Getting off the Oil Teet?

[Airwolf]

Ever since the price of gas has hit near orbital heights there have been calls for us as a nation to find new sources of energy and or find renewable energy sources. As anyone with a basic understanding of science can tell you there is no such thing as a renewable energy source. The sun is dying out even as we speak. Granted it would take many many years for it to turn into a red giant and basically burn the Earth into charchoal but its still buring itself out and solar power has yet to become the efficiant source of power we neen

Oil as it is now also cannot be replaced so all these calls by the deranged left of the DNC to stop using oil are sure signs of someones lack of understanding and nothing more then political gamesmanship. Oil has become to important to the everyday goings on that we cannot just stop using it. I have no idea what amout of the oil used in the US is made into Gas but the total amount that isn't has to be far larger. It is far past the point for the US to stop importing as much as it does. The only way we are going to get off from using oil is by either finding a repalcement that we can use and that is so plentifull that its cost is negligeble or we finally get all those blocking the uses of Nuclear power and other means that we already have to make power and drive our cars that oil would be a product much like sugar that its used and repleneshed.

Below are links for all the lurking Dummies of products made from oil so you can see just what kind of things we make with it. It should have occured to you to look this up yourselves but then again it's far easier to just sit back in the old basement and whine like a little bitch then to do something.

 http://www.3k88.com/products.htm

This link has the percentages of what is made from oil.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/non-renewable/oil.html

http://www.eldr.com/article/politics/products-made-oil

http://www.anwr.org/features/oiluses.htm

Now any of you on the Democratic side willing to give up any or all of these products like Barry Obama says we should do by getting out of oil in our lifetime?

[Thor]

I'd really like for the US to get off of the FOREIGN oil tete, but reality tells me that the enviro-whackos and the Dems will attempt to stand in our way. We have plenty of oil for ourselves IF we can keep the other countries from slant-drilling into our country and we can actually start drilling for our own oil. I DO realize that there is a LOT of stuff made from petroleum product, everything from plasticware to pesticides.

[JohnnyReb]

Maybe if the DUmmies, and especially DUmmie politicians, had plowed a mule just one day there'd appreciate oil and the internal combustion engine more.
They sure seem to be in a rush to get back to those times.

[LC EFA]

It'd be great to get the world away from using fossil fuel as an energy source. Simply Great. Not only would it deprive several not-so-friendly entities of their main income stream, but it would leave a vast amount more for the plastics / etc manufacturing sector. A product that's so required to produce most of the items we take for granted, being burned in the millions of barrels a day order seems kind of wasteful.
 
The trouble is, there isn't one catchall solution.

Container ships need to steam, airliners need to fly, people need to drive, and the economy needs to be function.

Private industry needs to have more incentive to spend their research dollars on a viable replacement for the internal combustion engine. Until we can get around that pesky law of conservation of energy thing, electrical is pretty much how its gonna come down.

The replacement for the internal combustion engine is probably going to be some form of electrical motor, so thats also a opportunity for someone to develop a suitable means for storing the electrical energy for the motor. We're gonna have to do it eventually or face a shortage in other sectors. A market will emerge and is already emerging and profit can be obtained.  Which is really the bottom line. Whatever replacement must be able to turn a profit or it won't eventuate.

[Airwolf]

I have heard that Hydrogen would be a good substitute for a gas powered car. Its easy to create and is replenishable and quite . Today I learned that Norway is the 4Th largest oil producing nation. If Norway with all the elk,bear and trees there can find ways to drill for oil then we surely can and without cause to fear an environmental disaster that the Greenies keep freaking over. Anyone here know of one environmental accident due to oil in Norway?

[Thor]

I like the idea of hydrogen power, however there are a few problems with it. Water vapor IS a greenhouse gas. Secondly, it takes a LOT of energy to make hydrogen gas. Then, there's the "combustibility factor". (Remember the Hindenburg ?) All of these problems CAN be overcome, but at what cost ?? Until the technology is refined, we're just not quite ready. Electric vehicles have their promise, too, but, again, we're not quite there. Until we GET there, we'll have to make do with what we have. While I fully expected to have had dramatic changes in our lives by the advent of the 21st century, I haven't seen them, except in computers and the internet. Much of our technology is still based on ideas developed in the 50s and 60s, we just got better designs.

[Doc]

The US uses approximately 70% of its oil, from whatever source to manufacture motor fuel (including aircraft and marine types).....30% go for all other consumables like plastics, building materials, etc.

We can shift the type of hydrocarbon fuel that we use for the various applications.  For example, the US, and its territories have vast reserves of natural gas, which, if properly used could possibly replace 40% (optimistically) of our crude oil consumption.  Taking our electric generating capabilities from 15% nuclear up to about 40 - 50% nuclear would reduce crude oil consumption by an additional 20%.  These changes would place the US in the position of not having to purchase ANY crude oil from any sources other than our "friendly" neighbors Mexico and Canada (plus a little from the North Sea).  That said, anyone that thinks that the US will move completely away from hydrocarbon fuels in the next century is completely deluded.........

One must also consider the fact that the US has sufficient reserves of coal to fuel our needs for the next thousand years.........coal is cheap.......what we need is the technology to convert it (economically) into usable application fuel in an environmentally friendly manner......and I think that this is already being done.......

What nobody is talking about.....and I don't understand why.......is that the planet's oceans contain (it has been estimated by reputable researchers) almost unlimited reserves of METHANE.....in solid form.  These methane reserves exist in the depths below 400 fathoms in gigantic deposits similar to the polar ice caps, and are kept in solid form by a combination of temperature and pressure.  All that is needed is an economical method of extracting the gas.  Considering that deep-water drilling is now possible to depths of several thousand feet, I believe that it is only a matter of time until an inexpensive process is developed.  Methane, by the way, is easily converted to hydrogen, which can be used as a vehicle fuel.

All of these considerations should be part of the debate, but I'm not hearing anyone speak definitively about ALL of the options that are out there........

I wonder why.....

doc

[Thor]

Was that a rhetorical question., Doc ??

[Chris_]

Was that a rhetorical question., Doc ??

Absolutely....

doc