Energy Plan
August 20th, 2008
Here is my energy plan.
- Cars and trucks will run on “gasoline”, a toxic, flammable liquid.
- Vehicles will emit pollution that contributes to global warming and a bunch of other scary shit.
- We’ll need “refineries” to convert oil into gasoline.
- We’ll use big trucks (also burning “gasoline”) to haul the gasoline all over the country to “gas stations”.
- These so-called “gas stations” will have huge underground tanks to store the gas. They may leak occasionally.
- We can build massive oil drilling platforms, lay giant pipelines, build roads to remote sites, because fuck you Mother Nature.
- We’ll build huge ships to transport the oil. Occasional spills are OK because they are rare and usually far away. Hardly anybody lives in Alaska.
- We can buy much of our oil overseas, funneling trillions of dollars to foreign dictators who sponsor terrorism, treat women poorly, etc.
- Some of these dictators will build huge skyscrapers, providing hours of “How did they build that big building?” entertainment on the Discovery Channel and TLC.
- The same guys who give us shiny tall towers can create tax-free zones for US corporations to relocate, thus avoiding many U.S. taxes.
- When China starts consuming more gas and oil, we can lower gas taxes and send government rebate checks to combat rising prices, thus keeping consumption high for as long as possible.
- Coal is great for generating electricity. We can burn it and let the toxic waste dissipate harmlessly into the atmosphere.
- We won’t allow offshore windmill farms because they may hurt a Kennedy’s ocean view.
- Inland wind farms are too noisy and might kill some birds. The fossil-fuel thing is much better for birds. Except perhaps seagulls during an oil spill. But oil spills are rare.
- Solar farms are a bad idea because we’d need to build more long-range transmission lines, which will harm nature, possibly even ruining pristine views in remote national parks. It’s better to cart around giant trucks and trains full of gasoline and oil.
- Germany builds a lot of solar panels, but they also like David Hasselhoff. We don’t want to be like them.
- Wave power kills fish. Oil spills are rare, and global warming might not kill lots of fish for 50-100 years. In fact, with rising oceans, we might HELP fish!
- Oil gives us something to fight about.
Hey,
good post, but … as a German I have to say that I feel offended by your characterization of Germans as David Hasselhoff fans. Please don’t do that. It’s widely inaccurate and hurts!
Mariano,
Does it really hurt?
I thought germans don’t have feelings
sorry.
I like the idea that rising ocean levels help fish! Good plan!
The following bullets don’t really fit the liberal template:
We won’t allow offshore windmill farms because they may hurt a Kennedy’s ocean view.
Inland wind farms are too noisy and might kill some birds. The fossil-fuel thing is much better for birds. Except perhaps seagulls during an oil spill. But oil spills are rare.
Solar farms are a bad idea because we’d need to build more long-range transmission lines, which will harm nature, possibly even ruining pristine views in remote national parks. It’s better to cart around giant trucks and trains full of gasoline and oil.
Please replace them with the following:
We won’t allow offshore windmill farms because they might reduce profits for Big Oil.
Inland wind farms might reduce profits for Big Oil.
Solar farms are a bad idea because they might reduce profits for Big Oil.
PS Oh, and please don’t be hating on the Hoff or the Germans.
PSS What about Nuk-u-lar?
D. Lewis,
Who cares about the liberal template? Is a party line so holy to you? Let’s just all be people doing the best we can with what we’ve got. And let’s give the political machines the middle finger instead of propagating their power.
Honestly,
David
Well pretty funny, sad but funny.
Althought Wind and solar don’t seem to be answers to the problem,
They don’t give enough energy and not at the right time, the energy need in summer is lower than in winter, whereas the solar power is the contrary. Using batteries kinda kills the purpose with all the toxics involved.
Nuclear (Nuk-u-lar ?) seems good enough, but not for a long time, and only in certain conditions, i mean capitalism and nuclear safety don’t seem a nice fit. And i guess they should retry the superphoenix central to get surgeneration of plutonium working to be able to make enough nuclear fuel for everyone. But again, limited time solution.
Hydrogen seems nice , you can make it with water! the problem is that you need a lot of enegy, if that energy could come from solar panels or wind turbines than there you go, you have storage, no pollution, and no need to change everything, we ca still “burn stuffs” yet it won’t pollute much.
Now let’s hope that some nations dig into it and create something good enough for the world to use.
PS: Mariano, come on it was funny that bit on the germans, false but funny! I’m french so these days i’m quite used to false assumptions on us, but when it’s funny, what can you say ?!
Plus you’ve got to admit than the highest number of hasselof fans resides in your country, scary, but true :p
Now i’ll go back to eat my baguette ‘n cheese in my unreliable car next to my surrender soldier friend in our menages a trois
David:
I was highlighting (and applauding) those statements that show stupidity on the extreme-environmentalist “side” of the energy issue.
“Big Oil” (TM) is not always helpful, but they shouldn’t be assigned ALL blame. So-called “environmentalist wackos” deserve some scrutiny as well.
Dan
Cedric
Summer demand for electricity is much higher (a factor of 3-4) in summer south of the Mason-Dixon, because of air-conditioning requirements. This is particularly where we can make the most of solar power (the desert southwest…) So there - solar makes a lot of sense.
Actually - T. Boone Pickens’ plan is a pretty good one rough and tough. Harness alternate power - solar and wind - to make enough electricity (20% of current demand) to get us through a transition to other vehicle fuels.
ALL of this stuff will work a lot better with conservation - and I don’t mean putting on a sweater (or sweating). I mean making better machines of all types that will consume a lot less fuel to do the same work. A/C units that are 24 SEER not 12. Cars that get 60 mpg not 20.. etc. Reduce lighting in commercial spaces using LEDs and CFS. Make houses much more energy efficient using more SIPS panels, ICF products, and better basic construction techniques. All of this stuff can be done, and be done fairly easily and fairly painlessly. It’s not going to require a massive “loss of American Lifestyle” or any such crap. In fact… Americans are pros at rising to a task, and this is the most important one of our lifetimes. Not because of global warming (questionable).. not because of “peak oil” scarcity (although those are both worthy causes to rally people around)… but because we are sending all of our operating funds and selling much of our asset base to lunatics who hate us. It’s time to cut those apron strings and stand on our own 2 feet, like we should have been 30 years ago. We can do it - we can do it easily. Who is better at figuring shit out than the awesome American workforce. Nobody. Other countries are good at taking what we figure out and running with it - but we are the innovators of the planet - period.
Honestly though - we need gas prices to stay high - for a couple years not a couple months. As soon as they back off a little - we get complacent and we’re right back where we were. At $4 we were outraged…. at $3.60 we’re ordering up the Chevy Suburbans again. That’s how we’re built.
I’m actually looking forward to the challenge. We ramped up for WWII in a few months - we can do the same thing again. Think of all the people who will have cool new jobs, and all the national unity we can muster. Think about all the awesome new control software that will be required and how we can leverage the web to monitor everything. It’s unbelievable. Nonsense like fearmongering over a few Mexicans without paperwork or whether someone interprets some bible verse exactly the way you do… or what Paris Hilton was doing yesterday… that’ll all will be taking a giant backseat to getting the real problems solved. C’mon people - let’s do it. Screw the middle east, let them keep their oil… we won’t be needing it much longer. Americans are at their absolute best when we can rally around a major project and GITTERDONE. I’m a process management consultant in the construction industry… in our world little improvements yeild MAJOR results. Spend one day less building a house and double your bottom line if you can capture it througout the value chain. Increase the fuel economy of our rolling fleet by 10% and guess what… we don’t need any more middle eastern oil. Do it a second time and our own reserves last another 100 years. Stuff Liddat. The decrease in demand of 3-4% of recent months was enough to send OPEC into an absolute panic.
PS - if you guys/gals want to explore an outfit that has REALLY analyzed this problem - it’s the Rocky Mountain Institute http://www.rmi.org/ and this dude http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amory_Lovins... who is my new hero. Why? Because he’s looked at the data, ascertained the facts, and is ready to put his money where his mouth is. Not ‘environmental wackos’ and not ‘Big Oil’ They are level-headed geniuses. Sorta like everyone else who frequents “Just a Bunch of Stuff” hahaha.
Moo
I may just print this out and stick it to the wall in our office…
…we are ISO14001 certified after all…
…better print several copies just to be sure everyone reads it…
A naive/progressive view of oil.
Your penalty: Skip the Springsteen concert tomorrow night and watch the History Channel at 6:00PM CST for MODERN MARVELS: Secrets of Oil.
You will learn just how dependent we are on petroleum products.
Rubber, Plastic, Nylon, Aerosols, Resins, Solvents, and Lubricants–none can exist without oil. If we stopped driving our cars tomorrow, America would still need five million barrels of oil a day. Visit Vulcan Materials, where oil tanks are emptied into massive double-barrel mixers to make asphalt and then continue to the Rolls Royce Aerospace Facility where complex jet fuels are blended. Travel back to the 1870’s to see how an unemployed whale oil salesman turned a greasy oil-drilling by-product into a household staple: Vaseline. Finally discover how cutting-edge recycling techniques can breathe new life into used motor oil, and where a number of renewable fuels and technologies take aim at oil sovereignty.
Try making asphalt with a windmill..
FRANKFORT, Ky. (WSAZ) — High gas prices continue to be a big issue for most drivers, but even some road departments are starting to feel the pinch. The Kentucky Department of Transportation is now looking at ways to pave the roads without using asphalt. That’s because the primary material in asphalt is an oil based product, so it’s making it more expensive to buy. Transportation cabinet members say they aren’t sure what alternative they are going to use just yet.
—
Use the Earth
Asphalt contains oil? And rubber? I had no idea! I sure am naive.
Wondering if the oil that goes into asphalt has the same environmental impact as oil/gas that is burned by cars. Intuitively feels like carbon is sequestered in the asphalt, as opposed to being released when you burn the fuel.
The big paragraph is the show description. I didn’t point that out.
You are becoming less naive every second. Good!
Now see if your windmill can generate some plastic resin pellets (another thing oil is used for).
Let’s live without oil AND plastics!
@Brad You mean there’s a way to recycle used motor oil? I use mine to fertilize the lawn.
@brad if we only need oil for plastic, i guess the stocks won’t be that limited
( i’ve also read that nowadays they only get 30-40% of the oil in the ground, they are working on new techniques to extract the 60-70% that are mixed with dirt and other things, that would create a massive amount of available oil, even if our cars still use it. )
For the asphalt, i’ve seen a experiment in southern france where they have put a road made of hexagonal giant rocks, they said that the road is more expensive that way, but that with the higher oil price and the fact that it’s virtually unusable, it wil last way longer (talking centuries here) and in the end cost less, plus if ou need to open the road to add some cables or something, you just need to remove them and replace them after, wich is way better than destroying and putting new asphalt.