Posted on 05/13/2017 10:53:20 AM PDT by LSUfan
Recently within the American conservative and Christian zeitgeists I have noticed a growing positive view of Vladimir Putin and desire for a U.S.-Russia Christian military alliance against Islamic terrorism. As both a conservative Christian American and a policy specialist on Russia and Eastern Europe, this is a perilous line of thinking. The growing trend among conservatives to support Putin’s Russia is problematic because Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) engage in activities that run directly contrary to U.S. national security objectives, values of Western civilization writ large, and teaching of Christian scripture.
Perceptions that Russia is a defender of Christendom in an increasingly secular world are not based in reality. Any discussion concerning the relationship between Christianity and Russia cannot fail to take into consideration the Russian Orthodox Church, which dominates practically all aspects of Christianity in Russia.
(Excerpt) Read more at providencemag.com ...
Ease up. We just got started on making America real America’s ally again.
I support a missionary in Russia (Lutheran). He gets along well with the Orthodox, and they agree that neither will poach the other’s members.
However, they do not tolerate evangelicals.
We have to remember that until relatively recently, it was difficult to be a Catholic in England or a Lutheran in Spain.
The U.S. holds more oil reserves than anyone else in the world, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela.
That conclusion comes from a new independent estimate from Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy. Rystad estimates that the U.S. holds 264 billion barrels of oil, more than half of which is located in shale. That total exceeds the 256 billion barrels found in Russia, and the 212 billion barrels located in Saudi Arabia.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Has-Worlds-Largest-Oil-Reserves.html
Like Mormons, they aren’t really Christian /s
Russia to a large degree really only has two exports: OIL and WEAPONS.
They need the cash. Oil prices aren't where Russia (or OPEC) "needs" them to be to support their populations.
In Russia's case, they have a secondary market called WEAPONS to sell and make money. OPEC has oil and that's it.
Not surprising that Russia is selling weapons like crazy in the middle east right now. More accurately, has been for decades.
Maybe Russia’s support of Iran is the reason the Saudis were dumping oil on the market?....
Rystad has always had a new client agenda.
Look, this is not rocket science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves
Now I’m posting that link mostly to educate you about definitions. “Oil Reserves” is not an absolute measure. There are “Resources”. There are 1P Reserves, 2P Reserves and outright Proven Reserves.
The Reserves number can increase and decrease with price, too. If the price is too low, oil doesn’t come up and therefore doesn’t “exist”. OTOH, not all oil will ever come up, at any price, whether it exists or not.
Oil is not a giant lake or reservoir or ocean under some piece of ground. It is in the pores of rock. It may be in a pore of Coke can size, but seperated from the next pore by 100s of feet of rock. No one will drill a hole for a Coke can volume of oil, more or less at any price. So that bit of oil is never going to come up.
Anyway, the numbers are what is in that chart. The US has proven reserves of 26 billion barrels. “Proven Reserves” and note that in 2012 the price was over $100, vs $46 today. At about 9.5 million barrels/day flow, that’s 3.5 billion barrels/year. 8ish years (though more will be found during those 8 years, maybe a few hundred million new barrels per year over 8 yrs).
You’re one of those peak oil dudes, aren’t you?
Wait a minute . . . so the Communist countries are the good guys???
I seem to have clicked on the wrong address. I thought this was Free Republic.
I realize that this is going to be absolutely useless, but "neoconservatives" are not "Trotskyists." I know you "palaeos" always say that in order to imply that neocons are "Zionists" and that Trotsky, being a Jew, was Zionist as well. But the fact which you will never acknowledge is that Trotsky was not a Zionist and the Trotskyites are among the most anti-Zionist forces of the entire Left.
Of course you just say that as a round-about way of saying "Jews." Pity for you most Americans didn't grow up on stories of heroic medieval European chrstian civilization but on Bobble stories bout Joshuay and David, hot dammit y'all--which, by the way, are far superior because they're about an actual Theocracy and not some wannabe.
As much as "palaeocons" dread the restored Davidic Kingdom under Mashiach HaMelekh?
The Moscow Patriarchate is the remnant of the thoroughly subverted Communist/KGB church, not the heroic underground one.
Wrong. CNG burns quite nicely in diesel engines. Rail and truck companies are quite rapidly developing and implementing the technology and infrastructure to use it. And of course, CNG already works nicely in spark-ignited engines. Lastly, CNG can be up-converted to heavier HC. So it is NOT "all about oil".
For 50 yrs people have talked about what’s about to happen.
Ask some guys at truck stops who of them is using anything other than diesel fuel to move food interstate.
It won't be "some guys at truck stops" who will be the first users, it will be rail and corporate long-haul truck fleets, and possibly some large urban fleets (transit buses, schoolbuses). This is a great deal more than "people talking about what's about to happen". Money is already being spent to "make it happen".
But come on, guy. Over 50 yrs don’t you think money was being spent? It didn’t happen. Compressed natgas is a fraction of energy density to diesel.
Look up the range of a CNG Honda Civic vs a conventional Honda Civic. And note you give up the CNG’s trunk to have even that inferior range.
Oil became oil for a reason. Physics. That doesn’t change.
Of course money was spent. I'm talking about the INCREASE in amount spent and the things it is being spent on. The spending now is on dedicated vehicles and infrastructure to run them, not R&D or engineering. I can look out my car window and watch CNG fueled buses pass by on a routine basis.
I did a wee bit of Googling since this conversation started, and one thing that surprises me is marine usage. CNG ferries are in real-world use.
"Look up the range of a CNG Honda Civic vs a conventional Honda Civic. And note you give up the CNG’s trunk to have even that inferior range."
True enough, but temporary. You don't think that a Honda Civic designed from the ground up to run on CNG won't be "just a bit" different in tank design and placement? And auto usage will probably be the last thing to change over, if it doesn't turn out to be more practical to synthesize gasoline from methane.
And in the final analysis, once widespread infrastructure is in place it will be a matter of fueling up every 300 miles instead of every 400. As a Honda Civic owner, I doubt that the very minor inconvenience of more frequent stopping to fuel up will be a bother. I already stop more often than refueling to drain another liquid reservoir.
"Oil became oil for a reason. Physics. That doesn’t change."
Yup, but economics does. And it is economics that is and will continue to drive the change.
What?
It doesnt matter what day you design a tank? Ground up or later. It Doesn’t Have The Energy Density. There is nothing you can do about that. It doesn’t matter what economics says. It doesn’t matter that you live in a city and can’t understand overall.
None of that matters. Physics wins. That tank HAS to be a certain volume no matter what day you design it. That requires you give up your trunk — in order to have inferior range.
There is nothing new in this. There would be no CNG Civic at all if had not already been thought of. It will never . . . the N word . . . it will never transport food interstate. You need 300 horsepower trucks to do that. Trains all run on diesel to power an electric motor.
Look, it’s reality. Cattle cars . . . a phrase from yesteryear. You had to ship cattle live because until oil arrived there was insufficient power to push the train PLUS refrigeration. 60% of a steer’s mass is inedible. Only oil fixed that. CNG isn’t going to do it. Trains that get where they are going in 1 day will take a week for all the refuel stops, which won’t be made because there is no refueling station for CNG enroute and never will be until oil shuts off.
When it does, the people who might build stations will be out looking for food and not going to work.
There is no way around it. Oil is everything.
Current CNG automobiles are designed to be dual fuel, so you have to have two separate tanks. A CNG-only car will have only one tank, and can be so designed as to accomodate the larger-needed tank to compensate for the lower energy density without sacrificing luggage space.
And no, I do NOT live in the city (although I have). I'm a farm boy who grew up in the country, got eddicated, and then lived urban for a while. I am now back rural, so I "understand overall" quite well.
"It will never . . . the N word . . . it will never transport food interstate. You need 300 horsepower trucks to do that. Trains all run on diesel to power an electric motor."
And yet both the rail and trucking industry are ALREADY BUILDING "diesel" trucks and train engines that run on CNG. I doubt that they would be building them if they couldn't sell them.
""Cattle cars . . . a phrase from yesteryear. You had to ship cattle live because until oil arrived there was insufficient power to push the train PLUS refrigeration. 60% of a steer’s mass is inedible. Only oil fixed that.
Dude, coal has a higher energy density than oil. Back in the day of shipping live cattle, refrigeration hadn't been invented yet. After the invention of refrigeration, live cattle were no longer shipped, but the meat was, and STILL SHIPPED IN TRAINS FUELED WITH COAL.The reason early coal-fueled trains had to stop so frequently was because they had to tank up on the WATER to generate the steam. Oil had nothing whatever to do with it.
"CNG isn’t going to do it. Trains that get where they are going in 1 day will take a week for all the refuel stops, which won’t be made because there is no refueling station for CNG enroute and never will be until oil shuts off.
Uh, no. The trains will simply hook up to already filled tank cars. Probably take 10 or 15 minutes to make the switch. Said tank cars can be as large as needed to compensate for the lower energy density.
"There is no way around it. Oil is everything."
Nope....
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