Freeing ourselves from the gas crisis?

M

MeekAndMild

New member
My take is that the politics of central energy distribution versus distributed energy is on-topic. Thanks to the moderators for your indulgence.

As you all know we are in a political crisis related to the price of crude oil and lack of refinery potential. In my opinion the oil distribution system is an example of hydraulic despotism, where a government or oligarchy controls the public availability of a resource needed by citizens for their daily affairs. As such it causes a risk to personal freedom and economic well being as well as community prosperity. We have many historical examples of totalitarian societies resulting from such central distribution systems, the most widely recognized ones having been the Mayan empire and the ancient Egyptian empire. In my opinion the only way for us to maintain a free society is to pursue development of small bioenergy systems.

For those youngsters who have never heard of the ways our parents (and possibly some of our more seasoned members) got around this impasse during the Great Depression and WW-II I'm going to add some information links about small scale hydrocarbon generation. Please consider going to alternative sites so you don't totally overwhelm the servers downloading PDF copies of the 1989 FEMA handbook on the subject.

Wikipedia article on the subject

Link to DTIC file description page

Windward.org generator construction page

Green Trust bioelectricity generation linkpage
 
We just need a Prez strong enough and mean enough to deal with OPEC by force. Saudi Arabia doesn't think they need to increase supply and drop prices? Destroy a couple of oil-built "superhouses". ;)
 
We just need a Prez strong enough...
Click to expand...
That illustrates my point. Needing a strong leader is how the Egyptians and the Mayans agreed to having a strong king/priesthood to beat anybody into submission who dared interfere with the canals.

On the other hand once we find out how to walk away from foreign oil then the Saudis would be happy to sell it for $30 a barrel.
 
Best immediate course is to:

1. repeal the Clean Air Act,

2. adopt Federal Legislation prohibiting any State such as California from adopting their own air quality standards,

3. begin heavy subsidies for the US automakers to begin production of diesel "plug-in" hybrids,

4. begin heavy subsidies for the oil companies to convert refinery operations to produce more diesel,

5. repeal any and all environmental regs that limit drilling off any of the coasts, the Everglades, ANWAR, and etc.

We have enough domestic oil sources to be independent of imports. Unfortunately we've allowed the extremist enviromentalists ("Putting the mental back in environmental since 1972") to hamstring our energy independence efforts.
 
Yes,how dare we tell another country what they can sell their natural resources for.How dare they capitalize on a free market. :rolleyes:

Nobody is forcing us to drive anywhere. We do it because we are lazy,and while I could make less money doing other stuff I choose to have a job that makes me drive quite a bit. I choose to pay for gas.
 
Nothing has been said about ethanol.
Let me toss this out:
Ethanol from corn is wasteful.
Make it from sorghum -- the entire plant, thank you very much -- Brazil makes theirs out of cane, and the product is more potent (more BTUs per volume) than what we make from corn.
Could I but find my moonshining Granddad's Silver Cloud still I'd be sorely tempted to give it a try!
 
There is no fuel crisis.

There is no fuel crisis. There is no shortage or rationing. I'm not seeing any signs saying "no gas". High prices is not a "crisis".
 
The only long-term solution

is to find something else to use. But that's the biggie, isn't it?

What do we use, and how do we get there?

I suspect the answer will be some sort of liquid fuel that existing fleets and infrastructure can be converted to for the short-term solution, and the final answer will be fusion power.

But there's no way to permanently run an economy on a single, finite resource. The math cannot be made to work.

--Shannon
 
For less than 3 years...and to get cheaper gas out of it, we'd have to nationalize the reserves and the oil companies. Then, after 3 years, we're in deep, deep trouble.
Click to expand...

Where do you get three years from? Everything I've heard is there's enough oil in Anwar alone to last 100. That's not counting what they found out west or off shore. We can take our time to develop an alternate source and have it perfected and operational inside 100 years but this got to have it done now isn't working.
 
2transams
Yes,how dare we tell another country what they can sell their natural resources for.How dare they capitalize on a free market.
Click to expand...

OPEC has very little to do with the "free market". If you don't know what a cartel is, Google it.
 
Where do you get three years from? Everything I've heard is there's enough oil in Anwar alone to last 100.
Click to expand...

Oh, my, not even close. At best -- best -- 10 billion bbl of technically recoverable oil.
 
Meaning, that ANWR, if we snapped our fingers, nationalized the oil companies who drilled there, ANWR could supply the US for 7 months, to just over 2 years, depending on what estimate turns out to be right.
 
Oil in the ANWR
The estimates of the technically-recoverable oil (i.e. ignoring the market price) in the 1002 area are as follows: There is a 95% probability of being able to technically recover 4.254 billion barrels of oil, and a 5% probability of recovering 11.8 billion barrels of oil. The mean expected estimate is of being able to technically recover 7.7 billion barrels of oil.
Click to expand...

http://www.sibelle.info/oped15.htm
 
For less than 3 years...and to get cheaper gas out of it, we'd have to nationalize the reserves and the oil companies. Then, after 3 years, we're in deep, deep trouble.
Oh, my, not even close. At best -- best -- 10 billion bbl of technically recoverable oil.
Meaning, that ANWR, if we snapped our fingers, nationalized the oil companies who drilled there, ANWR could supply the US for 7 months, to just over 2 years, depending on what estimate turns out to be right.
Click to expand...

Sources, please? Or are you just giving your opinion based on observation...

I have family that drills for BP up in Alaska...Alpine comes to mind. His experiences lead him to believe that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting oil...

is to find something else to use. But that's the biggie, isn't it?
What do we use, and how do we get there?
Click to expand...

My thoughts on short term solution, albeit a difficult one (thank you, NAFTA) is to do business with Brazil. As Sky Pilot has stated, Brazil makes their ethanol from sugar, not corn. They're practically begging to sell us their gas based on it. I don't recall if this is the "delivered to our pump" price or "to our border", but at 81 CENTS/gal it has my full attention...

The mid term solution is to drill here, drill now. Offshore, ANWR, in my backyard...I don't care. We need to rely on our own resources. I don't want to have anything to do with Chavez in Venezuela nor anybody in the Mideast. Imagine the shakeup on a political and economical level if we support ourselves....

The long term solution is out there. I think OPEC needs to be broke up and smaller businesses be allowed to build refineries. Allow funding for scientists to go nuts on research on fusion power such as tube ee stated or even Hydrogen power. There are viable alternatives...
 
For how long?
Click to expand...

Long enough to develop:

1. nuclear power to the extent that the sometimes wise French have,

2. a synthetic fuel industry utilizing our super abundent coal, oil shale, natural gas, and methyl hydrates.

putting 1 and 2 together, I'd say that's give us independence of foreign energy imports for several hundred years.

You're forgetting that this is America, not some loser country that can't handle a little challenge.
 
Until cheap oil is no longer available, we will make no attempt to develop alternatives. Necessity is the mother of invention.

So, if there was 100 years worth of oil in Alaska, I don't think we would start worrying about our next source until about 2108.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top