I need a lib to explain this to me.

[rjd970]

So then you are good with the Russian/Cuban drilling but disapprove of American drilling???

What part of my post could you have possibly concluded this from?

The only possible way libs might stop drilling by other countries would be the "Lost" treaty which creates an opportunity for the UN to control 70% of Earth's surface.

I specifically asked for a liberal explanation because only a liberal could possibly follow such convoluted idiotic thinking.

And only you could draw such an idiotic and convoluted conclusion with what you posted. Your position here is beyond reaching.

I'll stick by my statement, any attempt at intelligent discussion with you is an exercise in futility.

That last line is too easy. Pass.

 

[gsvol]

:hi:

:hi:

Exxon/Mobile and Petro/China just signed a $41 billion deal to tap the huge Gorgon gas field off the north coast of Australia.

What do you make of that?

That last line is too easy. Pass.

Thanks for proving my point.

You get right to the heart of the matter;

1. 'who's behind the liberal American energy policy?'

2. 'is that energy policy in the best interest of the American people?'

 

[gsvol]

----------------------------

As a Lib.


I have never agreed with the policy of not drilling, Drill, drill, drill. I do beleive the revenue should be taxed enough to fully fund the American Citizens investment in Alternative Energy Sources and accompanying Technology.

Here is an article from 2.5 years ago with information dating back to as early as 2001.


U.S. Enemies Align With Cuba to Claim Gulf Oil | theTrumpet.com

You don't count, you just say you're a lib to increase your chances of getting a date.

Real libs are in lock step with party policy at all times, you are more like me, independently minded.

The Nazi party had practically the same environmental platform as the dimocraps of today.

It has been elaborately pointed out how the device of environmentalism is especially favoured by tyrants as a means of controlling their subjects.

In the 2005 published book How Green were the Nazis?: Nature, Environment, and Nation in the Third Reich the authors explain the Nazis received a warm welcome by the existing environmental organisations as there was 'an ideological overlap between Nazi ideas and conservationist agendas'.

As clearly illustrated by the current environmental groups, personal liberty is gladly sacrificed for what is called 'the greater good'. It is a well-known fact that most of the environmental fanatics care nothing for matters of liberty, gladly surrendering it to tyrants and their promises of 'environmental sustainability'.
................................

It will not be necessary to further point out the many similarities to our own time, where any and every environmental 'good intention' is hijacked by the elite for the advancement of its own objectives.

It is true; most environmentalists love collectivism and are prepared to marry almost every regime that claims to work for a clean and green environment. That makes this group extremely susceptible to the arguments of tyrants.

----------------------------------

I do believe the revenue should be taxed enough to fully fund the American Citizens investment in Alternative Energy Sources and accompanying Technology.
OB2

This statement gives me pause for some questions.

1. Do you buy the Al Gore 'global warming' emergency? Or do you think alternatives should be sought because coal, oil and natural gas resourses with some day be depleted?

2. By what process does that tax money pass from public to private hands?? IE; who gets to use that tax money to suit their own purposes??

3. What alternatives do you think show the most promise of successful use?

-----------------

I can't read what you post, so I can offer no input. I saw the original thread title, which referred to "libtards" and I guess a mod fixed it up a little.

I see the part that SOJ cut and paste and have to say to gsvol that if you really are so simple minded as it seems, if you do not understand the complexities of these issues, then perhaps it is not wise for you to refer to anyone elses' politics as "retarded."

:Bbiteme:

 

[KentheOrange]

I have him on ignore, ergo I can't read it.

I find that since placing him on that list, I eat and sleep better, have more energy, and doc says my cholesterol is down 40 points.

And yet you open threads started by him and reply to posts you claim you can't read.

How many shrinks do you employ?

 

[gsvol]

And yet you open threads started by him and reply to posts you claim you can't read.

How many shrinks do you employ?

Come on now Ken, we need to cut LG a bit of slack now and then.

It's not often that I speak up for LG but let me point out a couple of things.......

LG was a recent winner of a

VOLNATION POSTER OF THE YEAR AWARD,
in the category of;

"Best use of an avatar

as a self portrait."

And he did mention the 'complexities of the issues' in his post which broadens the scope of the original topic, allowng me to bring up another item in the complex environmental issues lunacy, namely the 'San Juaquin delta smelt melt taco' issue.

And he's right again, I don't understand that either.

I know conservates can explain it succinctly, I was just trying to get a lib to explain these inane policies.


You're right there must be some psychological issues involved (the only issue containing 'logical' in their whole spiel) but I like trying to get the whole enchilada!

 

[gsvol]

While Obambi and his kommie kronies absolutely oppose any domestic drilling, they fund Brazilian drilling.

Soros' single largest stock holding is in the Brazilian state run oil company BTW.

The writer and editor of the article are dolts.

They try to lampoon Palin's statement by stating that the import/export bank doesn't directly receive appropriations from congress.

Well hell, a big duh on that!!!!!!

Have they ever heard of the banking term, lender of last resort????

You can bet that the ultimate persons responsible for paying off the $2 billion should Brazil fail to pay, is the American taxpayer.

Not only that why spend the $2 billion in Brazil??? If we spent the same amount drilling domestically then the US would collect on the leases, money would flow into the American economy in many ways, such as workers spending money when they came ashore for R&R, etc. etc. etc.

I've asked some lib Obama/dimo supporter to explain this idiotic energy policy to me, since they can't then I will.

The whole bunch are habitual liars, any time they open their mouths and utter words, you can't believe just the opposite of what they say and usually be right. :zeitung_lesen:

 

[OrangeEmpire]

I have always wondered what liberals do on the 4th of July........

 

[gsvol]

I have always wondered what liberals do on the 4th of July........

Favorite destinations for liberals on the 4th;

1. South of France
2. Martha's Vinyard
3. Berkeley gay peace rally
4. Kenya

For 42 years 'God and Country' day in Idaho has been celebrated with a military fly over.

Not this year, Barry said it sounded Christian.

 

[orangeblooded2]

GSVOL QUOTE.

This statement gives me pause for some questions.

1. Do you buy the Al Gore 'global warming' emergency? Or do you think alternatives should be sought because coal, oil and natural gas resourses with some day be depleted?

2. By what process does that tax money pass from public to private hands?? IE; who gets to use that tax money to suit their own purposes??

3. What alternatives do you think show the most promise of successful use?









1.Yes, to a degree. I do buy it. The resources will some day run out. But my reasoning is this. Technology and necessity have always been the driving force in our economy it is what has made us who we are.


2.Anyone from Research and development,business or universities to nation laboratories. Existing companies who have clean energy technology that will benefit this country.


3. Nuclear fusion. We already can create it. We just need to learn to harness it.
3a. Also solar. The possibilities are unlimited. Just think instead of be able to harness only 12 to 18 percent. Think of the possibility of 90 to 95 percent.
3b. Geo-thermal and sister technologies. Vastly underestimated.


These are all going to be viable within our lifetime. With this kind of tax dollars at work, why not make it possible in the next 10 to 15 years.

 

[Oldvol75]

I have about 200 head of cattle across the road from me. I wonder if I could somehow harness all that gas and heat my house? Plus if things get rough dinner just across the street!

 

[gsvol]

I have always wondered what liberals do on the 4th of July........

Well, what with Earth Day, aka Lenin's birthday and the new 9/11 Green Day, aka celebrating Muhammad day, ("green was the turban of Muhammad" to replace; "God bless America."), moves will be made to abolish July 4th and Christmas.

If this doesn't catch on right away, calendars will leave out July 4th and December 25th and those days will be added to Febuary, aka black pseudo history month, which has always been discriminated against even in leap years.

How can you argue with that logic, it's both ethical and mathmatically correct!!

I have about 200 head of cattle across the road from me. I wonder if I could somehow harness all that gas and heat my house? Plus if things get rough dinner just across the street!

Well the EPA has plans to tax those cows at $80 per head per annum.

Never count on a free lunch.

 

[gsvol]

1.Yes, to a degree. I do buy it.
The resources will some day run out. But my reasoning is this. Technology and necessity have always been the driving force in our economy it is what has made us who we are.

I Don't buy Al Gore's global warming hysteria one iota, and that is the overiding motivation of our somewhat insane, inane energy policies.

Resource depletion is a consideration but doesn't evoke the 'fools rush in' mentality of currently poposed legislation and administration policy.

Still though, with oil reserves in Alaska, off the east and west coast and the gulf, particularly the Destin Dome, (among others) should we ban domestic production?? (particularly while financing foreign state owned drilling.) Not only that, we should be competing with Cuba and Russia for oil in international waters between Key West and Cuba.

Plus Clinton put a huge low carbon coal field in Utah out of bounds. We have the technology to eliminate almost 100% of undesirable emissions now, why not use available low cost resources?? Or should we wait and then later sell off that coal at about 25% of what it's worth to those who have proven over time to be the enemies of the American people as we did with the Elk Hills oil reserve??

2.Anyone from Research and development,business or universities to nation laboratories. Existing companies who have clean energy technology that will benefit this country.

Who is to decide that? Some bureaucrat or private enterprise, which has brought us to the forefront of world economic and technological achievement.

I suggest that having a bureaucratic govermentally controlled energy policy will be, if not a step backward, our complete ruination.

3. Nuclear fusion. We already can create it. We just need to learn to harness it.
3a. Also solar. The possibilities are unlimited. Just think instead of be able to harness only 12 to 18 percent. Think of the possibility of 90 to 95 percent.
3b. Geo-thermal and sister technologies. Vastly underestimated.

Back in the sixties I ran around some with a nuclear physicist who quit a $60 thousand year job and went to cutting firewood for a living because 'he didn't have a voice in decision making.' We couldn't get into it too deeply because he had signed that agreement not to discuss policy for ten years or be prosecuted and imprisioned for ten years if he violated that pact. He did want to look more into fusion though. (60 grand a year then would be about 300 today)

At any rate nuclear waste can presently stored on site for 40-60 years safely, surely by that time we could learn how to recycle or use that material in a developed fusion process.

To produce 1,000 megawatts a nuclear facility takes one square mile, solar takes 30+ square miles, wind takes 270 square miles, plus wind turbines scar the landscape and are at the mercy of weather condintions and solar presently costs 4 to 5 times as much to produce.

Wind and solar produce 3% of our energy today and there is no way to effectively store that energy for peak use periods, meaning we still must have coal fired, hydro electric and nuclear energy plants.

France's energy is 80% nuclear, (Germany zero, see a pattern?), America is helping to build nuclear facilities in Japan, India and China but bans new domestic plants. Makes complete sense, no?

Plus we have helped North Korea develope nuclear technology, something even the Russians and Chinese weren't stupid enough to do. Then we have the Russians assisting Iran and other countries, probably Venezuela and Brazil among them.

We can agree somewhat on geothermal, however present policy is idiotic to say the least. People get tax relief to install systems now that cost ten times what they should cost.

Ten or fifteen years ago, with the temperature at 105 degrees, I stepped into an uninsulated building and the temperature was 72 degrees. All that was needed was 100 foot of 3" pvc pipe, all natural, no outside energy required to run it and the guy said if he had installed 200 ft. it would do better. Incidentally, the previous winter when the temp dipped to 5 degrees, the inside temp of the building bottomed out at 32 degrees, with nothing else to help out.

Rocky Mountain Institute built and developed at their headquarters a huge building that only needs a small wood stove to heat and then only when the temp gets below 5 degrees, I was in a huge house here in Tennessee built in a like manner with the same characteristics over thirty five years ago. Another guy built a house in Maine that needs to bring in outside air to keep it cool until the temp goes below 5 degrees and he only uses four 4" fans for circulation that costs practically nothing.

BTW, Amory Lovins, the head and founder of RMI, who had a PHD from Cambridge at age 21, has been described as eight of the top ten energy experts in the world. They listen to him in India, China and Russia but in America he is marginalized if not completely ignored.

For instance if TVA had followed his recomendations thirty years ago we wouldn't be paying $5 million a day on interests on loans we didn't need to make. (again, see a pattern?)

Also hydrogen is intrigueing, if a simple farmer can triple his milage using hydrogen he produces himself, using emission free wind power to do so, why can't we also do son on a larger scale?

IMO the problem with hydrogen is that the socialists, aka capitalists on steroids, havn't figured out how to control the hydrogen market, geez why is that so abundant in the universe?

Personally I always wondered how we could harness lightning but then I'm no Tesla, you only get a guy like that every century or so. BTW, that guy figured out how to give everyone free electricity, no wonder he died broke.

These are all going to be viable within our lifetime. With this kind of tax dollars at work, why not make it possible in the next 10 to 15 years.

Maybe in your life time.

For anyone over thirty it's impossible to understand how education has been highjacked, particularly history and science. For anyone under thirty it's impossible to understand that it has been highjacked.

Cap and trade is a horrible solution.

1. In the final analysis, it does not reduce emissions at all.

2. The money goes through a financial process that rips off billions, (if not trillions $) annually.

3. Some commisar in some government agency office decides who can emit x amount of and who has to pay x amount to emit. Do you really trust that sort of system to be free of corruption, favoritism and politiclization???? I think not. (without even having to think about it.)

4. Individual citizens will see their home energy costs jump to about 50% more, (while not really solving the supposed problem remember) and then all other manufactured goods will cost more and that will be passed on to the consumer and further reduce our manufacturers ability to compete in global markets, increase imports thereby further exacertating our already stressed balance of payments problem. (especially notice that India, China and other countries will not be passing a cap and trade system anytime soon.)

5. The carbon trading market in Europe hs been a dismal failure and most likely has contributed to the recession we are selling our future to lesson here in America.

If you think government is a panacea for all problems both big and small, then you think cap and trade is a good idea.

If you have only a remote concept of history, then you know better.

 

[TennTradition]

I think that the reason hydrogen is getting less attention is two-fold:

1) Hydrogen, while abundant in our atmosphere, cannot be 'farmed.' We have to create it from water or hydrocarbons using EXISTING energy forms (such as wind, solar, or the fossil fuel itself such as reforming methane).

2) If you can make and then use hydrogen immediately, then you're rocking. However, when you have to store hydrogen for any period of time at all, you now face a significant challenge. Research is and will continue to look into hydrogen storage alternatives, but right now, it is difficult to imagine wide-spread implementation without a greater ability to store the fuel for an extended period of time (for transport, or even local storage like a gas station).

As for fusion, I think that money should continue to be invested in this area, but we are no where close to solving the energy harnessing problem when it comes to fusion.

 

[gsvol]

I think that the reason hydrogen is getting less attention is two-fold:

1) Hydrogen, while abundant in our atmosphere, cannot be 'farmed.' We have to create it from water or hydrocarbons using EXISTING energy forms (such as wind, solar, or the fossil fuel itself such as reforming methane).

2) If you can make and then use hydrogen immediately, then you're rocking. However, when you have to store hydrogen for any period of time at all, you now face a significant challenge. Research is and will continue to look into hydrogen storage alternatives, but right now, it is difficult to imagine wide-spread implementation without a greater ability to store the fuel for an extended period of time (for transport, or even local storage like a gas station).

As for fusion, I think that money should continue to be invested in this area, but we are no where close to solving the energy harnessing problem when it comes to fusion.

1. While it is true that we must at this time extract hydrogen from water, I see no reason that it couldn't be feasable to extract it from the atmosphere, just because we don't know how to do something doesn't make it impossible.

2. Some guy has developed a carbon auto frame that stores enough hydrogen in the frame to make a car that needs no storage tank and can travel several hundred miles without refueling. Have you seen the car built by Lovins and co at Rocky Mountain Institute?? It's way ahead of anything on the road today an could easily be put into production.

The fusion problem isn't solved but to say we are no where close might just be semantics, we have reached the break even stage, so that might be described as close.

The extreme sense of urgency promoted in political and some scientific circles is unwarrante imo!!!

A sampling of some prominent influential statements:

"We must identify our enemies and drive them into oblivion." - Bruce Babbitt in his introduction to the League of Conservation Voters' 1991 Environmental Scorecard

"We ought to make the whole state [of Alaska] an historical park so people can... see how folks thought in the 19th Century." - George Frampton, speaking at an Earth Day press conference, April 21, 1992

"Building an environmentally sustainable future requires restricting the global economy, dramatically changing human reproductive behavior, and altering values and lifestyles. Doing this quickly requires nothing short of a revolution." - Lester Brown, quoted by Dixy Lee Ray in her book Environmental Overkill

"A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect." - Richard Benedick quoted by Dixy Lee Ray in her book Trashing the Planet

"Don't worry about the blandness of the final [Global Climate] treaty, because it has hidden teeth that will develop in the right circumstances." - Richard Benedick quoted by The New York Times, June 14, 1992

"Scientists who work for nuclear power or nuclear energy have sold their soul to the devil. They are either dumb, stupid, or highly compromised... Free enterprise really means rich people get richer. And they have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their fellow human beings in the process... Capitalism is destroying the earth. Cuba is a wonderful country. What Castro's done is superb." - Dr. Helen Caldicott quoted by Dixy Lee Ray in her book Trashing the Planet

"I don't agree with ... [weighing economic as well as biological factors in endangered species listings]. If you do that, you would simply never list anything." -Jack Ward Thomas quoted in the Rocky Mountain News, December 28, 1993

"If we weren't blathering about old growth and owls, [the threat to ecosystems in east-side Oregon forests] would be the hottest story in forestry." -Jack Ward Thomas, quoted in The Washington Post, May 15, 1992

"It may well be that there are a significant number of northern spotted owl on private lands in California, but so what? The injunction [against logging] controls the issue now." -Jack Ward Thomas quoted by Greg Easterbrook in The New Republic, March 28, 1994

"The only hope of the Earth is to withdraw huge areas as inviolate natural sanctuaries from the depredations of modern industry and technology. Move out the people and cars. Reclaim the roads and the plowed lands."--Dave Foreman,
Confessions of an Eco-Warrior

Does all the foregoing mean that Wild Earth and The Wildlands Project advocate the end of industrialized civilization? Most assuredly. Everything civilized must go..."-John Davis, editor of
Wild Earth

"Ecology is a limited science which makes use of scientific methods."
"...it should, first of all, be borne in mind that the norms and tendencies of the Deep Ecology movement are not derived from ecology by logic or induction."
-Arne Naess, as quoted in Deep Ecology for the 21st Century, pgs 154-153


"The crucial paradigm shift the Deep Ecology movement envisions as necessary to protect the planet from ecological destruction involves the move from an anthropocentric to a spiritual/ecocentric value orientation...Humanity must drastically scale down its industrial activities on Earth, change its consumption lifestyles, stabilize and then reduce the size of the human population by humane means, and protect and restore wild ecosystems and the remaining wildlife on the planet."
- George Sessions, pg xxi, Deep Ecology for the 21st Century

"Now, in a widening sphere of decisions, the costs of error are so exorbitant that we need to act on theory alone, which is to say on prediction alone. It follows that the reputation of scientific prediction needs to be enhanced. But that can happen, paradoxically, only if scientists disavow the certainty and precision that they normally insist on. Above all, we need to learn to act decisively to forestall predicted perils, even while knowing that they may never materialize. We must take action, in a manner of speaking, to preserve our ignorance. There are perils that we can be certain of avoiding only at the cost of never knowing with certainty that they were real."
-Jonathan Shell, author of Our Fragile Earth

"[W]e have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest." -Stephen Schneider, proponent of the theory that CFCs are depleting the ozone

"We in the Green movement, aspire to a cultural model in which the killing of a forest will be considered more contemptible and more criminal than the sale of 6-year-old children to Asian brothels." -Carl Amery, Green Party of West Germany

"Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental." Dave Forman

"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun."
- Dr. Paul Erlich, quoted by R. Emmett Tyrrell in The American Spectator, September 6, 1992

"We've already had too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure."
- Dr. Paul Erlich, quoted by Dixy Lee Ray in her book Trashing the Planet

It doesn't matter what is true; it only matters what people believe is true... You are what the media define you to be. [Greenpeace] became a myth and a myth-generating machine."
- Paul Watson, qQuoted by Dixy Lee Ray in her book Environmental Overkill

 

[TennTradition]

1. While it is true that we must at this time extract hydrogen from water, I see no reason that it couldn't be feasable to extract it from the atmosphere, just because we don't know how to do something doesn't make it impossible.

OK - fair enough. To say that it cannot be farmed period is implying we couldn't ever. The concentration of H2 in the atmosphere is so low that the prospects of farming hydrogen from the atmosphere are dim, but it isn't impossible in the realm of technological advances. One important point is that we would have to concentrate the gas in order to use it. This would take energy, and that energy would have to come from the hydrogen itself or another energy source. The feasibility of farming the gas would depend on the work required to do this. With the very low concentration in the atmosphere, I would say it pushes the idea closer to infeasible than feasible, but there are likely ways to decrease the work involved.

 

[gsvol]

OK - fair enough. To say that it cannot be farmed period is implying we couldn't ever. The concentration of H2 in the atmosphere is so low that the prospects of farming hydrogen from the atmosphere are dim, but it isn't impossible in the realm of technological advances. One important point is that we would have to concentrate the gas in order to use it. This would take energy, and that energy would have to come from the hydrogen itself or another energy source. The feasibility of farming the gas would depend on the work required to do this. With the very low concentration in the atmosphere, I would say it pushes the idea closer to infeasible than feasible, but there are likely ways to decrease the work involved.

Since seventy + percent of the planet is covered with water, I see no real contribution to the hysteria of ecozealots in using water to extract (or farm) hydrogen for energy use.

Again, if a simple farmer (John Lorenzen) could use materials commonly foung in junk yards and landfills twenty years ago to supply all his own household needs and triple the milage in a forty year old clunker pickup truck, cost free, why can't we??

I think ecozealot politicos are trying to direct us in a wrong direction. (probably to solidify a hegemony on world energy supply and increase the power of governments to control even more aspects of our lives.)

Personally I've always been interested in harnessing lighting, it's abundantly available, it's a naturally occuring phenomenen, it's free, it's sustainable, it's eco-friendly etc.

The problems associated with using that free energy source may be closer than we think with all the new technology being developed today.

I have some interesting theories about how it could be done.

None of this is about my original question, why do we not use existing technology and extract our own oil, especially when we repeadedly (ad nauseum) hear the refrain; "wean ourselves from dependence on foreign oil?"

We continue to provide technology, funding and support for foreign drilling but deny it to ourselves.

Likewise we do the same with nuclear technology, particularly in India and China but deny it to ourselves.

These facts just doesn't add up nor stand up to honest intellectual scrutiny.

And another thing, when Jimmy Carter decreed that 'old oil' would be sold at $5 a barrel while the going price was $35 a barrel, he just about killed American oil production.

This was based on the lie that the costs of finding new oil was exorbitant.

I know this was a lie because I have a friend who had a nephew who was an oil exploration scientist and he had had a 100% success rate even when that fossile Carter was the idiot in chief.

In other words in every case where my friend's nephew said drill, they hit paydirt.

PS; Are you acquainted with or have you heard of Ted Adelson, vision scientist at MIT?? Is he still there?

 

[TennTradition]

There is no problem using water to make hydrogen from a resources standpoint, in my opinion. If the argument is being made, I am either missing something, or they are nutty. Burning hydrogen makes water again, it would be a closed loop. You would have to be careful where you draw you water from, and I don't know if there would be local humidity issues, but the water isn't going to go away.

I am a nuclear proponent, but I don't like the idea of storing our nuclear waste at our nuclear facilities for an unspecified period of time. That bears a very large security risk, IMO - and a public safety risk as a result. We need a repository, and the longer we go without licensing one the harder we make it to transition to our next energy infrastructure (because nuclear would make a great bridge technology).

As for oil exploration, the ending foreign dependence on oil mantra can only be 'bought' so much. Obviously it isn't just about weening ourselves from *foreign* oil, it is about weening ourselves from oil. It just sounds better. While it may be the case that we don't want to pollute our waters, I'm pretty certain we can do it without polluting - particularly if others that might not care as much about our shores are going to already be there doing it. I think that weening ourselves from foreign oil is a good idea - we are so dependent on it, if we can have our own domestic supply, then we greatly increase our national security.

As for Ted Adelson, I do not know him - but I think that he is still in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. I have heard of him in relation to CSAIL, the computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory.

 

[gsvol]

There is no problem using water to make hydrogen from a resources standpoint, in my opinion. If the argument is being made, I am either missing something, or they are nutty. Burning hydrogen makes water again, it would be a closed loop. You would have to be careful where you draw you water from, and I don't know if there would be local humidity issues, but the water isn't going to go away.

I am a nuclear proponent, but I don't like the idea of storing our nuclear waste at our nuclear facilities for an unspecified period of time. That bears a very large security risk, IMO - and a public safety risk as a result. We need a repository, and the longer we go without licensing one the harder we make it to transition to our next energy infrastructure (because nuclear would make a great bridge technology).

As for oil exploration, the ending foreign dependence on oil mantra can only be 'bought' so much. Obviously it isn't just about weening ourselves from *foreign* oil, it is about weening ourselves from oil. It just sounds better. While it may be the case that we don't want to pollute our waters, I'm pretty certain we can do it without polluting - particularly if others that might not care as much about our shores are going to already be there doing it. I think that weening ourselves from foreign oil is a good idea - we are so dependent on it, if we can have our own domestic supply, then we greatly increase our national security.

As for Ted Adelson, I do not know him - but I think that he is still in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. I have heard of him in relation to CSAIL, the computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory.

We are in agreement for the most part then.

I would also suggest the transportation of nuclear waste presents it's own public safety risks.

I am still adamantly opposed to proposed C&T legislation though. (they added 300 more pages to that bill at the end of June btw.)

CO2 is also in a closed loop Earth system and it's important to note it is of primary importance to all plant growth.

I don't share your views expressed in the past that CO2 emissions are as serious as some say and are surely no reason for radical solutions with no escape clause.

After all, humanity can't possibly be carbon neutral as long as we are required to suck air and exhale CO2 in order to live.

 

[TennTradition]

Good point about transportation of nuclear waste - there are security risks no matter how you slice it. I think the transportation issue is a manageable risk, but it is there.

As for the CO2 vs. water closed loop. CO2 isn't exactly a closed loop. I guess if you consider fossil fuels to be sequestered CO2, then maybe it is a closed loop. The problem is that with water and burning hydrogen, we will burn the hydrogen as fast as we can make it. On the other hand, the earth does not re-adsorb CO2 as fast as we can burn its 'sequestered form' (e.g., fossil fuels). Thus, until the concentration reaches higher levels, a disequilibrium will exist, as exhibited by rising CO2 levels for the last 100 years (greater than that which can be accounted for by ocean release of CO2 as a result of temperature increases).

As for humans being carbon neutral, it is true, except that the CO2 that we breathe is made from a combination of oxygen we breathe and carbon that we consume. The carbon that we consume comes almost exclusively from quickly renewed resources (i.e., food). As long as we are growing food to fuel our bodies, then that is a rather closed loop (quickly sequestered). If we imported our food from another planet, let's say, then our breathing could be viewed as non-carbon neutral. Also, if we were to eat coal, that would be digging up 'sequestered CO2' and releasing it through our breath into the atmosphere. While this would be a closed loop, it would be non-carbon-neutral on the time scale it would take to resequester this as coal, which is a VERY long time scale (even if you don't take the time to make the coal, of course, but just to get it into the sediment at the bottom of the ocean).

 

[gsvol]

Good point about transportation of nuclear waste - there are security risks no matter how you slice it. I think the transportation issue is a manageable risk, but it is there.

I think storage on site is more manageable.

Two risk factors are involved in central storage that aren't involved in on site storage, (1). risk of transportaion accidents and (2) much higher risk of sabotage by terrorist operatives.

Then too, shouldn't we be able in the future, at least within the next half century, either learn how to recycle waste to be reused in the fission process or to learn how to use low level nuclear material in a fusion process??

If we can accomplish either then you have to just turn around and send the material back where it came from.

As for the CO2 vs. water closed loop. CO2 isn't exactly a closed loop. I guess if you consider fossil fuels to be sequestered CO2, then maybe it is a closed loop. The problem is that with water and burning hydrogen, we will burn the hydrogen as fast as we can make it. On the other hand, the earth does not re-adsorb CO2 as fast as we can burn its 'sequestered form' (e.g., fossil fuels). Thus, until the concentration reaches higher levels, a disequilibrium will exist, as exhibited by rising CO2 levels for the last 100 years (greater than that which can be accounted for by ocean release of CO2 as a result of temperature increases).

Interesting use of 'disequilibrium.'

There is no argument that the automobile with it's internal combustion engine and the use of coal, natural gas or oil fired plants to produce electricity and other high energy use industrial manufacturing such as steel production have contributed to higher atmospheric CO2 levels.

However, the average temperature on Earth has followed closely solar activity throughout the twentieth century.

In the end though, the Earth does maintain an equilibrium naturally, although on a longer range cycle.

The most important point is that present or even projected levels of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere is nothing about which to be alarmed.

As for humans being carbon neutral, it is true, except that the CO2 that we breathe is made from a combination of oxygen we breathe and carbon that we consume. The carbon that we consume comes almost exclusively from quickly renewed resources (i.e., food). As long as we are growing food to fuel our bodies, then that is a rather closed loop (quickly sequestered). If we imported our food from another planet, let's say, then our breathing could be viewed as non-carbon neutral. Also, if we were to eat coal, that would be digging up 'sequestered CO2' and releasing it through our breath into the atmosphere. While this would be a closed loop, it would be non-carbon-neutral on the time scale it would take to resequester this as coal, which is a VERY long time scale (even if you don't take the time to make the coal, of course, but just to get it into the sediment at the bottom of the ocean).

:stop:

You've missed your calling, you should be a script writer for the TV sitcom 'Big Bang Theory". :mega_shok:

 

[TennTradition]

Oh my lord...I just got told to stop with the words by GS!?!?

 

[IBlvNTmWrk]

:stop:

You've missed your calling, you should be a script writer for the TV sitcom 'Big Bang Theory". :mega_shok:

The only problem with that suggestion is that based on the length of his posts, they'd have to turn it into a 6 month mini-series instead of the half hour sitcom.

 

[TennTradition]

The only problem with that suggestion is that based on the length of his posts, they'd have to turn it into a 6 month mini-series instead of the half hour sitcom.

This is getting rich.

 

[gsvol]

The only problem with that suggestion is that based on the length of his posts, they'd have to turn it into a 6 month mini-series instead of the half hour sitcom.

How many times do you inhale/exhale during a 30 min sitcom?

This is getting rich.

Get rich quick plan; eat coal, crap diamonds, don't hold your breath.