Posted By: arthur krause on Thursday, July 17, 2008
I agree with you completly.But how do you wake America up? Half the people think we can pull ourselves out of this energy hole without Nuclear/drilling/offshore/coal..Everyone goes to college because working with your hands is not acceptasble. The military is for mid to lower income people..Goverment is the only growth industry..We need a serious jump start.Tax imports or else true equal trade not 500 billion to 0. UMT for ALL. Put the import taxes into domestic industry. Unless we do these things the next 20 years will make 2007/8 look like the good old days.
Posted By: BM on Thursday, July 17, 2008
It is a wonderful thought, but reality is not politically correct. You will see all of those things happen (maybe) the day that you see a 3rd party candidate elected president. Too much money to be made with the status quo. Pander two steps left, pander two steps right, blink twice so people think something actually happened (then cash the check).
Posted By: Good Life on Thursday, July 17, 2008
So much to comment on...The wealth of a nation comes from only three places: Mining, Manufacturing, Agriculture. Everything else is just passing around the money.Prosperity always comes from the bottom-up. When a nation spends 28 years busting unions, importing masses of labor to drive down pay, and pouring money into the top...what does one expect. The US economy was so large and had so much inertia that it took an entire generation of VooDoo economics to bring it to a stop. The solution--Put money at the bottom and let those people spend it, and whoever they spend it with will spend it.... Eventually it will reach the top. Put money at the top and it gets warehoused because the top are spending all they want to spend already.The massive debt, an anchor on any economy. And who created it? "Conservative??" presidents and congress. Could a "liberal" have done worse? (Bill Clinton, only president in 28 years to control the government economics)We tried drilling our way out of energy problems 28 years ago. All it did was pass the problem on to the next generation. I guess if you don't care about your children and grandchildren, drill and pass the problems to them. On the other hand we could put solar and wind along the edges and in the median of the Interstate Highway System and in 5 years be an energy exporter. And we could reinstitute the energy saving of Carter. While we had those laws energy use dropped 5% each year while the economy rapidly grew. Reagan removed them because they were an "unfair tax advantage". If we had kept them we would not be an energy importer today.
Posted By: Cowgirl Up! - Texas on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
**drill and pass the problems to them. On the other hand we could put solar and wind along the edges and in the median of the Interstate Highway System and in 5 years be an energy exporter**Good life - I agree with you - to a point. The energy solution is not 'one size fits all'. Before we can ever get to the point of having alternative, renewable energy to fuel us all - there are a few things to be considered.First - The vehicle for storage and delivery of new fuels will need to be built or adapted. This will take time.Second - there are 170 by-products of oil - everything from petroleum jelly and lubricants to plastics and fertilizers - that are used for all manners of keeping us alive. Finding replacements for those are crucial (especially those by-products used in medical technology). This will take time.Third - allowing for new methods of powering cars - the average Joe (or Jane) will need to have time to adapt their lives and purchase these new vehicles - saving the money to do so. This will take time.Fourth - changing all of the systems in commercial buildings and residential properties to use alternative fuels will need to be completed - solar panels - hooking wind generators to the power grid - this takes manpower and that all takes time.This country will need to use petroluem products for at least 40 - 50 years in order to implement the wide ranging changes of 'getting the US off of oil quick'. Would you - and those who are in the group ascribing to your approach of "dump oil now"; like to see the US (and YOUR lifestyle) and then eventually the globe - most devasatating to the third world countries everyone wants to help - plunged into depression, devastating economic failures resulting in starvation, bankruptcy, death and (likely) war over those 'surviving'?If THAT picture is not so pretty, there are better ways to go. Drilling and using the natural resources of the US will not take 7 - 10 years as the Democrats pushing the Obama ticket are preaching. In reality - with today's technology - not that of the 1970's; which is the timetable that you are hearing on the news - a new oil well can be up and producing oil to go to market in 12 - 18 months. Just announcing that the US has decided to stop being stupiud and USE our resources, will have a lowering affect on fuel prices within a short number of weeks - if not days.The American people are being taken for a ride. The answers are all there - not rocket science: 1. Drill for more oil - ANWR, off coast, etc. to supply the US - for the SHORT TERM.2. Stop shipping oil out of the US for the near future.3. Build nuclear power plants to produce cheap electricity for gas or diesel electric vehicles. (nuclear is safe (look at France! Decades of cheap electricity) Nuclear does NOT produce lots of waste! (again, look at France - they re-use their fuel rods!)4. Implement coal to liquid fuel technology (it IS clean - very clean) The military is already doing this on a large scale - and reaping the benefits. Again - SHORT TERM SOLUTION.5. Research better battery technology - electric and electric hybrids can absolutely replace our primary commuting vehicles - with more power (torque) and less "pollution".The solutions are there - easy to do - and able to be in place in a decade - with less governmental and wack-job environmental interference.
Posted By: Good Life on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Cowgirl--We are close on this one. Of course we can't immediately drop total oil. We don't need to. It's a matter of shifting energy use away from oil in those places where it's possible, that would leave the oil we do have to do the things that require oil. For instance, my house is heated with propane. Give me the same tax incentives that we had in 1980 and I'll have solar panels and earth source. I already put in tankless hot water and had CFBulbs 10 years ago. That won't 100% do away with propane but about 80% could be shifted to other uses. If we would have kept those tax incentives every house built since 1980 could use 80% less energy. In the space program we had to invent technology, in energy the technology has been sitting on the shelf for 30 years waiting for the problem to be passed onto the next generation. All we need to do is employ some of those people in the upper mid west to build it.Most scientists don't think hydrogen will be practical in cars, but solar in the desert could be converted to hydrogen, then piped to factories where it could replace oil based energy.Nuclear is interesting because no one wants to talk about it. There is new technology that is used in France that actually burns the waste of other plants and even burns the waste of nuclear warheads. We are so worried about terrorists getting plutonium but we won't built a plant that would simply burn it. These new plants are so efficient that their waste would only last a few hundred years. We wouldn't have to bury the stuff in Nevada for tens of thousands of years.If we wanted to and if we had a leader that was really a leader with vision, (not just a person that reacts to problems, but leads us to new frontiers) it would be easy to be energy independent in 5 years.
Good Life - as to that leader - we may have some soon. I know this year is one of the circles of hell....but, I thought economically, energy-wise and immigration reform was well covered by Mitt Romney.Additionally, in the future - 2012? Take a look at Louisianna and their new governor....impressive progress in curbing the most corrupt state in the country.My grandmother has had solar panels since the 80's. They work. I have been saying they need to make roofing material from solar ...whatever. When the roof is installed - the individual shingles (or whatever) get plugged into the home's "grid". My husband told me I was nuts - that the material was too delicate - now someone is looking at making just that - with new more durable materials.We WILL get there - we just need to government to stay the heck away from the free market and good old American ingenuity.FYI - Am I the only one that has to try to "submit" multiple times - to the error message "User not validated". (Does this only happen to the posters who are "politically uncorrect" (kidding))
Posted By: Dauric on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Nah, it just happens to us that are long-winded. The validation system times out to prevent spam-bots from playing the system to enter the correct validation phrase.
It happens to me even when I just have one line
WHEW!! I thought it was the liberal censors watching..... (LOL) :-)
Depends on when the timeout is, how long you took to read the article, compose your message, got interrupted...If I make my guess, and I deal with web pages for a living, the timeout is based on the server's system clock, not on the client (your) machine.
Posted By: jack sprat on Thursday, July 24, 2008
The economy is powered 70% by consumer spending, as we artificially let oil pricing rise the economy of the world stands still with a gasp. Hating our consumption, apparently unable to understand the dynamics of the process, or they would be demanding us to “spend” more. Short-term solution is for domestic oil production, as our Gal Pal from the Pecos understands we have some where in the neighbor hood of 90 billion barrel of oil in the Artic coast line some in ANWR. Another 70-80 billion barrel off the oil on the Shelf and from coal and shale, with the oil from the coal ready in 1 year, and the oil from the Shelf flowing within 2-3 years. With the inbred thinking like Kennedy who demands “renewable energy now”, but won’t let a wind turbine farm be built off his piece of paradise, so we can demand “green energy “ now but what then? As I have consistently said the storage systems are simply not available yet. There are no multi-packs of batteries for solar systems at the local Sams Club. NanoSolar, shipped the newest technology of nano based solar panels to Germany last year, hardly ready for “prime time” on any of the green sources, McCain at least wants to import sugar based ethanol instead of burning our food. Obama just wants to tax anything. Cow Gal – Nanosolar is developing a solar generating “power grid” in the form of siding, very exciting, in another 5-10 years. Not a whole lot of solutions for the next 10 years left are there? Holland has 15% “renewable energy sources” on line in the form of wind turbines, but wishes they hadn’t gone so far this soon, apparently the wind doesn’t turn them consistently leaving some 3-4 days, and without an adequate storage system they pull from the “system” that at that point is over used.5 years? Very doubtful, but we should get going shouldn’t we? On a funnier note, Al Bore had a recent “green forum” sent invites, which said if you can take public transportation, ride a bike or walk, unfortunately he wasn’t able to and was caught “out back” with 3 Cadillac’s and an SUV. This, folks is a leader of the “cause.” The environmentalists like him are destroying this country and causing needless suffering.
