Vis Maior

This is the Pickens Plan. It's short, to the point and makes a lot of sense. And above all else, it's realistic!

http://www.pickensplan.com/

Ooooo politics & energy, my two favorite topics! Few blurbs, nothing epic:

- I wish average Americans could connect the dots between who they vote for and why they are getting it so hard up the butt at the gas station.

- A plan like Pickens presents has only a slim chance of seeing fruition without kicking some of these oil-hungry politicians out of office through use of our votes.

- Any politician who supports ethanol is simply pandering to Iowans, considering how horribly it is effecting the food supply chain (30% of our corn supply goes to ethanol).

- This whole oil drilling debate going on lately is absolutely the wrong debate to be having.

Ethanol is also worse for the environment than gasoline. People are often under the misconception that it's somehow better, but the process to convert it to a useful fuel type is quite detrimental!

Aus wrote:Ethanol is also worse for the environment than gasoline. People are often under the misconception that it's somehow better, but the process to convert it to a useful fuel type is quite detrimental!

Not to mention the gov't is subsidizing all the farmland in the midwest for corn for this crap, making other crops skyrocket in price.

I'm over expensive gas -- I hate reading about it in the news. Have you been overseas? America is cheap compared to most western countries.

arkinia wrote:I'm over expensive gas -- I hate reading about it in the news. Have you been overseas? America is cheap compared to most western countries.

Sure, but we use quite a bit more per person, so even if the gas is cheaper we still spend a good deal more on it on average.

drive in europe, then complain about gas prices

1.4 euros a liter atm here

Aus wrote:

Aus wrote: Sure, but we use quite a bit more per person, so even if the gas is cheaper we still spend a good deal more on it on average.

I don't have numbers in front of me, but from driving a lot in the States and Greece, and a decent amount in France and Italy, I'm not sure. Public transport is huge, but for a country the size of Greece (10 mil or so), we have an insane amount of cars. Insane. Plus the driving is a lot of stop and go city traffic, and absolutely insane highway speeds, whereas the average commute in the States (at least where I am), is mostly highway, and most people drive 60-70 mph. So even though you see a lot more small 4 cylinder cars, they drive them so inefficiently that you're pretty much bleeding gas. Also, the dynamic is completely different. It's a small country, but a huge percentage live in Athens. Most people came from somewhere else though, so driving to the chorio (hometown) is very common, whereas most Americans commute to work and home, and do errands. I think the only things we have in our favor are good public transit and the fact that we have a much lower percentage of big cars. Also, you haven't lived until you've experienced female Greek drivers. Cellphone, cigarette, all cars are standard + crazy speeds for tight side streets, (think the first Bourne), horrible turning, and they actually swear at you when they just blow a left in front of you, while downshifting, taking a drag, and telling the person on the cell why you're an asshole.

Not to mention that gas over in Europe is in Liters, not gallons.

I'm with Arkinia. I've changed my travel methods enough that I only fill up about once a month. I also read an article stating people who complain about gas prices are those who probably also buy bottled water. Another point brought up was on Top Gear, on BBS.
He says that a "straw" of good bull semen costs about $46. In terms of a barrel of good bull semen, it costs about $8 million. Which seems pretty ridiculous considering its pretty simple to obtain/harvest.
Look at oil: You need a multimillion dollar drill to get to the oil, another multimillion dollar pump to get it out of the ground, a multimillion dollar transportation device to carry it to the multimillion dollar refinery, then the costs to ship the stuff around the world. Seems pretty cheap.

http://voluntaryxchange.typepad.com/vol ... iquid.html

The video is less about the cost of gas per gallon, and more about the 10 year cost to our country - 700 trillion dollars (which we don't have) - and how to alleviate that cost through resources like wind. The goal is to use wind to create 22% of the countries energy needs, so that the natural gas we use can be used for travel fuels (which would lower the over all need for overseas oil) reducing the overall cost per year for our country by 300 billion (300 trillion over 10 years).

So, yeah. It's a slightly bigger picture.

I didn't say anything about the video. I'm just over complaints about gas prices. I got the USA Today newspaper at the hotel I was staying at for the past 2 weeks, and they report average gas prices EVERY DAY, front page. Like Metzer, I changed my driving by trying to carpool to and from work and it's worked out really well. I spend about 1/2 or less on gas money, but fewer miles on my car and get to have a more entertaining car ride. I know not everyone has that option..

Anyways, the video was semi interesting, but really only one side of that "big" picture. Personally I'm a big fan of Geothermal and what Iceland has done. The Icelandic government just opened a company in California to try and promote and help install Geothermal power plant systems...pretty cool.

It all comes down to generating electricity.

Electricity + water = hydrogen.

Hydrogen + fuelcell = electricity.

Honestly. I think that if you're gonna switch the automobile fueling infrastructure, you might as well do it to the best thing you can, which is hydrogen, not natural gas. Hydrogen is basically a big rechargeable battery. You use electricity to make it, then you can store it, and get electricity back out of it when you need it. Sure sounds like a great way to run a car to me. The idea of the traditional gas station can even largely be done away with. Houses have water and electricity running to them. Throw a big glorified electrolosis machine in your garage and you can fill up your car whenever you want. (Such a thing already exists in fact!)

Yeah, right now the cars cost more, but I have a feeling that's largely because companies are making them as "look what we can do!" prototype cars to show off, not to try and make economical production models. The R&D also largely isn't happening, because automakers are waiting to see what will come after gasoline before they start making cars to use it.

Now wind/solar/geothermal/tidal/nuclear/everyothercleanwaytogenerateelectricity instead of burning non-renewable fossil fuels to get the electricity to make that hydrogen, now that's all super.

On the subject of biofuels, specifically ethanol, it all depends on how you make it. Currently in this country we make it from corn, which produces a very low amount of ethanol for the work that goes into it. Some estimates say the farm equipment to grow and harvest the corn uses more energy than the ethanol the corn will produce contains. Other countries use other things, namely Brazil and sugar cane, which is WAY more efficient, and a totally viable way to get energy. The downside there is that they burn down the rain forest to make room to grow that sugar cane. I seem to recall hearing that if some way to make ethanol from switchgrass or something in the US could be found, it would be a similarly viable source.

And then hey, there's always fusion. It currently takes more energy to start the reaction than it yields, but the gap is getting smaller all the time as bigger reactors are bit. They'll cost a fuckton to make, but I'm gonna go ahead and predict there will be a fusion reactor with a net energy gain within 50 years.

Aus wrote:

arkinia wrote:I'm over expensive gas -- I hate reading about it in the news. Have you been overseas? America is cheap compared to most western countries.

Sure, but we use quite a bit more per person, so even if the gas is cheaper we still spend a good deal more on it on average.

Then use less.

Fuck americans are retarded

Scopar wrote:

Aus wrote:

arkinia wrote:I'm over expensive gas -- I hate reading about it in the news. Have you been overseas? America is cheap compared to most western countries.

Sure, but we use quite a bit more per person, so even if the gas is cheaper we still spend a good deal more on it on average.

Then use less.

Fuck americans are retarded

We have states as big as Europe. Everything in the EU is really close together, entire countries are tiny. You can make it a day trip to go to the other side of your country over there. In the US, everything is much farther apart. I travel 20 minutes to work and I consider it obscenely close. My dad used to commute down to Waltham which was 4 hours of driving every day (albeit 1.5-2 due to traffic), and that is normal for people who live in NH but work at large companies based in Mass. The nearest fast food place for me is a 20 minute drive. I have to travel 10 miles to get gas.