• mobil said on Nov 17, 2008....

  Ok I'm thinking Trav, I think it's going to take a combination of everything you mentioned above plus.
   
  We have to do it all, but do it right, proper planning. I like T. Boone Picken's plan myself.

• travelr712 said on Nov 17, 2008....

  yeah mobil, allot of people do. and you're right. i've been watching the congressional hearings on the distribution of the 700 billion dollars. that's what dodd said. we're in a time that we've never known before, and we've gotta do this right, because it's gonna effect the next generation.
   
  it's the first real global problem we've been faced with. sure, it looks right now like it's a financial problem, but really, it's an energy problem. we want to solve the financial one, solve the energy one first.
   
  we need an edison right now.

• wombat said on Nov 17, 2008....

  Well, maybe my intellect isn't completely gone....I agree that the world runs on the premise of "energy" and thus "power of the nations."
   
  And that I remember a passage in the Bible something to the effect of, "Be careful of the oil and the water."
   
  I know next to nothing about how things work, but I don't think that this one we are counting on  is working just now.

• travelr712 said on Nov 17, 2008....

  where was that from wombie? passage please?

• wombat said on Nov 17, 2008....

  travelr712:  I swear, I do not know. But there is a curious thing about me that "remembers" things I have read in the Bible, even though I don't read it regularly or do things like remember passages and numbers.  And this is one of them that I saw one time or another that stuck, because it kind of worried me.  Maybe someone else here will know where it came from.  I am guessing from Revelations somewhere, because that is the one I know I have read the most.
   
  Anyone know?

• Twylarants said on Nov 17, 2008....

  I heard Pickens gave up his windmill farm idea when the price of gas came down.

• Lucytorial said on Nov 18, 2008....

  errr no India and Japan are the most energy hungry countries in the world.. America is just plain abusive... sincerely its like an obese gross cousin you keep shaking your head at but it isn't the biggest energy hungry country.  There is a lot involved Trav... a long history with energy use, demand, supply.

• queenparanoia said on Nov 18, 2008....

  maybe it's time people get serious about using alternative energy... like solar energy it's the most abundant. and yeah plant more trees... and yes manure...lol... ;-)

• sheltercrow said on Nov 18, 2008....

  Since we have a few of the local 'intellectuals' here lets explore a few issues on energy. Excerpts from What General Motors can Teach us about Policy Distortions by Vijaya Ramachandran.
  
  Lets starts with higher CAFE fuel efficiency standards that have been opposed by the auto industry for decades.
  
  
  It is abundantly clear that of all the countries in the figure [seen here], the United States is at the very bottom in terms of fuel efficiency standards. California has attempted to break away, but this effort has been met with enormous resistance from the federal government. While Europe and Japan have reached for 40 to 45 miles per gallon, the United States has set its goals at under 30 mpg.
  
  The explosion of SUVs in this country did not result from the preferences of Americans to drive large cars. Rather, it is the result of a loophole in the law that puts "light trucks" of less than 8500 lbs in their own category of fuel efficiency, effectively exempting pickup trucks, minivans and SUVs from more stringent fuel-economy standards. This policy decision has had enormous consequences -- light trucks were a small portion of sales in the 1970s, but they have accounted for 50% of all sales in recent years. This and other loopholes were at least in part due to intense lobbying by the auto industry that has made raising CAFE standards a decades-long process with few results.
  
  ...as an op-ed in the Boston Globe pointed out in 2007, "the most astounding fact is that many of the European high fuel-economy vehicles are produced by U.S. car makers. How can the government let manufacturers continue to convince the nation that a fuel economy of over 35 miles per gallon is difficult to achieve?"
  
  Some argue that if the United States reduced its fuel subsidies -- estimated at between $3 and $10 a gallon to account for oil company tax breaks and costs associated with regulatory oversight, pollution cleanup and liability -- the price of gas in the United States would be a lot closer to the price in Europe. This would in turn lead to a very different mix of automobiles in the U.S. market.
  

• diabolicdame said on Nov 18, 2008....

  After watching the new Bond movie.. I'm worrying about water too! If it got scarce.. that would be a lot worse than oil troubles!!

• Lucytorial said on Nov 18, 2008....

  Dbabe ~ Water is scarse.. the main problem is that most of the worlds fresh water is in the ice caps... and whats happening to them? melting into the sea and what will that do? create adverse conditions for many animals in those environments, take for instance the polar bear.. already dwindling and dying off.
   
  Australia is in the grips of one of its longest droughts, we have unsustainable industries sucking the water out of river systems that were once healthy but the government refuse to acknowledge that wheat and grain crops shouldn't be growing where they are this is an absolute disgraceful waste of natural resources like water.
   
  Thats what i meant by my comment above, the effects of energy usage are far reaching, its not such a simple topic.

• diabolicdame said on Nov 18, 2008....

  Luce, I know what you're saying. I've read about Australia's ongoing draught situaiton.. its not long before it starts happening everywhere if we don't pay attention!
   
  Even here in India I see one state suffering massive floods and the other suffering draught and I wonder why the governments don't do enough in terms of water management! We had this whole water grid concept here in India that would've distributed water throughout the country but the many states just could't agree on it and it got shelved. Would've solved all our problems. It was expensive maybe, its a big country, but I know for a fact that we (India) spend a hell lot more than that on cricket! Whatever happened to priorities!
   
  Just reading your comments I can see that you know more about this issue than I do, but even I can tell that the authorities are screwing this up real bad!!

• Lucytorial said on Nov 18, 2008....

  One of our most important river systems the Murray Darling Rivers are now slowly dying.  The darling basin river system starts up here in the north where rainfalls is ludicrously high, the Murray basin is in the south and they both meet in the middle of the east coast.  The government has done much damage by draining the water from the middle so that the Murray river is now all but dead, farmers down south cannot maintain their crops properly and much of Adelaides drinking water comes from this dead system... its just rediculous that they can't manage two river systems? its not that difficult to see that its industry thats doing most of the damage.  Industry that shouldn't be there. 
   
  Australian citizens in their widsom do not believe we should be looking into de salination like Dubai.  So we sit here watching our rivers die and do nothing!

• sheltercrow said on Nov 18, 2008....

  From SciAm.com > Features > Environment
  
  
  Drill for Natural Gas, Pollute Water
  
  The natural gas industry refuses to reveal what is in the mixture of chemicals used to drill for the fossil fuel
  
  By Abrahm Lustgarten and ProPublica
  
  In July a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wy. and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people.
  
  The results sent shockwaves through the energy industry and state and federal regulatory agencies. 
  
  Sublette County is the home of one of the nation’s largest natural gas fields, and many of its 6,000 wells have undergone a process pioneered by Halliburton called hydraulic fracturing, which shoots vast amounts of water, sand and chemicals several miles underground to break apart rock and release the gas.  The process has been considered safe since a 2004 study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that it posed no risk to drinking water. After that study, Congress even exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Today fracturing is used in 9 out of 10 natural gas wells in the United States.
  
  Over the last few years, however, a series of contamination incidents have raised questions about that EPA study and ignited a debate over whether the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing may threaten the nation’s increasingly precious drinking water supply.
  
  [...]
  

• Me-Myself&I said on Nov 18, 2008....

  on another note.... you know Travelr when that hurricane came thru and i lost my power for 5 days. huh.... life changed in a wink of an eye. it became tough but a freedom came with it. yup no tv, computer.... so what do you do, go for a walk or just sit and ponder. *smile* no electric bill neither.

  can you think what it would be like without power, like the wild west days. cool! *smile*

• Lioness said on Nov 18, 2008....

  We also have  energy problem in the Phils, Mr. Trav, much more that our leaders are mostly thinking of their personal gain rather than focus on the needs of the majority, to think that energy is a basic necessity. Oftentimes, the problem lies on the type of management. *sigh* 

• Expendable said on Nov 18, 2008....

  I kind of like the Hyperion Neighborhood Nuclear Reactor. A safe, stable nuclear battery little bigger than a hot tub that's buried underground and produces enough electricity to run 20,000 homes for 5 +years at a cost of $25,000,000 - or $250 annually/$20.83 a month per home.
   
  I'd love one in my neighborhood.

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