McCain plays with fire on offshore drilling

[ghouck]

You must still have safe search turned on in Google as I just Googled "Karma" and will I got chicks behaving badly.

You sir have opened up a whole new world to me. Karma for pictures of, , Karma, , naked, , and, , , gottagobye. .

[KYGOTC]

I say, screw digging up any more oil. Instead, work on a cheaper, more enviromentaly friendly power sorce. Duh.

[ulthar]

I say, screw digging up any more oil. Instead, work on a cheaper, more enviromentaly friendly power sorce. Duh.

What are you going to do in the mean time, while all these new, magical, perfect panacea solutions are being "worked on?"

And here's a reason why your suggestion to stop digging for oil is extremely short sighted and one dimensional.  Oil is not just used to fuel our engines.  If we stop digging up oil, how are we going to make all those cool plastics and other synthetics that we all rely on so much (everything from bubble wrap and DVD disks to some VERY useful medical supplies - tubing, replacement joints, etc).  No more gortex or nylon or dacron; no superglue.  All of these things that are made from synthetic polymers have petroleum precursors. Take a look around and imagine your life without all the things you have used in the last 24 hours that ultimately came from oil.

The thing that bugs me about almost every one of these discussions on energy is how a "one size fits all" approach seems to be universally assumed.  I don't understand why no one is saying "oil is okay for this application, electric is better for that application, solar works good for this, wind for that, fuel cells there," etc.

Instead, it seems like everything has to be "all or nothing."  Either we ALL get off oil and onto ONE other thing, or we ALL use oil and continue to complain about it.  And all the "other things" are competing for mindshare to become the Next Big Thing, the One Thing that replaced that Old Thing oil.  It just does not make sense.

Right tool for the job.  There are just some things that right now, given present day technology, petroleum is REALLY good for.  Economies, like governments, carry a certain degree of momentum.  You cannot undo the last 100 years or so of growth on a petroleum foundation overnight.

[KYGOTC]

I say, screw digging up any more oil. Instead, work on a cheaper, more enviromentaly friendly power sorce. Duh.

What are you going to do in the mean time, while all these new, magical, perfect panacea solutions are being "worked on?"

Magic? Hmm....now THERES an idea...So you're saying I should vote for Harry Potter?

From now on, all things will rely on the power of MAGIC! case closed! Goodnight, everybody!

[Brother Buzzard]

I'm in favor of doing it all. Let's drill for oil, blast for coal, build those wind turbines on Cape Cod, set up massive solar energy arrays in Death Valley, build oil refineries and nuclear power plants, keep working on producing biofuel and continue developing more generations of Tesla Roadsters. That oil and coal isn't doing the environment any good sitting in the ground and the desert animals ought to appreciate having more shade from solar panels. The only flaw in McCain's energy policy is that he isn't fired up enough about it.

[JaseSF]

Offshore drilling seems to be slowly turning Newfoundland into a Canadian "Have" province.

[ghouck]

What are you going to do in the mean time, while all these new, magical, perfect panacea solutions are being "worked on?"

And here's a reason why your suggestion to stop digging for oil is extremely short sighted and one dimensional.  Oil is not just used to fuel our engines.  If we stop digging up oil, how are we going to make all those cool plastics and other synthetics that we all rely on so much (everything from bubble wrap and DVD disks to some VERY useful medical supplies - tubing, replacement joints, etc).  No more gortex or nylon or dacron; no superglue.  All of these things that are made from synthetic polymers have petroleum precursors. Take a look around and imagine your life without all the things you have used in the last 24 hours that ultimately came from oil.

The thing that bugs me about almost every one of these discussions on energy is how a "one size fits all" approach seems to be universally assumed.  I don't understand why no one is saying "oil is okay for this application, electric is better for that application, solar works good for this, wind for that, fuel cells there," etc.

Instead, it seems like everything has to be "all or nothing."  Either we ALL get off oil and onto ONE other thing, or we ALL use oil and continue to complain about it.  And all the "other things" are competing for mindshare to become the Next Big Thing, the One Thing that replaced that Old Thing oil.  It just does not make sense.

Right tool for the job.  There are just some things that right now, given present day technology, petroleum is REALLY good for.  Economies, like governments, carry a certain degree of momentum.  You cannot undo the last 100 years or so of growth on a petroleum foundation overnight.

I have to agree with you 100%. We also have to come to the conclusion that some of the "Holy Grails" of energy were are looking for just may not ever happen, like cold fusion. There's currently a serious search for a small scale nuclear direct to electricity solution, and by small scale I mean vehicle, and it very well may be unattaiable.
Your right tool for the right job approach is exactly what people need to understand. Solar won't work well in northern Alaska due to the long winter darkness. Geothermal is another that only works well in some places, and where it works, it should be used.

"screw digging up more oil?", OK, so we then start paying $300 for forign oil, since we need it now for out cars, heating, etc. Not digging for oil does not equal not NEEDING oil. Oil will always be needed, there's no avoiding that, but the key is to use alternatives as much as possible, especially for the large-scale uses. There are still many electrical power-plants that are oil-fired.
The (or at least ONE) problem is, that every alternative has it's opposition, and not just the competition. People complain about hydroelectric because of the perceived danger downstream, and how it changes the landscape. People complain about wind, because those windmill farms break up an otherwise picturesque view. Nuclear? Pretty obvious what the objections are there. CNG is a damn good, clean resource that's been used for decades, but if you talk to some, especially where there is none, they don't know how useful it is. I had a neighbor that was opposed to NG being brought to the area, and swore that entire villages were randomly exploding due to it.
People just aren't realistic I feel. An example, is the area I go hiking in, it's about 30 miles square, and has a trail that basically loops in about 5 miles, and another trail that sprouts off to a lake a few more miles. 8 miles of trail total. This is a foot trail, just wide enough for one person, yet, if you step off, some people will b***h. Litterally, this trail takes up 0.00016% if the park, and someone b***hes when you step one foot off the trail? THESE are the people energy, including ALTERNATIVE energy are up against. It's no wonder we're stuck doing what we have been doing all along, headway is hard to make, but the blame for lack of success always goes elsewhere. I hear people talk about how some dude at GM invented a carburator that will allow any car to get 300mpg, but the oil companies bought up the patent.  People believe this, regardless of how logically and scientifically flawed it is. Anyways, I'm getting off subject. Now you know why those "Scarlet Fry" posts come so naturally for me, it's the A.D.D.

[ulthar]

 I hear people talk about how some dude at GM invented a carburator that will allow any car to get 300mpg, but the oil companies bought up the patent.  People believe this, regardless of how logically and scientifically flawed it is.

Right, and the people that believe asinine drivel like this have no clue how businesses operate.  Businesses exist to make money - to generate wealth.  They really don't care how or what product.

So, IF this carb did exist, and IF the oil companies DID buy up that patent, don't ya think they'd make a killing selling cars that get 300 mpg? 

Why would they care if they were no longer selling as much oil? They'd corner the car market.

And this applies to ANY new alternative tech - be it solar, fuel cell, whatever.  There is absolutely NO motivation for them to suppress the tech to protect their "profits;" if they know it exists and is viable, the smart business move is to exploit the new tech and make profit on THAT.

Besides, the 8% or so profit in the petroleum industry is probably not worth fighting for as hard as 'these people' seem to think it is.  It just boggles my mind, continues to boggle my mind, how little so many people understand about how economies and businesses work.

[ghouck]

If a car were out there that made 300 mpg, I'd happily pay $15 a gallon, , that's 20 miles per dollar, instead of the <5 miles to the dollar I'm paying now at $4.83 or so. They'd make more money, have to do less, and it would last longer.

Nevermind that 99.9% of the energy in a gallon of gas is accounted for. In an average sized car, the energy needed to move the car equals around 30% of the energy found in gasoline, so most cars just can't get better than 80 by only increasing engine efficiency. The problem with the internal combustion engine is that it wastes TONS of energy in the form of heat. Think about it: Do you know of ANYTHING besides your car that has NO insulation, yet there's never a problem keeping it warm? The reason is that there is such a huge amount of energy wasted as heat, that if we reclaim just a small portion of it with a cheap and primitive system such as a car has, it's enough to keep the inside of an uninsulated vehicle running down the road at 60 mph in -30f weather nice and warm with no trouble at all. That has nothing to do with the carb, it's inherent to any internal combustion engine.

[ulthar]

What you are alluding to with the heat thing is what in thermodynamics is called "Carnot Efficiency."  It's a fundamental consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (the same law that brings us the concept of Entropy).

Basically, this has to do with how heat is converted to work and vice versa in an "engine" (here engine is far more general than internal combustion engine, it's any 'device' that converts heat->work and work->heat).  The Carnot Efficiency is inversely related to the ratio "cold side" temperature divided by the "hot side" temperature.

If we cool the exhaust (making the hot and cold sides closer to the same temperature) so we don't waste all the energy as heat would dramatically lower the thermodynamic efficiency of the engine.

[ghouck]

The only point I was making was how erroneous the mythical "300 mpg carburetor" was. My point was that there are other things that have been observed to be inefficiencies that have nothing to do with the carb, and also the fact that there just isn't enough energy in a gallon of gas to move a medium or large size car 300 miles on typical roads.

You lost me WAY before "carrot effigy", , something to do with Easter Island? 

[ulthar]

I gotcha...

I was just emphasizing your point.  Those that make arguments like 300 mpg cars are talking the impossible because that sort of thing violates the fundamental physical laws of the universe (at least as the brightest minds the earth has produced understand them).

It's ridiculous on so many levels, and ignorance is compounded by stupidity by the assertion that is made that the oil companies would suppress such tech if it were possible.

[CheezeFlixz]

You lost me WAY before "carrot effigy", , something to do with Easter Island? 

Carnot Efficiency - I know what it is, I know the concept of how it works, I have no idea how to 'splain it.

Those that make arguments like 300 mpg cars are talking the impossible because that sort of thing violates the fundamental physical laws of the universe (at least as the brightest minds the earth has produced understand them).

What is it was a really small car?

It's ridiculous on so many levels, and ignorance is compounded by stupidity by the assertion that is made that the oil companies would suppress such tech if it were possible.

Correct, that thinking (300 mpg carb) in line with some of the nut jobs you here in "Coast to Coast AM with George Noory" the government conspiracist type that think there is little green men in Area 51. (We all know their Gray .. jeez)

I heard a rumor year ago along the same line that some guy invented a oil filter that was so good you never had to change you oil. But the oil companies bought and silenced him. Righhttt.

I'm never ceased to be amazed by the number of people that believe just flat out stupid sh!t. And the worse part is I hear some of these insane rumors repeated by seemingly intelligent people. If they would just sit down and think about realistically and logically they'd see the flaws in the claim.

If we want energy independence where going to have to drill and use our own oil and while doing that develop AFFORDABLE alternatives. I live on a hill the wind blows nearly all year long, so I looked into a wind generator. Well one big enough to power my house and shop with a little left over to feed the grid was nearly $25,000.00  by the time it was installed, wired, new  reverse meters etc. it was going to be close to $30,000.00 just not going to lay out that kind of cash on it.   

[ulthar]

If we want energy independence where going to have to drill and use our own oil and while doing that develop AFFORDABLE alternatives. I live on a hill the wind blows nearly all year long, so I looked into a wind generator. Well one big enough to power my house and shop with a little left over to feed the grid was nearly $25,000.00  by the time it was installed, wired, new  reverse meters etc. it was going to be close to $30,000.00 just not going to lay out that kind of cash on it.   

Yep, a few years ago I was engineering off-grid and back-up power systems, mostly for home use.  I remember the summer there was something in the paper about what I was doing (not an ad, not an interview, more like a letter to the editor type thing) and I got all kinds of phone calls and emails and the like.  Every one liked the idea of living off the grid or having back-up.

But no one wanted to pay what it costs.  It was a ten year investment before ROI, and that just does not fit into the instant gratification demands of our culture.

[CheezeFlixz]

But no one wanted to pay what it costs.  It was a ten year investment before ROI, and that just does not fit into the instant gratification demands of our culture.

That and the cost, a wind generator likely wouldn't last long enough to pay for itself before it needed replacing and that is a negative ROI.

I have the papers somewhere, but the money I was going to theoretically save verses investment and yearly maintenance wasn't enough to out last the service life of the generator, in fact it was a negative gain. So why invest $30K to realize a 0% financial gain when you could leave it in a saving account or money market and realize a modest gain.

If you look at a wind generator, you just don't see $25K-$30K worth of parts, design and labor. What you do see is someone trying to get rich while every one is in "save the planet" mode. Well, I'm in "save my money" mode and can small an opportunist.