In my tinfoil hatish way, I'm convinced that there are many that would gladly commit mass murder to keep that from happening. 
Posted on 07/31/2004 1:48:26 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Chief among the pessimists is the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, a group of European scientists who estimate that maximum oil production around the globe will peak in 2008 as demand rises from developing economies such as China... Others believe, like Maugeri, that the number of glasses is virtually limitless. John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, argues that peak oil- production estimates are so far off that for all practical purposes we might as well act as if oil will flow forever. "Ever since oil was first harvested in the 1800s, people have said we'd run out of the stuff," Felmy says. In the 1880s a Standard Oil executive sold off shares in the company out of fear that its reserves were close to drying up. The Club of Rome, a nonprofit global think tank, said in the 1970s that we'd hit peak oil in 2003. It didn't happen.
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
And there is the kicker, e-s.
To control a people you must first scare them so that they want protection.
Then you confiscate their means of defense with platitudes like, "for the common good", and, "for the protection of society".
The rest is easy.
Good to see you, BTW!
In my tinfoil hatish way, I'm convinced that there are many that would gladly commit mass murder to keep that from happening.
The War Against Cold Fusion - What's really behind it?Philo T. Farnsworth turned to inertial containment to try to achieve controlled fusion, but died before achieving it. His project was abandoned, but not forgotten.
by Hal Plotkin
The Boy Who Invented Television:
A Story of Inspiration, Persistence
and Quiet Passion
by Paul Schatzkin
That being said, fuel cells have been a promising technology on the verge of whatever for some time now. It will take quite some time for them to sufficiently integrate into the economy to significantly reduce global energy usage.
But don't take my word for it. Take a look at what Matthew Simmons, head of the largest investment banking firm in the energy industry has to say. click here
Environmentalist's plan would drain Lake PowellThe report comes just as engineers are arguing that dams should qualify for support as a "clean" technology under the Kyoto Protocol agreed in 1997. The commission will report its findings later this month at a meeting in Bonn to discuss the Clean Development Mechanism, a key part of the Protocol aimed at reducing carbon emissions worldwide. One surprise finding is that organic matter washed into a reservoir from upstream generates much of the greenhouse gas. The decay of forests submerged when the reservoirs fill up creates "only a fraction" of the gas. This means that the emissions don't disappear when the flooded forest has rotted away, but may continue for the lifetime of the reservoir.
Associated Press
November 7, 1996
Rotting vegetation in hydroelectric dams stokes global warming
by Fred Pearce
3 June 2000
No. Tragic.
There is as much recoverable oil locked up in oil shale deposits that have been exploited the old way up to now. It will require new technology to get at it but never fear there's plenty left to find along with coal gassification extraction potential, fossil fuels are still plentiful, just harder to break up and get at them!
We'll keep using oil as long as it's cheaper than anything else or Jesus comes. I'm pretty sure the latter is much closer than our exhausting cheap oil sources.
Patent filed on energy discoveryA metabolic switch that triggers algae to turn sunlight into large quantities of hydrogen gas, a valuable fuel, is the subject of a new discovery reported for the first time by University of California, Berkeley, scientists and their Colorado colleagues. UC Berkeley plant and microbial biology professor Tasios Melis and postdoctoral associate Liping Zhang of UC Berkeley made the discovery -- funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen Program -- with Dr. Michael Seibert, Dr. Maria Ghirardi and postdoctoral associate Marc Forestier of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. Currently, hydrogen fuel is extracted from natural gas, a non-renewable energy source. The new discovery makes it possible to harness nature's own tool, photosynthesis, to produce the promising alternative fuel from sunlight and water. A joint patent on this new technique for capturing solar energy has been taken out by the two institutions. While current production rates are not high enough to make the process immediately viable commercially, the researchers believe that yields could rise by at least 10 fold with further research, someday making the technique an attractive fuel-producing option. Preliminary rough estimates, for instance, suggest it is conceivable that a single, small commercial pond could produce enough hydrogen gas to meet the weekly fuel needs of a dozen or so automobiles, Melis said.
by Kathleen ScaliseAbstract Number:1027The hydrogen metabolism of photosynthetic bacteria and cyanobacteria involves the coordinated action of three enzymes: nitrogenase, reversible hydrogenase, and uptake hydrogenase. Green algae, on the other hand, contain only the reversible hydrogenase, which is responsible for both hydrogen production and uptake in this organism. The quantum yield for hydrogenase-catalyzed hydrogen production is much higher than that for nitrogenase. Algal hydrogenases, however, are extremely sensitive to oxygen. For this reason, green algae cannot be utilized commercially for hydrogen production. We have investigated two types of selective pressure to isolate mutants of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that produce hydrogen in the presence of oxygen. The first is based on competition between hydrogenase and metronidazole for electrons from light-reduced ferredoxin. Since reduction of metronidazole results in the release of toxic products that eventually kill the organism, cells with an active oxygen-tolerant hydrogenase will survive a short treatment with the drug in the light in the presence of oxygen. Using this technique, we have isolated a variant of C. reinhardtii that evolves hydrogen with an I50 for oxygen three times higher than the wild type strain. The second selective pressure depends on growth of algal cells under photoreductive conditions. Algal cells must fix carbon dioxide in the presence of oxygen with reductants derived from hydrogen uptake by the reversible hydrogenase. We will describe in detail both selective pressures, as well as the characteristics of the mutants isolated by application of these selective pressures to a population of mutagenized wild type cells. This work was supported by the U.S. DOE Hydrogen Program.
by Maria L Ghirardi and Michael SeibertThe Department of Energy's Biohydrogen Research ProgramA recent discovery at ORNL demonstrated that hydrogen production from a green algal Chlamydomonas reinhardtii mutant cannot easily be explained by the Z-scheme, the standard model of photosynthesis. Too much hydrogen was produced to be accounted for by this model. These results may have implications for designing a commercial BioHydrogen organism with improved energetic conversion efficiencies of hydrogen production, especially in the context of the light saturation problem.
by Maria L Ghirardi and Michael Seibert
And therein lies the crux of the matter: Cold Fusion would be the end of the ability to control people, and no tyrant can stomach that idea!
Hydrogen isn't the answer. Fuel cells that reform liquid fuels, but provide higher efficiency than internal combustion engines, may help conservation.
The problem is far deeper than the transformation you refer to. It has two components - one is the dollar price of energy, which propagates through the economy and tends to retard general economic activity while increasing inflation.
A greater problem is EROEI - Energy Returned On Energy Invested. If it takes more energy to extract a barrel of oil than exists within a barrel of oil, then a fundamental imbalance exists. This is part of the problem - yes, we have large supplies of tar sands, lots of oil remaining within the fields, and so forth - but the energy balance, the margin between energy invested and energy returned - becomes important.
You win some, you lose some. ;')Refinery burning all day long in Portugal; 32 firemen injured so far
http://www.portugaldiario.iol.pt/noticias/noticia.php?id=371051&art_id=371000 ^ | 04/07/31
Posted on 07/31/2004 3:49:30 PM PDT by Truth666
The fire started at Leixões, the oil terminal that supplies northern Portugal, after explosions heard at 2:PM, GMT. It has been burning out of control since then. Great danger that the underground pipelines will explode. Not getting coverage by international media.
County sues Sempra Energy, others over natural gas prices
North County Times ^ | July 29, 2004 | Staff and wire reports
Posted on 07/31/2004 3:47:43 PM PDT by snopercod
SAN DIEGO ---- The county of San Diego has filed a lawsuit against the country's major providers of natural gas, accusing the companies of conspiring to boost profits by fraudulently manipulating gas prices and gouging California consumers.
The lawsuit accuses San Diego-based Sempra Energy and other companies of artificially inflating the price of natural gas during California's energy crisis. Sempra owns Southern California Gas Co., which serves the Southwest Riverside County area, as well as San Diego Gas & Electric Co.
Jennifer Andrews, a Sempra Energy spokeswoman, said the allegations are false and the lawsuit has no merit.
"Sempra and its subsidiaries did not cause the energy crisis," Andrews said.
The lawsuit alleges company traders used deceptive practices from late 1999 through 2001 to create the illusion of high demand and bogus shortages, sending gas prices up sixfold.
San Diego is the third California county to sue the natural gas companies. Santa Clara and San Francisco filed separate, but similar lawsuits earlier this month in Superior Court in San Diego that seek unspecified damages and a return of all ill-gotten gains.
In addition to Sempra and its subsidiaries, the lawsuit names six groups of companies: Houston-based Dynegy Inc.; Encana of Calgary, Alberta; Aquila Inc. of Kansas City, Mo.; Houston-based Reliant Energy Inc.; CMS Energy Corp. of Jackson, Mich.; and Houston-based Coral Energy Resources Inc.
The county filed its lawsuit in San Diego Superior Court on the same day the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission announced settlements with Sempra Energy and four other energy traders in connection with California's electricity crisis four years ago.
The commission approved settlements totaling $18 million, including $7.2 million from Sempra Energy Traders. The settlements bring to more than $21 million the sum of corporate profits returned because of market gaming during the California electricity crisis.
Afterall, it's good enough for the French.
The French can do it because their country is less democratic and the government is highly centralized. Here, we've got NIMBY (not in my back yard).
There are alternatives to existing oil wells, but when we can't even drill in frozen wastelands, I don't know how we are going to build new nuclear plants. I sure don't think an honest platform of freeing ourselves from foreign oil -- domestic drilling where ever there is oil or gas, plus lots of nuclear plants -- is an election day winner even at $3 a gallon gas.
But natural gas prices are in a long term uptrend over the past 20 years. Take a look at the chart here
Not quite true. Cooling would only occur if the "sunsats" were stationed between the earth and the sun. More than likely, they will not be so stationed, so the net effect WOULD be some slight heating of the planet, as the total energy would be that normally received from sunlight plus the added energy from the sunsats.
You have probably seen that natural gas is also part of the Peak Oil theory, as is coal. They will all peak, but not at the same time. Natural gas production will peak later than oil, coal production quite a bit later still. Coal is headed up, too. Oil is peaking now or already has, the price increase meaning we are past the easy oil peak.
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