We Can End Oil Addiction

Frontpagemag.com ^ | 08-04-2006 | Richard Lugar and Vinod Khosla

[FightThePower!]

Not that I'm anti war, but for the cost of this war the U nited States could have been energy independent by now.

Let's say the war has cost $200 billion a year for the past 5 years. That's $1 trillion. What if the United States spent the money building enough nuclear plants with which to power coal gasification plants, and to power oil shale and tar sands extraction?

[stuckinloozeeana]

I have a brother who is a corn farmer.He is looking forward to the very high protein residue that is left after ethanol production for cattle feed.This is one thing that will help make it profitable/cost effective without losing corn as a feed.

[VOA]

Horizontal drilling into Castro's Oil Treasury...
SWEET!

[WildBill2275]

NO. It does not accomplish the same goal. We are still dependant on them and they can jack us around at will. Developing alternative sources of energy cuts off their revenue stream and lets us avoid foreign entanglements, as our founding fathers recomended.

[Paperdoll]

Or are they horizontally drilling into ours?

[2harddrive]

IF ethanol is so GREAT, just make it out of natural gas, (and water) at huge processing plants! Thousands of barrels per hour. Anybody needs to know how, just PM me.

[hinckley buzzard]

Richard Lugar the Senator from Indiana, in the midst of the corn belt. I don't know that alcohol is the silver bullet here. I would like some of these einsteins to consider that with increases in solar/wind, nuclear, and advanced coal technology for power generation, huge amounts of natural gas currently being burned in power plants would be freed up, and natural gas makes vehicles run fine.

[JmyBryan]

Anytime I see "oil addiction" I know there is little to follow. Pure victim, nanny state, stupid labeling.

We use oil. We are not addicted to it. An addiction means we are not capable of making choices. Americans are better able to make choices than any other people in the world.

[mysterio]

Anything that could end the dependency on the Middle East Jihadist oil is worthy of consideration.

Cosign.

[mysterio]

Americans are better able to make choices than any other people in the world.

Absolutely. I can choose gasoline or deisel. Neat. And I can choose to heat my house or freeze to death. Gosh, all these choices are making me dizzy.

Bring on the ethanol, and lots of it. Or biodeisel, or hydrogen. The best step we could ever take in the WOT is to stop sending lost of money to people who hate us.

[backhoe]

I have covered, ( Or, as Seamole calls it...-backhoe's pseudoblog--...-more- ) pseudo-blogged, this subject for years-- My tongue-in-cheek collection of energy-related links:

Sticker Shock-$3 a gallon gas? Click the picture:

And kindly note, and note well-- the first reply to this post ( when gas was $1.45 a gallon ) was snarky... so, who's laughing now?

Vest-Pocket Summary:

1- drill for gas and oil like crazy- onshore, offshore, and in Alaska
2- go nuclear for power
3- convert stationary plants to clean coal technology or Next-Gen Nuclear
4- slash taxes and regulations like crazy

Our consumer-based economy is driven by and dependent upon readily-available, reliable energy-- choke that off, and we'll all be back to using one rotary dial phone in the dining room, watching one TV in the living room, and driving one car per family-- probably a Hudson Hornet or a Nash Metropolitan...

We need to

1) end the nonsensical ban on offshore drilling off California and Florida--read and weep:
Castro Plans to Drill 45 Miles from US Shores, But We Can't

2) build a lot of next-generation nuclear power plants, not just for electricity, but for any process requiring heat, power, or steam.
And if we replaced our existing nuclear plants with this one... there would be significant benefits.

3) end Jimmy Carter's idiotic ban on recycling nuclear waste, and reprocess the stuff rather than fighting over where to bury it. Europe has done this for decades.-- what to do with spent nuclear fuel? Answer here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1468321/posts?page=50#50  Hattip: Mike (former Navy Nuclear Engineer)

4) use the 300-500 years worth of coal we have on our own land, using the new clean-coal technology.
-Clean Coal Centre--

5) and finally, there's nothing wrong with conservation, we should all practice it- but you can't conserve your way out of a shortage. You have to produce more. Nor is there anything wrong with "alternative" energy sources- except they don't supply the vast ( not to mention readily-available and affordable ) amounts of power we need at a price competitive to more conventional sources.

Then again, there is this to ponder:

Energy from the Restless Sea

Energy From the Gulf Stream
http://www.energy.gatech.edu/presentations/mhoover.pdf

More:
Tidal energy farm proposed for Vineyard Sound

We do need to get serious about this before we get strangled by a bunch of petty thieves and dictators who don't like us much.

[Uncledave]

Renewable Energy Ping

Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off

[Shooter 2.5]

Let's pretend you and another person are on a deserted island and food is slowly disappearing. While the food is still abundant, you buy from your neighbor while it's still cheap.

After a few months, your neighbor is out of food that you and he had eaten. You still haven't touched the food that you had surplused.

To remain alive, you can still eat your food but your neighbor doesn't have any to eat since his is all gone.

You can now make a decision if you want to help your neighbor stay alive or starve to death while you wait to be rescued.

[Myrddin]

If we used 3 times as much arable land as we are already cultivating for food to produce corn for ethanol, it might help a little. The problem is that we have to eat. It's not a viable solution. It does provide a valuable diversion for corn that would be otherwise wasted.

We use oil to produce fertilizer, plastics and a long list of other necessities. Gasoline and diesel are just a part of the oil consumption.

[kerryusama04]

I ain't no latte' drinkin' tree hugger, but if we can grow gas.....

We've been running our 325 hp Suburban on E85 for a year now.

[kerryusama04]

Nothing I've read convinces me that ethanol is net energy positive.

How's about Popular Mechanics?