American oil

The first step towrd curbing pollution would be to drasticly reduce the consumption of fossil fuels. If I remember correctly, the United States gets about 70% of its energy directly from fossil fuels. Another 20% comes from nuclear power and the remaining 10% comes from all other energy sources. Only about 1% comes from wind and solar. It's alarming to think that 70% of our energy comes from pollutting, non renewable sources that will run out in 100-500 years. Although, we have enough uranium to last a few thousand years, rather than several hundred, it is not renewable either, and there's the problem of disposing of the waste. Nuclear energy could offer an immediate solution to getting off fossil fuels, but we'd need to eventually move to other sources of energy. So in total, more than 90% of our energy comes from non-renewable sources. The first step to getting away from fossil fuels would be to reduce consumption by doing things like driving less, conserving electricity, and using toys like jet skis, snowmobiles, ATVs, RVs, speedboats, and the like much less or not at all. Conservation of resources could be encouraged by the placement of a sin tax on said toys as well as on oversized cars, trucks, and SUVs. Stricter millage standards and the use of fossil fuel alternatives, like ethanol could also help. Another thing that could help us get away from fossil fuels would be tax incentives for people and businesses that use alternative sources of energy. There should be major tax incentives for people to power their homes with solar or wind and to heat them with solarthermal or geothermal technology. Also, there should be incentives for people that run their vehicles on energy sources other than fossil fuels and there should be incentives for people to buy hybreds, pure electric vehicles, and alternative fuel compatible vehicles. Tax incentives on alternative energies and sin taxes on energy wasting vehicles and toys could help, but the government can't do it all. We all need to do our part by driving less, using alternative forms of energy and transportation whereever possible, using gas guzzling toys less, and by taking steps to make our homes and our lives more energy efficient.

Gordon,
you have sound thoughts, and yes, change is required.
Unfortunately, the only way for many people to change is when they get hurt in some way. Some may get hurt financially due to the high cost of fuel or the loss of income from natural disasters. Some may suffer illness due to polution. Some may even suffer loss of life caused by storms/floods. As long as people can continue doing the same things without too much discomfort, they will not make the effort to change.
We need to care for our world and not do things to destroy it.
Talking about it brings attention to it and that is precisely what you are doing. Keep doing it but more importantly, lead by example.

What's rather interesting is that while rules in the U.S. have made it nearly impossible to build refineries or drill a new well anywhere, Canada is rather quietly drilling for oil. I've seen reports that Canada has more oil than Saudi Arabia, but it's apparently harder to get.

Frankly, I'd much rather see developments in hybrid technology in which the electric motor is there to promote better gas mileage, not extra performance on top of a gasoline engine getting no better mileage than any other car. Prior to the recent increases in gas costs, many of the hybrids cost so much more to buy than non-hybrids, that the owners would never be able to recoup the cost difference over the lifetime of the car through fuel savings.

Malcolm

Personally, I think it would do us a lot of good if the prices of solar cells and wind generators would come down significantly. If the prices were low enough, many more people would invest in installing these technologies on their homes and businesses. Mayby the government should subsidise solar and wind instead of petrolium and other fossil fuels. If solar panels could be made for less than one dollar per watt of generating capacity, solar would really take off, I think. A 2,500 watt system can provide nearly all the power needed by an average home and if the cost was only one dollar per watt, the system would cost only $2500 dollars. I think people will be much more inclined to invest in solar if it'll only cost them a few thousand and not several tens of thousands of dollars to install the system. I think we should be subsidising renewable energy sources like solar and wind, not fossil fuels.

There is a lot of oil here Malcolm, and in Venezuela, however much of it is actually mired in tarsands. It's a long and environmentally unfriendly process to actually extract the crude. despite the vast amounts of it. More info to be found at the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands

Pam wrote:

There is a lot of oil here Malcolm, and in Venezuela, however much of it is actually mired in tarsands. It's a long and environmentally unfriendly process to actually extract the crude. despite the vast amounts of it. More info to be found at the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands

We really need to look beyond fuels like petrolium, coal, and natural gas. We should pursue renewable sources not just more of the same.

Goodness knows, the government plays games with taxes and monetary rules for things it sees as positive within the realm of "public policy." So a little subsidy for solar and wind is a good thought. I think, though, that before those sources can be developed to the point where they will sustain a nation, we will have to copy France and use nuclear energy a lot more than we've bee willing to up to now.

Malcolm

Nuclear energy does have the potential of being able to get us off fossil fuels quickly and in the near term it should be pursued. We must, however, be careful not to make the same mistake we made with fossil fuels by putting all our eggs in the nuclear basket. It is important to develop a variety of differnt energy sources and not realy on one source too heavily, especially if that source is non-renewable.

Way I see it there is only really one source of energy: thermonuclear fusion.

The earth has a limited "income": the amount of solar radiation that strikes it every day.

Using fossil fuels is spending our "savings account" of solar energy from millennia past.

There are only two long term solutions: use the sun a learn to live on the amount it gives us...or build our own suns.

lin wrote:

One thing I used to notice back during periods
when I'd drive to work (working as a freelance reporter/photographer,
for instance) instead of bicycling was that it not only made me
physically soft, but made me stupid. And irritable.

Just wondering...has anything changed since you stopped driving?

Pottering through this topic it doesn't seem as if anyone's mentioned
in the UK we've always paid far more for petrol/gas than in the States.
When I came over in 2001 it was over $5 a gallon at home and $1.35 was
soooooooooo cheap!

Truckers/Lorry Drivers are currently being asked to pay $11 bucks a gallon, you guys don't realise how cheap your gas is

I think most everything is higher in the UK than here in the states. Is that a valid observation? What is the exchange rate these days, and is there a minimum wage in the UK?

I'm not sure why having to pay more is anything to be proud of. Of course some politicians in the U.S. have long said that if we paid an exorbitant price for something that's suddenly gone up faster than the rate of inflation, we would conserve.

To some extent, we are, as recent stats show, but that's a very reactive way to talk people into making changes we all know will be needed sooner or later.

Nice article about oil sands, Pam. Thanks for the link. What I'm curious about is the economics. Since Canada has more oil than the middle east, why/how does OPEC control the price per barrel? Right now, all we're hearing about is why won't Saudi Arabia pump more oil and lower the price when it seems they're not the only people with the oil (and that includes American oil as well)?

Malcolm

There have been experiments with nuclear fusion, but the problem so far is that with current technology, it takes more energy to trigger the reaction than the reaction yields. Fusion should be pursued, but it is a long term future solution, not a near term one we can impliment in the immediate future. If we could successfully build a fusion reactor, it could be fueled by duterium (heavy hydrogen) from the ocean and there would be enough to power civilization for millions of years. If we expanded our horizions and got our duterium from space, there would be enough to supply our needs for trillions of years (several thousand times longer than the projected lifespan of the sun). A successful fusion reactor is probably several decades away and we probably won't be building stars until a long time after that. And for one final advantage for fusion if we could make it work, fusion uses non-radioactive duterium for fuel, not highly radioactive enriched uranium used in present day nuclear reactors. Furthermore, the only waste product of fusion would be helium gas. No toxic waste, no high level radioactive waste, and no greenhouse gases.

P. Gordon,

I am very impressed by your knowledge and learn something new every time I read your posts. Well done.

Carol

Well, I just try to keep myself informed. I've been interested in alternative energy technologies since I was 14 and I've been into science since the fourth grade.

P. Gordon Kennedy wrote:

There have been experiments with nuclear fusion, but the problem so far is that with current technology, it takes more energy to trigger the reaction than the reaction yields. Fusion should be pursued, but it is a long term future solution, not a near term one we can impliment in the immediate future. If we could successfully build a fusion reactor, it could be fueled by duterium (heavy hydrogen) from the ocean and there would be enough to power civilization for millions of years. If we expanded our horizions and got our duterium from space, there would be enough to supply our needs for trillions of years (several thousand times longer than the projected lifespan of the sun). A successful fusion reactor is probably several decades away and we probably won't be building stars until a long time after that. And for one final advantage for fusion if we could make it work, fusion uses non-radioactive duterium for fuel, not highly radioactive enriched uranium used in present day nuclear reactors. Furthermore, the only waste product of fusion would be helium gas. No toxic waste, no high level radioactive waste, and no greenhouse gases.

And by the way, the helium gas could theoretically be fused into carbon to yield even more energy. The reaction would produce elemental carbon (think graffite) not the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. If we wanted to, we could take all that carbon and use some of the excess energy to crush it into diamonds!

P. Gordon Kennedy wrote:

There have been experiments with nuclear
fusion, but the problem so far is that with current technology, it
takes more energy to trigger the reaction than the reaction yields.
Fusion should be pursued, but it is a long term future solution, not a
near term one we can impliment in the immediate future. If we could
successfully build a fusion reactor, it could be fueled by duterium
(heavy hydrogen) from the ocean and there would be enough to power
civilization for millions of years. If we expanded our horizions and
got our duterium from space, there would be enough to supply our needs
for trillions of years (several thousand times longer than the
projected lifespan of the sun). A successful fusion reactor is probably
several decades away and we probably won't be building stars until a
long time after that. And for one final advantage for fusion if we
could make it work, fusion uses non-radioactive duterium for fuel, not
highly radioactive enriched uranium used in present day nuclear
reactors. Furthermore, the only waste product of fusion would be helium
gas. No toxic waste, no high level radioactive waste, and no greenhouse
gases.

Great, but if only helium gas is the waste would we all be talking in high squeaky voices? Actually that could be fun!

Malcolm to answer your question, the problem gets made darned complicated by the presence of international companies and consortiums and borders and politics with all kinds of economics tied up in oil.
Unfortunately I think that our little revolution here, the one that sees us all convert to solar and wind and ramp up our recycling efforts, build composters, etc. etc. will end up in a similar place that the first patents to battery operated cars did...in the hands of the oil companies who were blocking their development.
So, I am going to do what I generally do at times like this, except that today I baked peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies so that's what Im going to eat.

rainbow689 wrote:

P. Gordon Kennedy wrote:

There have been experiments with nuclear
fusion, but the problem so far is that with current technology, it
takes more energy to trigger the reaction than the reaction yields.
Fusion should be pursued, but it is a long term future solution, not a
near term one we can impliment in the immediate future. If we could
successfully build a fusion reactor, it could be fueled by duterium
(heavy hydrogen) from the ocean and there would be enough to power
civilization for millions of years. If we expanded our horizions and
got our duterium from space, there would be enough to supply our needs
for trillions of years (several thousand times longer than the
projected lifespan of the sun). A successful fusion reactor is probably
several decades away and we probably won't be building stars until a
long time after that. And for one final advantage for fusion if we
could make it work, fusion uses non-radioactive duterium for fuel, not
highly radioactive enriched uranium used in present day nuclear
reactors. Furthermore, the only waste product of fusion would be helium
gas. No toxic waste, no high level radioactive waste, and no greenhouse
gases.

Great, but if only helium gas is the waste would we all be talking in high squeaky voices? Actually that could be fun!

Actually since helium is lighter than air, it would all escape into space unless the reactor opperators made a deliberate effort to contain it.

Ah shucks, I was contemplating sounding like a chipmunk!

And you can send me some cookies any time you like, Pam!! Maybe I'll bake tomorrow!

Pam,Zada:
I think peanut and chocolate chip cookies would be a great way to support the non-proliferation of fossil fuels. Can you bake them with solar energy or is there another way?

Abe, maybe if we go somewhere in the car, we could cook them under the hood? I know you can heat canned foods (like soup) on the car engine. Of course, if a big enough batch was made, you could eat cookies for quite a few meals and forgo cooking regular lunch and dinners!

Making cookies with solar energy...hmm...when I was a lot younger I did try to make cookies in the microwave, but they really weren't the same. They didn't rise or spread out and were hard like a hockey puck. I suppose that if I adapted my wood stove (which heats the house), I could bake cookies in there because it certainly gets hot enough. It might be easier to adapt the recipes a bit to cook them in a cast iron pan on top of the wood stove, like you would an Irish soda bread or native Canadians make Bannock. Could do foccacia bread that way too come to think of it.
Certainly is food for thought!

There is always the no-bake style of cookie. But they are not really cookies. Doggone it anyway!