Putting all the eggs in the petroleum basket

No doubt we're addicted to petroleum, but many people may not realize how badly we're addicted. When a farmer plants his crop, he does it with a tractor powered by petroleum based fuel and then he most likely fertilizes it with petroleum based fertalizer and keeps pests away with petroleum based pesticides. When the crop is harvested, using equipment powered by petroleum based fuels, it is shipped by truck or rail in vehicles powered by petroleum based fuels. The trucks drive on roads made of asphalt, which is made from petroleum. The processing plant that processes the crops most likely is largely powered by petroleum based fuels and the plastic packaging the food is put in is made from petroleum. At the store, the plastic shopping cart is also made from petroleum and even the price tags are most likely printed with petroleum based ink and stuck on with petroleum based adheasive. When you buy the food, you most likely use a motor vehicle powered by petroleum based fuel to get it home. If you heat your home with heating oil, you're using yet more petroleum and if you cook your food on a grill fueled by propane, you're using even more petroleum. If your cloths are made from polyester, they're made from petroleum! After eating the food, you throw away the packaging and the garbage is taken away by a truck fueled by petroleum based fuels to a landfill, where it is crushed and buried by vehicles burning petroleum based fuels. It seems there's hardly anything we can do these days without using petroleum. We have a serious addiction to a finite non-renewable resource that's going to one day run out. We need to find alternatives and we need to do it now and we must be careful not to make the same mistake again by putting all our eggs in one basket.

Gordon, as usual you're full of statistical information.
I suppose we have done everything with petroleum except drink it. Or has that been tried?

For most things, the amount of power is still calculated as "horsepower." Now there's a novel idea. Horsepower, what might they think of next - again?

Al Gore made a speech in Washington about the environment:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1824132,00.html?cnn=yes

He is one man fighting for the survival of humanity.

It first dawned on me back in the seventies when living in a farm community that gasoline is a BIG unlisted ingredient in all American foods.

Lately I've been looking at other things.

It takes a LOT of gasoline to fight forest fires, or even urban fires.

The war on drugs: the bad guys are running three 120 HP outboards, the good guys are running coastguard cutters and helicopters.

At one point does fuel cost price the government out of the "war", while any increase merely makes dope more profitable?

They went from walking beats to patrol cars. Now what?

And the one that NOBODY is talking about... it's not petroleum that's the problem so much as gasoline. Our JetSki's and leafblowers are using gasoline that could have been used as petrochemicals...

which produce pharmaceuticals, plastics, fiberglass, asphalt, etc, etc.

We're burning upt the future of all that stuff when we don't really have to.

Abe F. March wrote:

Gordon, as usual you're full of statistical information.
I suppose we have done everything with petroleum except drink it. Or has that been tried?

For most things, the amount of power is still calculated as "horsepower." Now there's a novel idea. Horsepower, what might they think of next - again?

Al Gore made a speech in Washington about the environment:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1824132,00.html?cnn=yes

He is one man fighting for the survival of humanity.

Someone has probably tried to drink it, no doubt. Some people have very strange ways. However, you do eat petroleum indirectly as many fertalizers are made from petroleum and some food colorings are made from petroleum too. There's a lot of petroleum involved in producing and delivering food and almost all other products. As for horsepower, it's an old term that originated with the marketing of early steam engines. They were trying to tell people how many horses their steam engines could replace and the term stuck until the present day. One horsepower is defined today as the power needed to lift 550 pounds one foot in one second. It equals 746 watts. If we want to be more modern we could measure engine power in watts rather than horsepower. They use watts, not horsepower to measure power in the Standard System of Units (SI) used by scientists worldwide. We use the term horsepower all the time, but in the modern age, it does seem to be an outdated term.

lin wrote:

It first dawned on me back in the seventies when living in a farm community that gasoline is a BIG unlisted ingredient in all American foods.

Lately I've been looking at other things.

It takes a LOT of gasoline to fight forest fires, or even urban fires.

The war on drugs: the bad guys are running three 120 HP outboards, the good guys are running coastguard cutters and helicopters.

At one point does fuel cost price the government out of the "war", while any increase merely makes dope more profitable?

They went from walking beats to patrol cars. Now what?

And the one that NOBODY is talking about... it's not petroleum that's the problem so much as gasoline. Our JetSki's and leafblowers are using gasoline that could have been used as petrochemicals...

which produce pharmaceuticals, plastics, fiberglass, asphalt, etc, etc.

We're burning upt the future of all that stuff when we don't really have to.

Gasoline, diesel and other fuel oils, and propane gas are the biggest uses of petroleum. If we fould alternatives to these fuels, there would be a lot more petroleum available for the other things we use it for. Mayby they should develop a way to make petroleum artificially from organic waste, after all, the stuff in the ground will run out someday.

Then at the end of the day when you just want to wash up and get some rest, you still can't get away from petroleum. When you take a shower, there's a good chance the water was pumped to your home by waterpumps powered by petroleum based fuels. If you use a propane water heater, you're burning yet more petroleum. The soap and shampoo you use most likely contains several petroleum based ingreedients. If your wash cloth is made from polyester, it's made from petroleum too. The synthetic rubber stopper in your tub drain is made form petroleum (and other stuff) and your sewer lines may be held together by petroleum based glue. When the time finally comes to rest, think about this. The factory that made your bed most likely uses machinery powered by petroleum based fuels. If your mattress contains polyeaster, that's made from petroleum and any plastic parts are almost certainly made from petroleum. It seems we can't get away from petroleum no matter where we turn.

Even if you want to light some candles, you can't get away from petroleum. Most modern candles are made from petroleum derrived parafin wax.