourselves as is pointed out every night on the news. Kuwait and other natural gas holders are building plants to turn natural gas in to Diesel, so the logistics of turning coal in to gas is an easy task and has been since world war two. When a city clams to be green and running buses instead of trolleys how much is hype.
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