I agree there are many solutions.

I doubt you actually want us to “put all we have” on finding them. Some of what we have is money for food, clothes and shelter. We want to keep at least some of that, don’t we?

Should we take all the money in Medicare and put it in alternative energy research and development? I didn’t think so.

Should we take all the money in social security, and in defense and in road maintenance and in law enforcement and put it in alternative energy research and development? I didn’t think so.

I know it sounds like mockery, but don’t intend it as such.

I’m just trying to remind that we have many needs, demands and desires. We try to come up with some sort of balance. I’ve already pointed out that there are trade-offs in many of the proposed alternatives.

They displace natural habitat. Imagine if your alternative energy source were plant based. You would have to get rid of the other plants already there or cut them down for your energy.

They displace food producing crops. Just think of how the addition of more ethanol in gasoline raised the price of corn, resulting in food riots in Mexico and probably increased the drug trafficking and kidnappings and murders and illegal immigration. It cost you more but you don’t live as close to the edge of starvation as some people

They are also dangerous. Consider the dead coal miners. Imagine working with millions of tons of rock over you wanting to fall and crush you. Brrrrr! The alternative is strip mining, getting the rock out from above you but we don’t like the environmental damage associated with that either, do we?

They are unsightly. We could replace much of the energy demand in this country if we just put up wind turbines along the beaches or out in the shallow water. Most people don’t want to look at them. (They don’t like looking at oily beaches either, but that is temporary and will be gone in a few months or decades, whereas wind turbines would be forever even if they had to be replaced every so often.)

They WILL cost more. I know people act like they don’t care what anything costs, but they really do. If it cost five times as much to replace petroleum as petroleum does, it would be like instantly earning one fifth as much as you did before. You would have less money for clothes. Less money for food. Less money for going places. Less money for medicine. Your loved ones would have to do without.

Just think about it.

We need to look at the bigger picture and look at what’s best for our county.
No, we will not be able to get rid our dependence on oil overnight but we should put all we have into doing so as soon as possible. I don’t believe it’s only one solution but many.

Keep saying it will not work, will never get us no wheres!

As the old saying goes ” Can’t never does anything”!!!!

If ANY were not under their thumb and had a better way, they would leave all the others behind. Therefore, if every last one was not under their thumb and it still doesn’t happen, that means they are not the cause.

The fact is that petroleum–inexpensive, compact, liquid, non-clogging, portable energy–is superior to all current alternatives. It’s better than coal and safer to obtain with less pollution. It’s more portable than nuclear and not quite as dangerous in the hands of terrorists. It packs more punch and more power per cubic foot than natural gas even though it doesn’t burn as cleanly. It doesn’t depend on moving wind, dammed up waters or shining sun to serve its users. It’s not made out of food even though it can be used to produce food.

It won’t always be that way but it is right now.

There are fungi which produce diesel, not bio-diesel but diesel.

There are algae which produce fuel (around a hundred dollars per gallon but they’re working on improving that).

If you had an affordable battery or even any kind of such battery which was about a hundred times as efficient at storing energy (as petroleum is), most transportation would switch to it quickly. You’d still have to have some source of power but they exist.

Conversion of cellulose to ethanol works well as soon as they get the bugs out or the right bugs working on the problem. You’d only have about half the energy density per cubic foot, but that would do for a lot of cases.

There are plants which naturally produce heptane, low grade gasoline. A little genetic engineering could go a long way. There are chemical compounds which are stable, high energy density and liquid. They could replace petroleum if they were made by plants rather than expensive laboratories with high energy losses and expense. You could run engines on turpentine, peanut oil, syrup (well, maybe). Of course they would destroy the ecology as they displaced naturally existing plants, but at least we would be off of petroleum.

There are some people all around the world working on all these problems and others I haven’t thought to mention. They write papers back and forth working on the problems and share them with each other.

Lobbyists couldn’t stop all of them. Lobbyists don’t control China or Iceland or South Africa or Argentina or Switzerland or Denmark. Just think of the places and peoples they don’t control. I don’t even think they control the United States of America but even if they did, they just couldn’t possibly control all those other folks. If any of them found a better way, they would have the rest of the world following them. Nobody likes to be dependant on petroleum.

David trying to be reasonable
in the face of conspiracy theorists

We must do better, than old thinking!

As a loft goal, it’s just fine.

In the mean time, if our kids and grandkids (or parents and grandparents, depending on age) need to get to the hospital, shall we use petroleum based fuel to run the ambulence or not? Should we give up the food and clothing which is brought to us by vehicles powered withpetroleum based fuel? For that matter, unless they are 100 percent cotton our clothes are made from petroleum and the cotton was raised and harvested and processed with petroleum based products.

“We can do it because we are AMERICANS!” sounds fine until you get down to the details.

With what shall we do it, Dear Liza, Dear Liza?
With what shall we do it, with what?

David for practical alternatives

The Cubans and Mexicans are going to drill….

BP…British NOT American…did this…

Charlie you know you can’t stop Cuba

*** source Seattle Times****

“People say they (Cuba) can’t or shouldn’t do it (drill for oil). Well, forget it,” Jones said.

“It is going to happen, and you guys in Florida can’t stop it, and the U.S. government can’t stop it, but you’d better think of a way to deal with it.”

Zones established by maritime law in 1977 gave the United States and Cuba special rights of exploration and navigation in the Florida Straits. (Thank You Panama Jimmy Carter)

The boundary of Cuba’s Exclusive Economic Zone extends to within 45 miles of Key West. The parcels within the zone that Cuba has leased for drilling are along Cuba’s northwest coast — about 65 miles south of Key West.

By comparison, the Deepwater Horizon well, as much of a concern as it is to South Florida officials, is 800 miles away. Oil from a spill off Cuba could much more quickly enter the Florida Straits and blanket the Keys and South Florida as it is pulled north on the Gulf Stream”