Suicidal US energy policies
 

This Victor Davis Hansen article says it best to me:

https://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson120406.html

Yes, very well said with no slants.

I needed to rewrite this...

1.) Politicians suck
2.) They only listen to the public to get re-election material
3.) Yes, we are addicted to oil. Yes, we can do something about it. Yet, we will not do anything until those in executive power no longer have a financial or vested (i.e. influence of power) in the very industry we are trying to distance ourselves from.
4.) Just as in obtaining fuel economy, our withdrawal from oil has no silver bullet, but a multi-angle effective front using biofuels, hydrogen, wind, thermal, EV, etc can at least alleviate the burden of 6 billion people attempting to drink from the dark fountain at the same time.
5.) See #1.
Mak

Hello? Isn't it the "people" in power which cause(d) these problems? "Pogo" said it best..."We have met the enemy. and he is us!" Grim? Isn't there another "m" on this? "Grimm"...as in fairy tales? It's all a big game, people! :D
P.s. I'm in central NC, too...Chatham Co.

What the hell are we doing?
 

This article sunk in over the past few days. I don't follow current events very closely so the details I cannot attest to be true, but zooming back to oh, say Mars and taking a look at what's going on I see this:

1) Buy buying oil, we are sending lots money directly to those countries that have popular anti-american views - and it's been this way for some time.
2) Countries that profit heavily from oil are not all that much better off than if they did not have oil. There is as much poverty, opression, infighting and violence, probably more than if there was no oil.
3) US interest in foreign countries over the years in fact does seem to slant to those countries that have oil or control over oil. The gov't is just trying to keep us rolling along. But these countries seem to have never ending battles and wars that we get sucked in to.
4) Oil finances so many problems for Americans and people in the countries we buy it from, it makes global warming seem like just a bad aftertaste.
5) There must be a good side to buying oil, but it doesn't get any press.
6) Bottom line: Oil does alot of harm it also does alot of good otherwise we would't want it. We have to be smart where we buy, how we buy and how we use oil.

DaX -

... danger, my political POV below YPPOVMV ...

I wouldn't say it wasn't slanted, but I do think it is a very good real-politic statement. I didn't agree with the portrayal of Chavez. Personally, I like Chavez because I know that the Latin American socio-economic model of 90% poor and 10% super rich is the model that "our rich" would like to impose on the USA. You can argue that Chavez is not democratic, but that has never stopped the USA from cozying up to a foreign leader (i.e. 1980's era Saddam) in the past. Conversely, you can make an argument that Chavez is helping the poor of Venezuela.

There is a very deep irony that the article is pointing out. When oil was $20/barrel, Chavez was weak because Venezuelan oil reserves are expensive to extract. He just didn't have much money and Venezuela was saddled with the traditional 3rd world IMF/World Bank "loan shark" debt. I have read that the "price point" for Venezuelan oil is $50/barrel. At $50, Venezuelan oil becomes very viable in the world market and Chavez can afford to "spread the wealth". bush foreign policy is the best thing that ever happened to Chavez and also the reason that Latin American countries are voting in leftists.

Apologies in advance if I am being too political.

Lefty CarloSW2

For that matter, bush policy is the Iraq insurgency's best weapon against us and the Iraqi people. It makes one question the ultimate motives behind such failed policy. Maybe this is just a HUGE smoke screen so Exxon can pump Iraq oil w/o a meter.

The US would have to cut consumption by about 2/3 to eliminate foreign oil imports. Not a snowballs chance in hell.

Of course we won't have any choice once Peak Oil hits - like it or not we'll not only be in greater competition with ourselves for the oil we can buy but in competition with every other country in the world.

Biodiesel
 

I've been deeply interested in renewable energy for many years, most particularly biofuels. I've put some numbers together on biodiesel. These were my two sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algacul...sel_production
https://www.rubyesque.com/biofuels/biodiesel.html

We'd need 52.5M acres of land devoted to palm oil production to completely replace diesel with biodiesel made from palm oil. Taking the low end of the algae estimates (that algae would produce 7x the yield of palm oil), we'd need only 7.5M acres devoted to growing algae in order to completely replace diesel with biodiesel. That's a hell of a lot of land, yes, but consider this: We currently use 943M acres of land for food production in the US. We'd need just 0.8% of that land to grow enough algae to completely replace diesel fuel.

0.8% is trivial. All we need is the political will.

Most people don't know that biodiesel can also be used to replace oil used in home heating furnaces.

Biodiesel doesn't do anything to reduce gasoline use, however. For that, butanol looks promising. It's a pretty darn good straight replacement for gasoline, much better than ethanol. (Ethanol is a complete joke, imo, especially when made from corn.) I don't have any hard numbers for that argument yet though.

Imagine what the $250+ billion we've spent in Iraq could have accomplished on the biofuel front.

Lefty Carlos - it's sad that I can figure out what this says. :p

-Right-as-rain Matt :D

YPPOVMV:
Yes, People Pollute our Very Mountains and Valleys :D

Chavez
 

I agree with Lefty Carlos. Although he is a showy actor who seems to love to pick a fight, some of the things he is doing with oil money in venezuela are innovative. At least he is doing something different. Whether or not the many Bolivarian (socialist??) projects work remains to be seen.
Cheers to everyone who saves gas and is working to figure out how to save more...its cool we all come together here to do this regardless of what motivates us.

DaX -

Thanks, it took me a little while to figure it out.

YMMV + POV => YPOVMV => YPoliticsPOVMV => I think too much => about useless things

The brain is willing, and in control.

CarloSW2

Hi, G'boro!
I just have to comment! ...all we need is political will? Politics is going to bury us! "We have met the enemy...and they are U.S.!"
I agree...ethanol is a total joke! How much can a corn farmer get in federal subsidies to not grow wheat, soybeans, etc., etc. Politicians & lobbyists are drunk on this alcohol thing!
This algae argument is very strong! Doesn't it take a lot of water to grow algae? I'm just asking... I'm not the brightest bulb in the forest(something like that)!
Biodiesel is great for diesels ... how many diesels are there vs. gasoline-powered cars / trucks? Will Detroit & Dearborn drop their profitable gas cars & trucks? Not in my lifetime(yours either!)! :eek:
Billions spent in Iraq... We? What's this "we", kemo sabee? Congress & the head Republican't in charge spent our money (like they have always done!) ! I don't recall anybody asking ME!!! :mad:

I revised my initial statement Ted, this one is more of a summary.
P.S. "grim" has one "m" unless it's a character from Disney or Twisted Metal.

Mak

James and Carlos,

be careful in your admiration for that anti-American world leader(Chavez). his ties and workings w/russia and iran should makes us all a little concerned at the very least.

Another view of what MIGHT HAVE BEEN?

But not as long as the oil companies/military control energy and foreign policy?


https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/solar...-sick-graph-2/


These figures are in millions. The source for energy R&D expenditures is from the National Council for Science and the Environment.

Though the war in Iraq now costs about $120B a year, two authors (one a Nobel prize winner) estimates the total cost of this war exceeds 2 Trillion Dollars.

?Accrued liabilities for U.S. federal employees? and veterans? benefits now total $4.5 trillion. Indeed, our debt for veterans? health and disability payments has risen by $228 billion in the past year alone?The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the interest payments on the money borrowed to finance the Iraq war will total $264 billion to $308 billion.?

That $2,000,000,000,000? Well, that amount of money could?ve built solar thermal plants here that would have provided energy for 2/3rds of our nation?s energy demand.


https://www.solarpowerrocks.com/solar...etty-damn-far/


After hearing President Bush beseech members of Congress for $68B more dollars for the war in Iraq tonight, I got myself to thinking. If we?re already spending $120B a year on this war and we simply decided to bring our troops home, how far could we get in meeting our nation?s energy demands solely with sunshine and that extra $68B dollars? Well according to an article in the Green Wombat last month, a solitary solar thermal plant sized at 92 x 92 miles could take care of our entire energy demand. That?s the size of land that purple square takes up in the above map. Granted, for security purposes it would be a dumb idea to go and build a lone solar plant like this, so let?s do some more realistic math. The land area cited in that article was 92*92mi = 8464sq. miles. Let?s say we intend to create 16 solar thermal power plants and scatter them about really sunny areas of our country such as the southwest, Texas, and areas of Florida. 8464/16 = 529sq. miles for each solar thermal power plant. It just so happens that the square root of 529 gives a clean 23! So we are in search of sixteen 23 by 23 mile plots of sunny land to power the entire country. We?ve got $68 Billion dollars to spend on all of them, or $4,250,000,000 for each one.

...

If you really want to shake things up, consider that since the Iraq war began, we are now roughly $9 Trillion dollars in debt. Many people, including myself, don?t have any concept of how much money that really is. Well, that?s $9,000,000,000,000 dollars.

Remember those 16 plots of 23?23 miles we needed to satiate the nation?s thirst for energy? Well 9 Trillion dollars would be enough to purchase about 2,813 Nevada Solar Twos! That?s 9sq. miles * 2,813 = 25,317 sq. miles of solar thermal energy ? more than triple the land area in solar power plants to satisfy the energy demands of our entire country!

It truly is depressing to imagine what the other 2/3rds of that $9 Trillion could have been used for. Universal health care? Education? Ugh!

...

But *s friends are making out like bandits? The rest of us? We're letting them do it.

With SANE people in power the whole energy issue could be solved eventually...OR...we can just continue electing idiot savants who like to line their own pockets at our expense?

it's agreed that the US will most likely fall from within. but rogue states attacking non-military targets is NOT unlikely.

BioDiesel made from algea could work. It grows in a 3 dimensional space instead of on top of a surface and the harvest would be every 30 days.

BUT, the EPA is working against BioDiesel. They don't want it since some studies stated that is has a little higher N0x output. I guess they missed the part that the rest of the emmisions are 80% lower than diesel. It's also cheap to make. Only .35 per gallon when made from recycled fat.

The other problem is that the EPA won't allow diesels to be sold in the US unless they meet strict emmisions requirements. Take a look a all the small diesel cars in Europe. How about a VW Lupo? AKA Golf with a 3 cyclendar that get's 90MPG.

So what if this stupid little car put out twice the emmisions! It uses 1/4 the FUEL! It's carbon foot print would be 1/2 that of the best VW TDI today.

I say it is politics and money. There's NO excuse for this idiocy. The semi's today have larger motors to do the same work. Cost more to run and use more fuel. We are going backwards.

Goto www.fueleconomy.gov and start comparing vehicles from various decades and their MPG. You'll be surprised if not disgusted.

I'm not a fan of biofuels for several reaons.

Using food for energy raises food prices, especially hitting the poor;
The energy balance for fuel production is poor. It's had to get more energy from biofuel from the fuel burner to produce it;
burning biofuels emits about as much pollution as gasoline.

I think solar cells/wind power/nuclear power in conjunction with electric cars are the best solution to transportation needs.

That's how it is with finite resources. If there's too many people, we all have to be a lot more thrifty with the resources we have in order not to starve other folks out. Quality of life vs quantity of life.

But acre for acre, algae is a better solution than most as far as I can tell.

"if"...

While saving a resource is important... Having breathable air is just as important (moreso really)... NOx happens to have a much more direct link to death versus CO2 :/