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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I work in the energy industry, my customers are small electric utilities in Arkansas to ISOs (or the equivalent of ISOs) in New Zealand, and while that doesn't make me an unimpeachable authority, my small view of the industry indicates that it isn't some insane addiction to evil black goo that has stopped us from pursuing the solar/wind types of solutions; it's that they're not feasible or they're cost-prohibitive. On top of that, these are solutions for energy for the grid, not energy for transportation, and it's transportation that uses the vast majority of petroleum resources so quit conflating the separate issues. Solar does jack to power your car and never will.
The only way solar and wind will ever contribute is if they are used to power the grid, which we then plug hybrids into. But nuclear will be used far, far, sooner because it's actually feasible unlike these other pipe dreams. You can't force investors to go down the road of something that is, at best, destined to provide a teeny tiny amount of energy at high cost. For Pete's sake, France isn't exactly the conservative bastion, why is France using nuke to mainly power their grid? Because aside from coal or gas-fired plants, nuke is the only other option that doesn't require your economy to collapse.
If we don't want to use coal/gas we will use nuke, that is a lead-pipe lock. If we don't want to use imported oil we will drill, that is another lock. The rest of the choices are fantasy unless you think America will stand for economic disaster, and they won't. There aren't enough suicidal greenies; all the liberals without armpit hair will face the hard choices long before ruin becomes an option.
I'll leave the shale thing alone supposedly it is 800 billion barrels I don't know. I don't know if its bad for the environment (not the gas the act of extracting it from shale).
What I do know is that in the OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) there is a projected 18 billion barrels of oil. In Alaska an addtional 11 to 12 billion. For a whoping 29 to 30 billion. Now lets say there is 35 billion barrels of oil just to make sure I'm optimistic. The approximate US barrel consumption in only 1 year? 7.6 billion. If we kept every single drop of that oil we would only add 4 years and change. We'd still be utterly dependent on Russia, Venezuela, and OPEC. Plus it will take 5 years to see any of it. If oil companies are actually desperate enough to drill for 5 years to add 4. It should send a message that we're running out of oil.
The author tries, but the logic for off shore drilling is irrefutable. Yes, the world is composed of finite resources - one of which is not human ingenuity. When we run out of oil, and are not artificially restricting ourselves, we will find other means.
Face it, the Democrats have long held us back. Jimmy Carter and the Liberal Democratically controlled Senate & House killed nuclear power & oil expansion back in the late 70's and early 80's. If they hadn't the country would be far further along in self sufficiency with energy; Just think - Cheap electricity (nuclear power) would be available for battery powered cars... If 75% of our power was nuclear. Not with the Democrats, though. Turn off the air conditioning, and get prepared to walk.
It appears the lefts argument in this is that they dont see this as a short term or silver bullet solution to our current energy problem - they are correct, but only slightly. No one is saying this is the magic formula, just why would you limit your own energy strategy to something as unproven and inefficient as alternative sources like solar or wind, when they have been around for decades and have not produced any evidence of becoming a baseload source? Why do you phrase the question, intellectually dishonestly I might add, as a zero sum game? Why would you not acknowledge that our economy will run on fossil fuels for several decades more before we can turn alternatives into viable options? Lastly, why would you not opt for a solution that said any new oil produced from these efforts have a per barrel tax that could go into a lock box (Al Gore favorite) for alternative energy R&D? The left has put all their eggs in the alternative basket, unlike the rest of the Kyoto loving world, without embracing proven technologies like nuclear and yet tout wind which has been around for decades and produced nearly nothing? You lefties should embrace exploration and drilling, but try to extract your pound of flesh and tie some strings to new oil and be seen as part of the solution, instead of being against everything thats parctical in the next ten years, while being for something that has yet to make itself a reasonable alternative.
The price of gas in 2000, was 1.50. Now it's 5.00.
The gop has had full control. for them to blame the dem's for this, knwoing the bottle neck is the refineries, is not even funny anymore. This is the kind of stuff that gets me angry.
Like the gop saying anyone who is not for the war is a "phoney soldier". This kind of blame game and attacking, when they are the one's responsible should be criminal. Criminals always have an excuse and someone to blame. The differance is, the cop is not buying it, if the evidence is there.
Either the gop member are stupid morons beyond the pale and don't know anything. Or they are complicent fascists. Which is it. Criminals or morons? Either way they are about to be rendered irrelevant for 30 years.
PEACE
I would urge your readers to go to the Dept of Energy 'Hirsch Report' so that they might gain further knowledge about the current energy situation. Wind, solar, geothermal, bio-fuels, hydrogen, are all viable fuels in the years to come. In the meantime there is no way to make up the short fall in the interim. You can wish that it can be done but the market isn't there. You can force the issue through government legislation in congress 'or the courts', but we haven't become socialist, YET.
We need all avaialble energy to 'get to' the day when alternative fuels will prevail. Let the market work. We are the only country in the world that has locked up 85% of it's oil reserves, won't allow the building of nuclear plants (France produces 80% of it's electricity from nuclear), won't allow the building of refineries, doesn't like coal gasification or clean coal.
Denmark, which has the most advanced infrastructure of wind energy in the world (a very small country with 6 million people) is only able to produce 25% of it's energy from wind. Solar is no better. Corn ethanol is insane based on cost output ratios. You can't run a railroad, an airline, a tractor, or an eighteen wheeler on wind or solar.
Get a grip you wild eyed enviro's or........not and enjoy the ride.....it ought to be loads of fun or as Obama says "Join me in changing the greatest country on earth" (paraphrased for your enjoyment).
A moderate in name and spirit...Larsky
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