Holy way out of imported oil, Batman!

[devonpond]

Sea water as fuel, this is wild:

Link (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07252/815920-85.stm)

Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kKtKSEQBeI)

[Cosmo]

Actually, the knowledge that seawater could be used to power a nuclear reaction has been known for at least 40 years. I did a paper on it in High School :p

Back then the technology didn't exist to make it viable though ... but kind of makes you wonder why they haven't pursued the technology doesn't it :confused: No more carbon fuels, no more hydro carbon emmissions, no limited resources :confused: Sounds like the ideal solution to me :D

[Graham]

No More Oil Companies.....Hmmmm I'll bet that might be the reason that alternative fuels haven't been developed....;)

[Cosmo]

Could be Graham :)

Would be a real blow to the fund raising of the multi-billion dollar a year environmental advocacy industry as well ;)

Not the oil companies that have stopped nuclear energy development, but who knows :confused: .. maybe they did :confused:

But if they did, that would mean .. :shocked: ... can get rather circular if you dwell on it too long :D

Jim

[Graham]

They've shrunk down nuclear reactors for satellites, why not a car, it could go forever. Just think what it would do to oil stock prices...

[mmorris]

We would need hundreds and hundreds of nuclear reactors in this country alone at a cost of roughly $1 billion each if we were to derive all of our energy from nuclear energy. Nuclear is seriously polluting and dangerous. The source of our future energy consumption is a really important issue. At this time there is nothing else out there that will meet our energy consumption needs. IMO nuclear is a deadly option. Martha

[Graham]

jeez Martha.... a billion...that one weeks worth of money that's being spent by the USA military being in Iraq...oops did I say that:D...the point is that a billion dollars is nothing...ever seen that US debt sign in NYC...it rolls over a billion every hour or so....

I don't know where all our energy is going to come from but oil and coal is probably the worst sources that we have. There's natural gas but no one is getting into it big time, car wise. We're bringing in a lot of natural gas here and the DA's that run our govt allowed 98% of it to be sold to Boston, while we use coal and oil...hell will freeze over before natural gas ever gets to me just outside the city and hybrid cars are a real novelty around here.

Solar and wind are great and leave a small foot print but no one wants to put tons of money into it. Tidal power is being looked at but it's experimental and damn expensive.

Nuclear is at least is a known and understood idea. It's is quite safe when done and maintained properly

G

[mmorris]

I agree with most of what you say, Graham. We have the billions if they are going to be spent on war. How many billions have gone missing in Iraq? Something like $20 billion unaccounted for. This nation is falling deeply in debt - something like $5 trillion - and we aren't going to have the money that we need to make the safe, sensible changes that we need to make. We need to allocate money to public transportation, community development, fuel efficiency, solar, wind, etc. Corporations are not going to invest unless there are profits to be made. Hydrogen is a pipe dream; it is a net energy loser. Don't look to gas as a solution. 15 percent of the gas consumed in the U.S. comes from Canada, and that represents more than 50 percent of their gas exports. Like oil, gas is in decline so that relationship won't last. I think nuclear is a dangerous solution. We will need to invest in hundreds of them and I don't think this country will be willing to distribute resources to maintain them properly in the long run. Accidents are certainly possible, plus we have no safe way of storing or destroying the waste product. Geologists have made that point clear. If one is going to make a product and the resulting waste product is dangerous and cannot be stored, don't make the product! I think that if we depend substantially on nuclear energy, it is going to come back and bite us in the bum.
Martha

[Graham]

Good post, but what do we depend on? At what point do North American citizens stop buying the gas guzzling SUV's and all the other energy/gas wasters and get into public transit, wind, solar.?

I know that the 1st step is voting people into office that are not in the pocket of oil and big business and I'm not just picking on Bush here, we have one here too, in Harper.

My best friends brother is a consultant to Atomic Energy Canada and travels all over the world for them and he'll state that at this point, nuclear is probably the best bang, no pun intended:), for the buck, when done right


G

[mmorris]

Not if it ends up killing the whole lot of us! :D
Martha

[jeep]

Graham, are you saying you really want millions of women driving around with little nuclear reactors in their cars??? :wasntme: :D

[Cosmo]

Well, the French generate a large percentage of their energy using nuclear power plants, haven't read yet about Frenchmen being radioactive :confused:

Solar? So inefficient and expensive not even Barbara Streisand or Al Gore use it on their gargantuan estates :confused:

Wind? Kills birds, besides if you were mega rich and owned a multi million dollar estate on Martha's Vineyard, would you really want to watch and listen to a wind farm right off the coast of your private beach :confused:

Wave Generation? Turns out it wasn't the panacea it was first thought to be 15/20 years ago. Besides, it endangers the fragile coastal ecosystems.

Ethanol.. hahahahaha ... takes more carbon based fuel to produce than the energy it provides! Emission reductions are miniscule. a boon to corn farmers and ADM, no one else... but sure sounds good ;) One of these days in the not too distant future you'll go out only on special occassions to eat at a "Corn House" - they'll throw in the filet mignon for free :angry: Oops.. corn, isn't that one of the food products we donate to hungry people all over the globe? Oh well, guess they'll have to eat something else :confused:

Local Oil. The U.S. sits on top of huge reserves but unfortunately they sit under "protected" sites - potentially damaging to various ecosystems, and, drilling rigs are ugly.

Canadian sand oil? Requires huge costs for specal equipment to refine, and produces more polution in the process (think BP in Indiana). Besides, why should we send more money to Canada when we can send it to the Middle East, or even our buddy Hugo :confused:

Public Transportation... hey, don't many buses use Fuel Cells :D (in Chicago they do) In any event you aint' gonna be laying tracks or routing those big ugly things through my neighborhood :angry:

Natural Gas. I don't care if it is a cheap byproduct, too dangerous to transport and store. You're not bringing one of those ships or build one of those terminals anywhere near the port I live by buddy :mad:

Hydrogen? would require the re-tooling of the oil/gas distribution system. Produces exhaust of pure oxygen and water. What fool would ever want to pollute the air like that :confused: Just cause the fuel itself is overly abundant and essentially free :p

If we just took the billions we spend every year that we provide in foreign aid (Isreal, Egypt, et. al.), the money we spend feeding the poor, and the huge subsidies we pay to a selected few lucky Americans we'd have more than enough money to pay for the required research into promising technologies. We'd even still have enough to continue waging war on the world should we so desire :antlers:

Developmental funds are not the problem, even without touching any of those mentioned above there is more than enough money in the world financial system to fund any one, or even all of these. :angry:

Bottom line is it's far easier to find problems with potential solutions than it is to actually work together and solve a problem.
That, combined with that pesky nimby character ... it's no wonder nothing ever gets done :(

It's Nimby's fault :mad:

[Cosmo]

Now that you put it that way Brian :scared: :D

[brewmaster15]

Don't get me wrong... I hate paying my electric bill... and gas and oil bills... and I wish there was an easy, cheap, safe, and non-polluting energy source that would meet our rather extreme needs.... but there never has been and likely never will be one that does all this.

When you are looking at the costs of oil ,coal, nuclear fuel etc... be sure to factor in the Government subsidies... In the USA.. once you do that... Nuclear reactors are all non-profitable...From what I have read.. WE really are spared the real cost of energy...oh we pay it...just don't get the bill on the subsidies direct.

I think we are spoiled...There I said it :) Seriously... Energy is the most expensive commodity in nature. Many animals die after using "energy" to procreate.... most spend every waking hour foraging for food to create energy...or sleeping thru the winter to conserve it.

The basic problem is a physics one.. Energy is part of a balenced system... you can't create more than you put in....but you can improve efficiency... even in nuclear reactors..the efficiency is extremely low....

Going back to being spoiled..I think we pay too little for energy....all things considered.. If we recognized exactly what it takes to Create energy...I think we might live in a very different world... IN the old days a man chopped several cords of wood for weeks on end to have the energy to heat his cabin...inefficient... but demonstrates how we got spoiled... now we just make a phone call for an oil delivery.:)


We want "Energy" production to fit our "wants"... (human flaw).. maybe we should focus on it fitting our "needs" first. Less fluff and more fuel in our lives?;)

Just posting the flip side here... yes I believe this...but I am too weak an individual to give up my discus and save the rest of you alot of energy that goes into keeping them.:):)My bad...sorry!:D

-al

[Cosmo]

Al -

Spoiled is true.. I'd add "spoiled by convenience". We want all the energy available all the time, so long as the generation of it is nimby.

Needs are continually redefined by wants.. when I was a kid one black and white TV in a home was a mark of having made it, and aside from the mix master mom took out for special occassion dinners, there were no electric gadgets in the kitchen (except the fridge of course).

Now? How could we live without multiple color TVs, surround sound, electric this and electric that, two or three family cars, multiple computers .. the list goes on. And this is without any consideration for aquarium heaters, water pumps, water filters, or UV lights :p :D

Hopefully, nano-tech will live up to it's hype and this and numerous other issues will be moot in 15/20 years.. then all we'll have to worry about is out of control self-replicating nano bots covering the planet under a grey slime :noway:

Jim

[mmorris]

US corporations and the government developed a plan after World War II that would create a market for the massive amounts of oil that was being pumped - surburbia and the auto culture. We were taught the American dream, and we were taught to believe that we have a right to the American dream - a car of our own and a house in suburbia. This was the trade-off for our troops in the war. As long as we believe we might one day be middle class, or better, we will support the dream. This plan resulted in the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of mankind. Corporations manufacturing a huge variety of consumer products jumped on the bandwagon and taught us that in order to be happy, successful, healthy, safe and sexy, we need to buy, buy, buy. Americans had to be taught to believe that they needed an SUV, when so very few do. We can see the results now, collapsing on our heads. We are still inundated with advertising messages, but people are only able to maintain the trappings of middle class by falling deeply into debt. Many are allergic to their natural environment, and are depressed, anxious and fearful. Is this spoiled? I think we need to be hearing a different message as to what the American dream might be but it isn't economically profitable. People touting a new dream will have to shout very loudly to be heard over the messages of corporate America. I'll shout but I'm keeping the discus. :)

Other thoughts:
Jeep - does it not occur to you that women may find that sort of remark offensive? Sexism is no funnier than racism.

Jim - the US is not sitting on vast reserves. We use 25-30 % of oil in the world, but we have less than 3% of the world's reserves. US oil production peaked around 1970. From then on, oil is more expensive to extract and to process. Drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, ruining it to boot, would reduce our imports by no more than 4%. It reminds me of the ideology of the earliest settlers to this country - the natives aren't using the land in the same way that we would, therefore they have no rights to it. The wildlife and the local indigenous people aren't using the land for the oil, therefore they have no rights to it. Companies, at the same time, are under no obligation to sell US oil in the American market. Hydrogen is not an `overly abundant and essentially free' energy source; again, it is a net energy loser. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen than we get out of it.

Let's remember that the billions of aid money we send to foreign countries have strings attached, and the poorest countries, those in most need of aid, are not the ones who get it.
Martha

[brewmaster15]

Hi Martha,


US corporations and the government developed a plan after World War II that would create a market for the massive amounts of oil that was being pumped - surburbia and the auto culture. We were taught the American dream, and we were taught to believe that we have a right to the American dream - a car of our own and a house in suburbia. This was the trade-off for our troops in the war. As long as we believe we might one day be middle class, or better, we will support the dream. This plan resulted in the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of mankind. I'm not saying that the end result was the same... but do you really feel that There was a "plan"? If so.. who exactly came up with this "plan"?


Jeep - does it not occur to you that women may find that sort of remark offensive? Sexism is no funnier than racism. Its also not one way street;) Have you never made a joke in fun about men? :) The women driver bit is used almost as much as men not asking for directions...;)


I think we need to be hearing a different message as to what the American dream might be but it isn't economically profitable. People touting a new dream will have to shout very loudly to be heard over the messages of corporate America. I'll shout but I'm keeping the discus. Okay Martha, I'm all ears...:angel:

-al

[mmorris]

An example of a `plan' would be the Great American Streetcar Scandal when General Motors, Firestone, Standard Oil etc. conspired to dismantle the streetcar system in order to promote cars and buses. The government also began a national road building program at this time.
I'll pm you regarding your second remark. Martha

[Cosmo]

ummm.. H2O :confused: Covers the majority of the planet :confused: Not sure how it can be contested hydrogen is not "vastly abundant and essentiall free" :confused:

At the beginning of the thread I pointed out that the technology to extract and use the energy has never been developed :confused: Why that happened was my original question, and I posted a few things that I see as preventing alternative sources from being developed. :undecided:

Since we won't pay the price to develop altenatives, oil is a necessary evil. But, If exploring and drilling for oil is so evil, aren't we then being evil for paying others to suffer the consequences of this dastardly deed so we don't have to :confused: Regardless of the percentage of our needs that are available on "American" territory (no need to impose our will on anyone), aren't we morally bound to extract every last drop before we exploit poor third world countries into devastating their own heritage :confused: Is preserving the natural habitat of our country more important that those of other countries :confused: Is it justified because we pay them :confused:

Doesn't the majority of the money we pay for our oil addiction go primarily to a handful of despots leaving the majority of the citizens of those countries poor and destitute :confused: Doesn't that then put the future of our civilization into the hands of despots :confused: Is that wise :confused:

Wouldn't we be better off in the long run working together to develop alternative fuels? Should get really interesting in the next decade as China's thirst for oil equals our own.. doesn't paint a very pretty picture of the future.

On the foreign aid, yes there are strings attached. No one hands out large sums of money without them.. not the world bank, not the Gates foundation, and not any government in the world. Is that morally wrong, or prudent investment practice :confused: Considering the amount of money we hand out, and the results that money brings in, I'd say the strings we attach are either really evil, or not very stringently enforced.