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an answer to the oil shortage

This Should explain it all...

A lot of folks can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in our country.

Well, there's a very simple answer.

Nobody bothered to check the oil.

We just didn't know we were getting low.

The reason for that is purely geographical!

Our OIL is located in:

-Alaska

-California

-Coastal Florida

-Coastal Louisiana

-Kansas

-Oklahoma

-Pennsylvania

-Texas

and

lesser amounts in other states

Our DIPSTICKS Are Located in Washington DC

Any Questions?
 
laugh.gif
 
But seriously, why aren't we going full speed with Hydrogen, which is plentiful and its only byproduct is water? And why aren't we taking seriously energy derived from wind, solar, geothermal, corn, or soybeans? It's there and we read about some local farmer doing it on his own. Have the powers that be just haven't squeezed the last bit of money from us?
 
Theirs a country in South America that Is almost all E 85 Ethanol. (I cant rember) so If they can do it why cant we?
 
because the government doesn't want to, as long as they are making money, they will continue to use OIL. Until Hydrogen becomes profitable then they will switch.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (jimscott @ July 25 2006,2:16)]But seriously, why aren't we going full speed with Hydrogen, which is plentiful and its only byproduct is water?
Hydrogen is neither plentiful nor a particularly viable replacement for oil. By my understanding, we get hydrogen from splitting water, which is a costly process fueled by conventional power, such as burning coal and oil. I'm sure if you've had some basic chemistry you're aware that you're not going to net any additional energy by taking water apart and putting it back together again. Saying hydrogen reactors will solve the oil crisis is like saying that we should use gasoline for fuel instead of crude oil. Hydrogen could be gathered in space, where it's fairly abundant (so far as anything floating out in space is abundant) but we don't have the technology or infrastructure for such an undertaking. As things are, hydrogen engines are just novelties and science projects; they aren't an alternative to oil, they're just separated from it by a few more degrees.
[b said:
Quote[/b] (nepenthes_ak @ July 25 2006,2:22)]Theirs a country in South America that Is almost all E 85 Ethanol. (I cant rember) so If they can do it why cant we?
Isn't it Brazil? Or maybe Venezuela...? I heard about this the other day but now I can't remember either. In any case, it's certainly not because we can't.
~Joe
 
the major problem with hydrogen for fuel is storing it. you have to remember this stuff is more explosive than gasoline by far bout the only way to produce hydrogen without lots of pollution is to use nuclear reactors to make the electrisity to split the H2O otherwise your putting just as much hydrocarbons in the air as if you were using gas because of the coal and oil power plants.

as for E85 its getting more and more common. there are several cities within a couple hours drive of me that have E85 pumps as well as talks of an E85 plant being built over the border in western ND about 100 miles from my front door.

personally, i will purchase a vehicle that can run on E85 but i will not purchase one that runs on hydrogen. the reason? its going to be a long time before i can purchase hydrogen in Wolf Point MT however it will prolly be within the next 5 years that i can purchase E85. im not purchasing any vehicle that isnt going to run on something thats easily availible in the middle of Outer Montana
smile_m_32.gif
 
The problem is we use too much energy.  Brazil (I'm pretty sure that's who it is) has used ethanol to replace a lot of its gasoline, but compare the per capita use there to here.  Plus Brazil can grow sugar cane in that intense tropical sun and produce much more energy per acre.  At least in the short term, until it toasts its land with so much non-sustainable production.

It's hard to see where all the additional agricultural production could happen for even a fraction of the ethanol we'd need.  Actually, it isn't that hard.  A lot of productive land around the starving world will be diverted to crops to produce the ethanol needed to keep fat American @sses in fat cars.  And a lot of water will be diverted to that crop, so maybe people can humanely die of thirst instead of lingering around while starving to death.
 
  • #10
[b said:
Quote[/b] (herenorthere @ July 25 2006,6:28)]A lot of productive land around the starving world will be diverted to crops to produce the ethanol needed to keep fat American @sses in fat cars. And a lot of water will be diverted to that crop, so maybe people can humanely die of thirst instead of lingering around while starving to death.
makes ya proud to be an american dunnit?
 
  • #11
yeah know Bruce your one cheery SOB to chat with.

so whats your solution?

BTW the original post was supposed to be a joke.............
 
  • #12
What kills me is solar energy. Was just at the planetarium this weekend, and found out that the amount of energy that reaches the earth from the sun in one minutes is a little more than the US uses in a whole year.

Now, I understand that a) we cannot collect solar energy efficiently - maybe a 2% draw from the total energy. Ok, so that makes it a hour to power the county for a year.

Then, we have less that the whole earth (because we aren't the only country, after all). Say, we have 1% of the surface area to deal with.

that means a few days to power the country for a year.

Still better than we're doing now!
 
  • #13
the problem with solar is with current technology it isnt terribly effective in some areas. however it sure would help at lowering the power needs of the country as a whole but it also takes money out of energy company pockets.at the moment i think it would cost me around $15,000 for a system that would give me enough electricity to run my house. however due to snow fall and severly overcast days in winter i would still need to be hooked up to the grid. after we get the house paid for i might just concider doing it the only problem is finding the materials since its solar energy companies arent terribly common in MT
 
  • #14
if you live in the desert or california/florida it would be a great option and would fay for itsself. you could cover the back side of your roof so people couldn't see from the road.
 
  • #15
From what I understand.

E85 Ethanol is just a band-aid to the real problem. E85 gets you around 20% less mpg along with less horsepower. Also farmers just don't make alot of money on E85. E85 is being pushed by politics, and it really sucks as a fuel.

Hybrids are also just a band-aid. It's been proven that a Toyota Prius will cost you more money over the course of 10 years than a regular non-hybrid Civic even after you take into account the 60mpg you get out of the Prius.

I think the only real replacement fuel that makes since is Hydrogen. We can use solar power to power the electrolysis of water and hydrogen can be safely stored in cars. I know Mazda has an RX8 available in Japan for lease that runs on both gas and hydrogen. You still get les horsepower but with more R&D I think it will be the best answer to the fuel problem.

In fact I read a story about a guy that figured out how to turn water into hydrogen with less electricity. he said that 4tbs of water could make enough hydrogen to power a car for something like 100 miles.
 
  • #16
I have to say I liked the joke, but the topic had veered away from humor long before I came along.  The solution to energy problems is easier, in theory, than switching to any other energy source.  We just need to use a lot less.  Nothing could be simpler, in theory.  Can that count as my answer?

This reminds me of a time a few years ago that I crunched energy consumption data for CT for 1970 and whatever would have been the most recent data (~2000).  The results were probably lost in my old computer, but I remember that our usage of energy (electricity, natural gas, motor fuel) was up almost across the board.  It was a period of massive de-industrialization here, so industrial electric consumption was down, but the increase in residential & commercial use more than compensated for it.

It was kind of stunning to see that the 1973 & 1978 oil price shocks had little lasting effect.  Thirty years later, maybe people were driving 20,000 miles per year in a car getting 24 mpg instead of 10,000 in a car getting 12.  By now, they're probably up to 25,000 miles per year in a car now back down to 12 mpg.

All the energy efficiency innovations were overwhelmed by more and/or larger miles, houses, refrigerators, hot tubs, TVs, etc.  That's the problem with pushing efficiency for efficiency's sake.  We've traded a 1970 family's inefficient 19" TV for a 2000 family having a 24" Energy Star TV in every room and a 36" TV in one.  Several on at the same time, of course.

Back in WWI & WWII, Americans gave a d@mn about something other than their own personal comfort and sacrificed for the common good.  It's kind of hard to imagine that happening now.  But that's what it'll take.
 
  • #17
seriously thought, excess has become the american way. it's part of our culture and a big part of why everyone hates us. even i waste energy, even though i know i shouldn't. i guess it's because i've never had a deficit of it and in my mind it'll always be there, limitless, but in reality that's not true.
 
  • #18
JustLikeAPill is exactly right. Well all know we should use less energy but the simple fact is... We wont. Americans are far to used to the large amounts of energy we use in our everyday lives.

There is no way anyone can get all Americans to do any one thing. We want to drive our SUV's, turn up the heat in the winter and continue living our comfy lives. Thats why instead of useing less, it makes more since to find an alternative that wont change our lives that much. That way more people will take notice and accually use it.
 
  • #19
scary conversation...

E85... is this corn?

and brazil? they run on what? i saw the megastructures discovery show on it once. half paying attention, but interesting how they are totally self-sufficient in this regard...
 
  • #20
YAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I love this stuff haven't had a good discussion in a while. The oil crisis is probably my area of expertise!! So let's get down to business.............

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]E85 Ethanol is just a band-aid to the real problem.

This is true, and by the way, it is Brazil who lead the world in Ethanol use. In Brazil this system works well. However, it would be imposssible to integrate any signifcant level of ethanol use into North american culture namely because we don't have the same acreage of land devoted to crops as Brazil does. Plus we consume wayyyyy more oil than Brazillians per capita so it is definately only a band-aid solution.

Hydrogen....also a band-aid solution...

Hydrogen Fuel is and always will be an energy sink. It will always take more energy to make hydrogen than you will get out of the fuel. Hydrogen also requires energy from another source to be created, which is much different than oil. Oil can be used to extract more oil. Hydrogen can NOT be used to make more Hydrogen. Therefore if we begin using it as a major source of fuel for transportation we are really just going to be using electricity, used to make hydrogen, as an alternative. This will just put more strain on our already unstable energy situation.

Another Oil related problem.....

Oil unfortunately is a very unique substance and it is much more important to our civilization than we think. We all know a shortage would impact our transportation as can be seen by rising gasoline prices. Just take a moment and look around wherever you are and check to see if there is any plastic nearby. The cheapest form of plastic is manufactured from oil. One of the main use of these cheap plastics is in the foodstuffs industry. Many foods are stored in these cheap plastics and would become inedible quickly if they were unavailable. No matter what if we lose oil we can't generate a cheap alternative to plastic.

The history of the oil crisis (from memory it's 1:00am so forgive me if I make a few date errors)

In the mid 1950's a scientist by the name of Marrion Hubbert went to work on what is now called the Hubbert Peak Theory. This mathematical theory estimated the times that the US and the world would peak in oil production. He predicted that the US would peak in the late 60's. It did peak in 1971. He then predicted that the world oil would peak in the late 90's, but due to the oil issues of the late 70's this date was pushed back. The peak may have occured already or may be fast in coming but the fact remains oil will be declining in the next 1/2 decade whether Americans and the rest of the world choose to accept it or not.

What can we do.....

We are about to enter the most critical stage in all of human history. Understanding the gravity of this situation is key to getting the ball rolling on this issues. **** Cheney recently said that, "the american way of life is non-nogotiable". A man named Jim Koester reponded to this in a speech by saying, "If Americans decide not to take action and remain stubborn, they will recieve a new more unforgiving negotiating partner...reality". We all waste energy, we all know it, I do it, Clint does it, the whole darn country does it. Alot of people change to more efficient light bulbs, they purchase more efficient electronics, they walk a little more, but this is the problem. The saying, "every little bit helps" is just a product of our society to satisfy that little voice in our heads that tells us to conserve. Unfortunately what is required is by no stretch of the imagination "a little bit". This, above anything else, is the biggest problem with democracy. We trust that the people will make the right decision, but nothing short of a cataclysmic energy shortage will open their eyes. By that time I'm not sure whether the changes will be reversible. We must prepare for the end of the automobile era. Human history goes back approximately 3 million years. But ever since the agricultural revolution of 10 000 years ago everything has been going downhilll. We treat nature as if we own it but guess what?! Nature has a very easy way of overthrowing human regimes. It's called an Ice age, and it suffers very little because of it but we on the otherhand......

Will rant more later must sleep,

Zac

p.s. I have not checked for typos so please forgive me
 
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