Posted on 05/22/2004 12:22:23 PM PDT by Pikamax
LOL!
Is he picking up the motto of the Republicans? "Drill in ANWAR!"
I doubt it.
Kerry has blocked a bill that would encourage conservation of oil, provide R&D funding for fuel cells, and allow drilling in Alaska, so he's pretty much the one to blame for this mess.
He is going to outlaw SUV's?
Build windmills in everyone's backyard!
Energy crisis? Since when does higher prices at the gas pump qualify as an energy CRISIS? Hey, if we're being so cavalier with the term, how about the milk CRISIS?
Check out HORSEFACE's voting record then start laughing
For the foreseeable future, "alternative energy sources" will be good for only about 2 or 3% of our energy needs, at a very high price. Rich eco-freaks will indulge themselves, no doubt at taxpayer expense.
We all know what the practical alternative to oil is. (Hint: France and Japan rely on it heavily.) But the day the liberals suggest nuclear power is likely to be a long time coming.
He must think the voters are really stupid. Come to think of it, he may be right.
The oil filling the reserves is from in kind programs where drillers pay royalties to the USA in oil not money. The reserve is 40 million barrels from the top (660 out of 700 million barrels) which is about two days usage.
Any decrease brought on by the halt in filling the reserve (about 3,000 bbl/month about 4 hours usage) will accrue worldwide.
If Kerry were serious he would propose: Nuclear Power, build hydro power, ANWAR drilling, standardizing fuels and building refineries.
Check the fools voteing record in the senate,i'll bet it is about like his nam
record.
well, just WHO has stopped energy independence?
barbara boxer w her no-drilling,
jane fonda's anti-nuke movie,
etc.
Unless the windmills are on the coast of Massachusettes.
Thats THIS week,,, maybe only TODAY..
Energy independance so long as there are no new energy sources tapped and no new processing and distribution systems. Let's also not forget a heavy tax disincentive for actual energy consumption.
Hell, I'd rather they'd gone overseas for oil than to play globocop. If that's what the administration is using now for their justification for going into Iraq, it sets a baaaad precedent for the future. I wish they'd stand firm on the real reason we went in...to stop Saddam from procuring more NBC weapons, and to strip him of those he had...and quit playing into the hands of the CommieLibs and their media lap dogs.
For cryin' out loud, chemical weapons have been used on our troops, only this week, and do we hear a peep from Bush and Co. about it? Why the hell aren't they shouting it from the rooftops? Sarin, mustard gas? Aren't these WMD?
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Kewl, Kerry must have found a way to harness Ted's hot air.
The problem is that a tank full of gasoline (or diesel, or jet fuel) packs far more energy than the same weight - or volume - of dynamite, and nothing else matches its combination of energy density, safety, ease of storage and transport, and cost. In fact, when the price of natural petroleum gets high enough, the best solution might be to synthesize petroleum fuels rather than to switch to alternative energy vectors.
The fact is that oil provides over 95% of our transportation fuel. Half of all crude oil becomes gasoline, and another fourth becomes diesel or jet fuel. Heavier fractions become heating oil, lubricants, chemical feedstocks, asphalt, and other opportunity uses. Still, we use crude oil as an energy SOURCE. 80% of the energy it contains in the ground ends up in the tank for us to burn. Nature was nice to us.
One of the most efficient ways to increase gasoline supplies would be to extract more from existing feedstocks - the other fourth - with better refining techniques. We absolutely need more refining capacity. We are operating at close to 98% of capacity today, and the existing plants are getting really old, even with continuous maintenance and improvements.
Ethanol? It's been done, in Germany during the war, in South Africa during the apartheid embargo, and even in Brazil today. But in Brazil, where it is made most cheaply, from sugar cane, it is only a shrinking 20% of the fuel supply. Even heavily subsidized, it is much more expensive than petroleum.
In this country, using corn as the feedstock (and using chemical and enzyme treatments to extract from leaves and stalks as well as the digestible sugars and starches) would yield an average of about 8 barrels per acre per crop. And each barrel of fuel grade ethanol contains only 2/3 the energy of a barrel of gasoline. To replace ONLY 20% of our current petroleum consumption would require NEW irrigated land equal to Texas plus Tennessee, which, I believe, puts this plan in the same category of solutions as antigravity and matter transporters.
Hydrogen? Promises, promises. It's everywhere around us, but not in its free form (H2). Most of it is locked up in water, and much of the rest in hydrocarbons - yes, petroleum and other gas and liquid fuels (NOT coal, which is just carbon). Because hydrogen is not free, it must be extracted from its feedstock.
Electrolysis from water requires about twice the energy that will be available as fuel, but that is before compressing the H2 gas into tanks for distribution, which could require as much as 1/3 more of the fuel value.
Transferring a gas under very high pressure is always energy intensive, and probably cannot be done passively, like a liquid. When the storage tank is half empty, the receiving tank would only get half full, without compression. This means that tank exchange may be the only practical refueling method.
Metal-hydride storage might be an alternative to high pressure. Certain metals in specific forms - in general, finely powdered, then sintered into porous blocks with enormous surface area - can store hydrogen (chemically, also a metal) on the surface, and the density of hydrogen can exceed its gaseous density.
Chemical storage might be a better choice. A catalytic device called a reformer can extract hydrogen from hydrocarbons, anything from methane to gasoline fractions, using (or wasting) the energy from the carbon content for the extraction process. Another comparatively efficient chemical that stores copious amounts of hydrogen is sodium borohydride (NaBH4) in a water solution. It is stable, NOT flammable, and relatively non-toxic and non-corrosive - less hazardous than gasoline. The residue, sodium borate, is recyclable. Expensive, right now, but the price could come down with volume production.
But anything other than natural petroleum is only an energy VECTOR, or SECONDARY source, a way to transport energy instead of a primary source, with its energy content already present when obtained. The only primary energy sources capable of supplying the amount required, continuously and reliably, are nuclear. Fission today, and perhaps fusion someday, when hydrogen will really become a primary fuel. I picture large nuclear facilities that not only produce electricity but desalinize water, produce hydrogen (in whatever form becomes the standard,) and distribute hot water locally for space heating. Maybe it can take out the garbage, as well.
Increases in the price of oil just make these alternatives more economical, and ECONOMICS IS THE KEY. Higher prices drive exploration and development for oil, as well as new petroleum sources like tar sands. Higher prices also drive the use of the substitutes and alternatives described above.
Kerry might BE the solution....If we could recycle all the sh** he's passed during his political career.
After he is elected he will propose, by executive order naturally, energy dependence with forced conservation by all republicans and those who voted against him to make up the shortfall.
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