In the spirit of the notion that the unexamined life is not worth living, I’m starting to rethink my devout opposition to drilling in the arctic.
This may seem like an odd time to do so considering what’s gushing in the Gulf of Mexico. How could I possibly reverse my position when we’re seeing what an oil spill can do to the environment and the creatures that live in it? Okay, but…anywhere there’s an oil spill, the environment’s gonna get FUBARed, right? Shouldn’t two major considerations be (a) accessibility to the source of the leak and (b) whether people are going to be impacted as well? I mean, yeah, an oil spill in the arctic would be a terrible thing, but at least it would be way easier to fix it. Wouldn’t it be BETTER for the environment overall because the damage would be minimized? Plus you don’t have people’s lives and economies going down in oil-soaked flames.
Like I said, I haven’t decided yet. But I’m starting to see the other side of it. I know the negatives, and I agree that the best case would be developing alternative energies. But if the current fiasco isn’t spurring development in that direction, I’m not entirely sure how cutting off another potential source of oil is gonna do it.
Feel free to convince me one way or the other.
PAD
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Feel free to convince me one way or the other.
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Sarah Palin wants ANWR drilling.
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I rest my case.
That IS a pretty potent argument.
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PAD
If you consider an ad hominem fallacy a potent argument. Or maybe you are being ironic, in which case I apologize. lol
Yeah, well even a broken clock is right twice a day, so whether you love or hate Palin (there seems to be no inbetween), her opinion is just that. Besides, since the oil industry in Alaska accounts for more than a third of all the jobs in that state, any elected representative there would probably NOT have been elected had they been anti-oil. My opinion about drilling in Alaska? I say go for it.
“Yeah, well even a broken clock is right twice a day…”
Not necessarily. If I have a clock which is broken, causing it to gain one minute a day, then it will be years in between times when it is right.
Oh. You meant a stopped clock, not simply a broken one. Even then, that’s no guarantee it will be right twice a day. A digital clock which stops at 10:05 am will be right once a day, not twice…
… and a digital clock which stops at 88:88 — as the clocks on microwaves and VCRs often do — will be right zero times a day.
Not sure which kind of broken clock Sarah Palin is most similar to, but it may be good to keep in mind that just because something is cracked is no guarantee it will be right even once a day.
Not all broken clocks are right twice a day.
If for example the arms have fallen off.
Or in the case of digital, the light is broken so you just have a dim bulb.
Breaking news: 3 reported dead, 10 missing in Texas gas well explosion
If bad things come in 3’s, I don’t really want to know what the third thing is.
No, that WAS the third: the coal miners, the oil well, and now this.
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PAD
Well, the good news is that with updated information, there is only one person still missing as of right now and no fatalities. More good news obviously is that this could’ve been far worse, since it could’ve seriously affected people beyond those working at the location of the well.
I would say that given how utterly unprepared BP has shown itself to be, unless there is a drastic change in how oil companies think, the potential for unforeseen consequences from any oil spill anywhere is huge. So I could easily see a spill in the Arctic getting just as bad because no could imagine it would.
That said, I have to ask if there is a way to create regulations that stick and make sure that the oil industry does everything possible before drilling to increase safety and to be ready for failure. Odds are you can’t, but imagine if before any well was sunk, there were emergency plans in place instead of being improvised on the spot.
An artic spill would affect a lot of people too. There is less people but there is people. I guess its a deccision between cuantity (hurting less people is better than hurting more people) or cuality (hurting people is a crime regardless of how many you hurt).
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But then, that speaks only of local economies. The artic sea feeds much of the world fishing industry, ships that spend weeks or months up north fishing the large banks, dependant on artic krill. Givem the magnitude of the spill, I wonder if there could be also climeatic consecuences (not an expert at all but I remember reading about artic sea temperature beign a big influence on world weather… not that the spill would ater the sea temp but rather its heath exchange with wind currents on surface).
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I just realized you might be talking about land drilling (making many of my points moot) but still, the worst spillages have been taking place in Africa’s western coast from land drilling and pipes, and it isnt nice to behold either.
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Count me in for alternative energies.
I just realized you might be talking about land drilling (making many of my points moot)
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That is what I’m talking about, yes.
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PAD
Land spills contaminate water courses, and the effects of that are less obvious but more insidious than sea spills (those courses sometimes running underground). Cleaning the sea is hard but cleaning the freatic level is nearly impossible.
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People use to think that limitations and licenses when you want to open a well (there are limitations like that here and I know there are in some american states too, at least) are just goverment measures aimed at mantaining certain monopolies. But those laws are aimed at trying to stop certain substances from entering the underwater currents on wich we depend.
” I cannot lose any weight as long as there is M&Ms in the house”.
Americans will never change their oil eating habits as long as we constantly open up new areas to drill.
Americans are super fat people that know they need to go on a diet, have the information to go on a diet and yet stock their pantries with chocolate and ice cream and pancake wrapped on a sausage on a stick and then moan about the diabeties, no sex life and the stares from people in the grocery store.
No new drilling. Let the price of gas go up. Let people rethink their driving needs. Americans will suffer as we learn to adapt. Americans will be angry as we demand new alternative fuels so we can resume our lifestyles. Ask any jew and they will tell you “eh, a little suffering and anger? good for the soul.”
For many decades now America wants it all without any consequences.
Kath the Wife here-
Unfortunately that ship has sailed. We use cars, a lot. Most of America (there are a few exceptions) is set up assuming that you will get from place to place by car. I can’t walk to the grocery store from my house. I can’t carry home everything I need. I can (and do) walk to the library and the playground because they are within the length that my daughter’s legs will hold out for. Hybrids are a start but not an answer.
Until we start changing how our cities and town are set up so that it is possible to walk from place to place, we are going to have cars.
There is a great documentary on how GM and other companies joined to “motorize america”, lobying zoning laws and activelly infiltrating mass transit services to “free the streets for the car”. Before that the USA had decent mass transit in most major cities. Lobbying works both ways, but no big corporation is going to profit from zoning laws that would bring commerce and services closer to every home.
Thank you for saying this Mrs. David. People are always so quick to shout: “Let the gas prices go up! It will teach those fat, indulgent Americans! Look at how much the Europeans pay for gas!”
Like you said, our country is set up in a way that requires cars. How can you ask the already barely-scraping by family, to pony up more for both parents’ 30 min. commute to work (not to mention daycare etc…) just to teach them a lesson? Or someone like myself, who is self-employed and whose office is his truck?
Do we need alternate energy options? Absolutely. Are they here now? Nope.
Raising gas prices won’t cause us to drive less, it will just cause us to pay more. Which if you stop to think of it, hurts the economy on the backswing because it leaves less money for people to spend on other less necessary items.
Like comic books. Sorry Peter.
Do we need alternate energy options? Absolutely. Are they here now? Nope.
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I’d say that in many places, alternatives are here, they’re just not generally affordable. Or they’re met with resistance due to environmental concerns – nuclear being the biggest one.
You’re right Craig. That’s more what I meant to say, you just typed it out for me (get out of my head!). They are here, but not to the point that they are readily available to all in such a way as they can be a true replacement yet.
Drilling in exotic far away places like the arctic means isolated platforms that will likely perform with less regulation. It is more expensive drilling for oil in the middle of nowhere and a government strapped for cash isn’t going to make all the necessary inspections to keep the business clean. Who is going to stop these companies like Exxon and BP from cutting corners?
We are dependent on oil. It’s true. However, “drill, baby, drill” doesn’t solve the problem.
The greatest use of oil is obviously for cars. We need to really stop blaming our neighbors instead of ourselves. We, as a general public, keep buying huge automobile beasts. We don’t demand higher mpg as we should. Yes, hybrids are a start, but I think solar power has amazing potential. Today we have the technology to fuel electric cars with the power of the sun with no pumping at the gas station ever. If we drove electric cars and installed solar panels on our roofs, our homes would provide the energy we need to drive our cars without a single drop of gasoline. Now instead of making these cars more available, for years the auto industry has been brainwashing us to purchase gas guzzling behemoths that fueled our addiction to oil.
More drilling doesn’t address the problem and that is why I have to disagree with PAD. But don’t worry, I’ll still read your comic books.
Great – now I want pancake-wrapped sausages on a stick… 🙂
Or, Peter, we can also change the internal combustion engine, which seems to make more sense (and is probably a lot easier) than changing cities, towns, etc.
I think the idea that people won’t be harmed as much if we drill in Alaska, et al doesn’t take into account that we’re part and parcel of an ecosystem, and what affects other links in the food chain impacts us as well. Plus, it seems just a tad hubristic to assume we matter more than wildlife just because they have no defense against us and our stupidity.
But we do and we all think that way whether we admit it or not. Nobody who is living a life that allows them to be typing on a computer can claim to be living a lifestyle that has not negatively impacted the environment, if one assumes that all living things are to be considered as mattering the same.
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that isn’t an excuse to rape sea lions or the arctic but let’s be realistic. NO energy source–zip, none, nada–does not have some degree of negative environmental impact, whether it is drilling for oil, mining poisonous chemicals for use in solar cells, damming rivers, splitting atoms, or setting up windfarms of propellers that transform the occasional migrating bird into shredded tweet.
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Any attempt to starve us off of oil will be met with a voter uprising that will replace the politicians who put us on that diet with far more compliant people. Go to far and I have two words for you–President Palin.
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Like PAD I am unsure on the best way to go about this. Some have suggested that by banning off shore drilling we are forcing more deep sea drilling and the result is what we see–that had this been an offshore drill the result would have been far more easily fixed. True? I’d like to hear from nonpartisan sources before making up my mind.
Still, improving efficience of engines and electric networks (lets not forget a lot of oil gets used for electricity production) gpes a long way. Most electric networks work on 1960’s technology. There have been experiences on computer monitorization and fast response management that improved the efficiency of small networks by large percentages (I kind of remember 60% but it might be exagerated).
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Present day companies dont care for big infraestructure renovations because there is no short term profit in it, so either goverments do it (expensive and unfair to the taxpayer), regulate to force them do it (and be called a socialist, statist and an enemy of thats good and Randian) or we wait a few more decades until it all comes down crumbling.
I would advocate a big restructuring of the electric grid if only to prevent the inevitable collapse when the sun repeats its little electromagnetic pulse event of 1859. Basically zombie apocalypse without zombies, which sounds better but actually isn’t. If they think it would be too expensive to prepare for it just wait till they see the pricetag to fix it!
Big companies dont think that long term. An overhaul of the grid insfraestructures would ruin any company fiscal year. The board’s job is to increases the company’s value. Stock holders no longer pitch in to get back dividends, they expect to be able to sell at a short notice and get a profit. The whole sistem is rigged that way and would punish a company that thinks (and invests) too long term.
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And if a big disaster happens and people are cut off, well, you cant let all those people and bussines without juice… the goverments would have to pay for the whole thing while the companies say they operated within risk assesment regulations. And it would be true, because ROB forbids we impose profit-crippling regulations on private companies, even if they deal with an strategic resource.
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All I say is, given that sooner or later it will all come out of our pockets, better if we rely on nationaliced grids. But then, what do I know, I am a socialist.
I don’t know that it has to be either/or. there may not be a feasible way to really prevent wide-scale damage from a major solar storm. But the government should be prepared to deal with the aftermath–if all of the transformers blew out there needs to be a supply of new ones ready to be reinstalled, at least to the factories that would make more transformers.
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I’ve been amused to see some commentators criticizing libertarians for wanting government action on the oil slick as though this is somehow a violation of their supposed beliefs. I would disagree–thinking that the role of government is in part to provide for relief during disasters and war does not mean that one must also demand government involvement in all aspects of one’s life.
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In fact, I rather wish that all that money that was spent on the stimulus package had served a double duty–as long as we are spending millions to get people back to work why not hire them to fix infrastructure problems or engage in disaster preparation efforts?
OK this time I think I am signed in as me rather than Peter.
The reply to Chris was from ME not Peter. Contrary to popular belief, we are two separate people.
Kath
While getting off of oil and onto an alternative energy sources would be nice, it isn’t going to happen overnight, it is a slow process and redesigning our cities would take even longer.
Going cold turkey is unrealistic, any professional dealing with addition would tell you that. A good way to wean people would be to recreate a good public transportation system, we used to have a great one in this country and, with the exception of a few of our bigger cities, we abandoned it. (and even in the big cities we’ve made significant and ill advised cuts). Putting money into such a project would also have the benefit of creating jobs. Yes, you would have to retrain people to use such a system, but that would be part of the project. And you would have to make it worth it for people to use it. A lot of the train and bus initiatives put in place the last couple of years, (at least the ones in NY and NJ) failed because they were more expensive and inconvenient to people then just using their cars. You got to accept that for several years, at least it would run at a loss, maybe even a big loss. You would have to give people, and even corporations, incentives to use the system and accept that there will be a lot of people fighting it, the way a lot of social changes are fought. (Incentives for companies to establish “work from home” policies whenever possible would also be a good idea. Yes, a lot of companies do allow remote office work but there are more that could and don’t).
The same is true in looking into and developing alternative energy. Part of the problem with our culture is we are to focused on short term results. We have to accept that we are doing some things not because of what will happen now or even next year, but because of what it will mean a generation or two down the road.
Of course it’ll take a long time. But it’s been THIRTY FIVE YEARS since the first ‘energy crisis’ when governments swore we wouldn’t be held hostage at the pumps any more, yet every time someone sneezes in some obscure country no one’s ever heard of, the price skyrockets. Yet, their answer is still “drill more holes”. They haven’t learned. Worse, they’ve shown little, if any willingness to do so. How long is it going to be before there’s an all-out, spare-no-expense, Manhattan Project-like effort to find a way out of this mess?
Agreed but that’s part of the whole “short term results” thing I was talking about. Durning the energy crisis of the 70’s alternative energy and rebuilding mass transit were both talked about but when oil prices went down the funding for those just went away. To expensive in the “short term”. The idea that such initiatives might make things better 20 years down the road and in the long term the benefits will end up paying for the cost isn’t taken into account. Add in the fact that our political system allows big business to determine policy, (and let’s face it the Oil and Car companies are some of the biggest business around) and you’ve created a situation where no one is ever really going to even try to seriously address the problem.
Oh and just to clarify, I think we should get off oil. I just think that while we’re looking for alternative energy that we could probably get a decent mass transit system set up (at least in the big cities and between the big cities) somewhat faster. Would also have the benefit of creating some much needed jobs. But I could be wrong.
I think the best way to go forward is to use the power of the sun. There is a huge amount of energy hitting our planet every second in the form of sunlight and we need to move toward harnessing it directly. So much of the motion around us is already powered by the sun in a chains of energy conversion. The wind and waves are from the sun. All of the movements of living things come ultimately from the sun. Even the energy stored in the oil is from sunlight that hit plants millions of years ago.
The argument that the sun doesn’t shine all of the time isnt valid IMO. Energy can be stored in so many ways. Right now the operators of power generating dams use pumps to move water back to the top of the dam using cheaper electricity during off-peak times so the dam can generate more power during peak times and they make more money. Why not just pump water up hill while the sun shines and then let it turn turbines when the sun isn’t shining?
Also, let’s not go back to building more fission plants. If this disaster in the Gulf teaches us anything it should be that accidents happen. I don’t want the next one to make some region of the US a dead land.
Isn’t this like telling your mugger “Not the face!” when he’s about to pummel you?
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Surely it’s better to avoid being mugged altogether, not politely asking him to direct his damaging fists of fury elsewhere? The lesser of two evils, is still evil.
If you actually believed that drilling on land would actually stop off-shore drilling, then you’ve a reasonable argument.
But that isn’t going to happen. There will not be a one-for-one tradeoff where for every well opened on land, an off-shore facility will shut down. It isn’t in an oil company’s interests to do so.
The easiest way to switch over to a less-petroleum-reliant society is economically: Gradually remove incentives for fossil fuels (phased increased gas tax, removing subsidies, etc.) and dramatically create/raise incentives for alternative sources (tax credits/rebates, subsidies, etc.)
I think that the biggest problem is that oil companies think of themselves as oil companies and not as power or fuel companies.
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I read a book a few years ago that speculated that if the railroad companies such as N&W, Chessie, CSX, etc. had thought of themselves as transportation companies rather than railroad companies, then they may have invested in non-railroad means of transport such as air freight or trucking. If they had done this, then we might have the high speed rail capabilities that many other countries enjoy. But, as they effectively put themselves out of business for all but the heaviest and most massive of freights (such as coal); there was no reason to develop the technology.
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Likewise, so long as BP thinks of itself as an oil company rather than a power or fuel company, they have no reason to develop technologies to make the generation of power, or the production of fuel, more environmentally friendly. In fact, there is every reason for them to oppose other sources of energy.
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Consider: every land vehicle in the US military can run on bio-diesel (or, so I’ve been told.) If Shell, for example, were to get a contract to supply bio-diesel to the military, they could do so by purchasing from the very same farmers that are receiving farming subsidies from the government. They would then have the encouragement to make the fuel cheaper than drilling and refining oil. This would encourage other oil companies to try and get in on the big contracts as well, perhaps by producing bio-fuel that would run the majority of our trucking industry. This, in turn, would encourage auto manufacturers to develop bio-fuel cars.
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Likewise, if Chevron were to suddenly start considering it a power company and, in addition to providing gasoline to cars, also developed wind or water powered electricity generators for small towns, they could easily underbid the existing electric company by purchasing oil from themselves while the new power stations were built and staffed.
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But, that first step is taking off the blinders that cause the thinking: “the only thing we do is gasoline and the only way to get gasoline is to draw it from deep within the earth.” Many of us citizens have removed these blinders. But, the companies themselves seem to have them affixed with Crazy Glue.
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Theno
I really think the Oil companies DO (or at least many of them) more and more think of themselves as an energy company. I know in Oklahoma the two big oil companies, Devon and Cheasapeake, are also the biggest builders and supporters of wind, natural gas, and solar energy sources. They’ve even changed their names to reflect “Energy”, not oil. So I think the trend is happening.
I had not heard that. I think that is great.
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Hopefully, it will work, and they’ll be able to prove themselves competitive enough that other companies will follow suit.
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Theno
The problem that is more insidious in a place like ANWR is not the spilling… it’s the footprint required to even begin exploratory drilling. The technology involved requires more than just a drilling platform. You need roads, housing, fencing, electricity, traffic, shipping for all the supplies, waste storage and removal, all the air pollution that comes with that.In order to get started you have to ship all the equipment into places where no one has ever built anything! That all has to be in place before even a drop of oil is even discovered, let alone spilled in a spot in the middle of what is supposedly the last pristine wilderness on earth. There are a lot of species that exist nowhere else on earth that would probably be negatively impacted by having a series of permanent facilities built in the middle of their habitats.
I live in Seattle, which is a city that deals with the energy crisis by making it as difficult as possible to bring your car downtown, which is great for the environment and congestion and lousy for business and accessibility. I, unfortunately, grew up with freedom of movement and, like a lot of people, don’t want to give it up. I don’t work 9 to 5 and I rarely work in the same place for long (ah, an actor’s life for me… dammit!).
So I’m one of those people that longs for better mileage, lighter vehicles and a functional electric car. But the lack of them can’t slow me down or I starve.
That being said, I think Theno makes a really good point. The “energy” companies are not living up to that designation in any way at all.
I’d be in favor of Arctic drilling — if (and this is a BIG “if) safety measures can be implemented.
There have been a lot of big reveals from the BP oil spill, from numerous safety violations that went largely unpunished and very unchanged to government regulation (this one’s in Obama’s court for not fixing it when he took office) that barely qualifies.
Accidents will always happen, but we need to have the best safety protocols (mechanical and governmental) in place, not the minimum ones. That should be the prerequisite for more drilling.
(In the meantime, let’s work on cars with higher gas mileage. Is the car engine the only thing that hasn’t improved in the past 30 years?)
I’m still wondering why all of this is Obama’s fault. He didn’t appoint the regulators. He isn’t in charge of handing out punishments for violations, and the people who are were (so far as I know) put into place before he took office.
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I feel that blaming Obama for the oil spill is like blaming him for Afghanistan. ‘Course, there are a lot of people doing that, too.
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Also, I think it is worse than just recognizing that the car hasn’t improved in the last 30 years. I think it has deproved (is that a word?) over that time. My first car was an ’82 Mazda that got 32 miles to the gallon. My current car gets 25. My girlfriend’s gets 20. And, a friend of mine has a car that gets 15-18. All of these are four door family sedans.
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If I were a paranoid person, I’d suspect that someone in the oil industry was making sure that cars got less fuel efficient over the years. (I’m not, but I am thinking that would make a good story.)
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Theno
Geez. We are literally killing ourselves over oil in every way possible – wars, pollution, funding our enemies, befouling the Gulf of Mexico, warming the temperature if the entire Earth… but maybe it’s time to open up the Arctic for drilling after all?
Just say “no”, people. This gasoline addiction will only continue to kill us.
I’ve heard of some cars modified to run on cooking oil. Makes the air smell like french fries.
I’d like that. “We have regular, unleaded, and mazola.”
Why drill anywhere anymore? What needs to happen is a major push towards the improvement and production of photovoltaic cells, and vehicles that operate only on electricity. And I’m thinking of an effort that would make the race to the moon look like a cakewalk.
And during that time, we could phase out the use of petroleum-based fuels for transportation and shipping. Those jobs “lost” in the oil industry would be replaced in the solar cell industry, so the cries of how “going green” will cause unemployment are laughable at best. That is, so long as the factories building that equipment are, y’know, in the US, rather than importing the cells from elsewhere.
Wildcat
Wldcat – There are evident problems with solar cells, even though they are getting more efficient. Commercial air travel is not practical using photo voltaic tech, for instance. And we need MAJOR improvements in battery technologies to store energy for night time travel.
And building those batteries require ingredients which require devasting mining techniques to get. The enviromental impact of making those batteries are in many ways worse than the impace of this oil spill.
Surely the mining techniques themselves can be improved to lessen that impact. I wouldn’t doubt that such techniques already exist, but the Industry avoids them so as to improve their profit margins. Kinda like Big Coal’s mountaintop removal.
And unlike the coal and oil, the batteries in question aren’t being burned off into the atmosphere.
Wildcat
Airlines are a different problem entirely… between the industry deregulation and consolidation that has allowed them to become less and less passenger-friendly, being heavily subsidized by the government in order to continue to exist at all, and the continuing security over-reaction that only exists to keep Americans afraid of their own shadows — not even *Israel* uses tactics that are as draconian as the TSA — I wouldn’t shed a tear if they all folded tomorrow.
Wildcat
Mrs. David – Too right. The office had me on a training course for work a few years ago. Class was in a ‘business park’ near Dulles International outside Washington D.C.. Came the first day’s lunch break, I went out looking for the cafeteria only to be told “Oh, there isn’t one. People just take drive into town for lunch.” How many ways is that just plain *wrong*?
I can top that. Years ago I worked in an office where there was a Burger King right next store and several other places to eat within walking distance. There was a snow storm that left a big mound of snow between the parking lots but nothing anyone couldn’t walk around, (or over if they were wearing boots). People I worked with actually got into their cars and drove to the Burger King next store for lunch. I’m not kidding. When I busted their chops about it they justified it by saying it was too long to walk around the snow mound. It normally took less then a minute to walk to the BK, walking around the snow mound would have added at most a minute, it probably took way longer to walk to their cars, pull out into traffic and pull into the parking lot next store. Now that is just plain wrong.
You have to keep in mind that its not just fuel that we use oil for. A lot of products are petroleum based, so even if we were to use alternative energy of some kind we would still need oil.
I think the answer is in a electric hybrid of somekind. Even if we could cut the need for oil by half it would be a boon to the environment.
Just a question that I have not seen anywhere. If the current batteries are only good for say…250 miles (can’t find the data)before the need to recharge. Why then cant we put 4 of those batteries in one car and get 1000 miles?
Sounds too easy, I know, but someone please tell me why.
Pat,
Simple. Batteries are heavy, very heavy. Those batteries that last 250 miles (reality- more like 40-100!) are just about all the vehicle can carry and still move. Adding more means you have more juice, but it also means that you are moving more weight, so your performance and range are reduced.
And, as for bio diesel and running on cooking oil, it sounds good in theory, but it takes a lot of land to produce. If we gave up eating, we could probably produce enough bio diesel to supply half our cars. Me? I prefer eating… 😉
Charlie
Two things:
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1) Regarding bio-diesel. I have read that you can create bio-diesel out of the plant waste created by refining sugar out of corn. So, we could get a lot of fuel out of the throw-away from the production of HFCS. Also, it is my understanding that soybeans make good bio-fuel. And, they can be harvested more often.
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2) Regarding electric cars. Nikola Tesla tried to build a tower on Long Island in the early 1900s that would provide wireless electricity to the city of New York. He proposed that enough of these towers would power the country. Further, he had conducted experiments to allow a person to use a hand-held device to communicate with another person, again wirelessly.
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The funding was pulled from the Tower when the backers realized that wireless electricity couldn’t be metered. They worried that people wouldn’t pay for something that could be pulled out of the air, and believed that they would not get a return on their investment.
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I think it is interesting that no one since has attempted to improve on, or even replicate Wardenclyffe Tower (I may have misspelled that.)
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I would support a company (AEP, Exxon, anybody) rebuilding the Tower and putting it in operation. Have city taxes pay for the power, thus skirting antitrust laws.
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If it hasn’t already, the government can declare electricity a necessity, and thus take responsibility for providing it. Either by signing contracts with private companies, or building and staffing their own plants (perhaps with a jobs program.)
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If we have wireless electricity, then cars can run on it without the environmental impact that the batteries cause. And, you don’t have to worry about running out of fuel.
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The money that the private citizen saves in not having to pay for the gasoline to get to and from work, school, stores, etc. would then go into long distance travel by bus, train, or plane. Which would also stimulate the general economy.
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Theno
Thenodrin – I read about that and also recall reading there was no evidence it could be made to work. Tesla had some good ideas, but also some duds and this appears to be one of them. Wireless power might be accomplished, but not via broadcast power. It would be ‘beamed’ from large solar powered satellites which convert sunlight energy to electricity and then to powerful microwave beams sent to dirtside ‘collectors’. But can you just imagine the doom cryers ranting about “death rays from space” and any politicians willing to stick their necks out on this one? The fear mongers killed Orion (spaceship propelled by atom bombs), do you think they’d allow microwave power satellites to exist? As for a broadcast version, er, do you really want to turn the country into the equivalent of an open-air microwave oven?
The StarWolf-
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Aren’t we already a giant open air microwave oven thanks to cell phones and bluetooth devices? Those transmit along microwaves.
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I’m not saying it is a perfect plan. I’m just questioning why no one is talking about it.
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Tesla’s proposal lost funding because it didn’t show an economic return. Not because it was in any way dangerous. I think that even the common man would agree that power safety today is decades more advanced from what it was in his time. So what might not have been possible in his time might be today. (And, again, it wasn’t disproven. It may have worked if it had been completed.)
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I just think it is worth investigating to power residential use vehicles. IMHO, the downside may be putting gas companies out of business, but the upside may be putting gas companies out of business. Of course, I’m not the one who needs to think that for it to happen.
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Theno
Thenodrin – I’m non too happy about the ‘wireless’ world we live in. It *may* prove to be harmless (other than the annoyance factor provided by ill-mannered users) but I’m very pleased to see someone is undertaking a comprehensive, long term study of cell phone use running from young children through seniors over a period of about 20 years. Maybe they’ll finally be able to give a conclusive report rather than “we don’t think…” or “it isn’t sure” or …
But as for already living in a microwave oven? Not really. No more than a child’s flashlight compares to being hit by a kilowatt laser. To provide useable power on a worthwhile scale, a broadcast power field would have to be of enormous intensity.
The StarWolf says:
do you really want to turn the country into the equivalent of an open-air microwave oven?
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Just imagine 80 million Orville Redenbacher popcorn bags popping at the same time
Ok, now I have the ending of ‘Real Genius’ stuck in my head…
Great. Now *I* have “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” stuck in MY head. Thanks a lot, Patrick.
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PAD
Sooo, how about a Marmaduke review, Mr. David?
Apologies for the completely out of the blue response/question. If it makes no sense, just say the word and I’ll link you to the explanation.
I think the difference is that in the Arctic, the environment is damaged when things go as planned, not just when there’s a horrible, one-in-a-million accident. So this really doesn’t make any sense.
Marmaduke review? I’ve heard that you loved it.
Well, I tend to reserve my website for reviews of SF/Fantasy films. So I didn’t think it necessary to devote space to it here. Basically I thought it was a John Hughes film for the eight and under set and worked on that basis. Loved it? Nah. I thought it was harmless fun and I loved watching Caroline love it. Now “Speed Racer,” THAT I loved…
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…as I said in detail just the other day on another site to someone who didn’t believe it was me.
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PAD
While I’m glad it was you, I’m not any less dismayed by the fact that someone of your intellect would a) spend that much time arguing about it, b) so immaturely choose to ignore my repeated questions and/or points, and c) not believe my point was valid and important. But hey, you think we continue drilling for oil in beautiful unspoiled wilderness, so it actually makes a bit of sense, now. Unfortunate that, like this Marmaduke drivel, I’ll not be supporting your work with my hard earned money any further. Peace.
But hey, you think we continue drilling for oil in beautiful unspoiled wilderness, so it actually makes a bit of sense, now.
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Well, no. I didn’t say that anywhere. I said I was confused and unsure about the idea. For someone who, like you, is always sure about everything, that would be a bewildering attitude to take. So naturally you had to rework it to make it something you could understand. Except you got it wrong. Again.
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PAD
Of God. Curiosity got the better of me and after Binging “peter david” and “jaka” I fount AICN and…what a train wreck.
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You really attract the crazy, don’t you? Thanks for keeping them occupied…though since they all end up refusing to ever ever ever read anything you ever ever ever write again, they will now probably have lots more time on their hands…way to <i<go, PAD. This will all end in tears.
though you really missed a goldmine of comedy by missing out on the JettL saga. It was hysterical.
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Funny how jaka(ss) (Huh? Huh? See what I did there?) dropped off the face of the talkback once they found out you were who you were. I take back my earlier train-wreck comparison–after reading the whole thing, Best Talkback Ever.
Jaka: “I’m not any less dismayed by the fact that someone of your intellect would a) spend that much time arguing about it…”
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Given that Jaka was posting on the topic before Peter stuck his head in for the chat and that his posts were usually of far greater length; does anyone think that he realizes that his attempt at a sly potshot there boomerangs back at him and does far more insult to him?
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Oh dear god that was funny. 🙂 It reminded me of why my few AICN talkback posts are older than my son, but god it was funny.
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I swear you could make a couple of oddball characters based on Jaka and AsimovLives that wander through your various comic stories acting like… well… them before finally deciding to take their revenge on the world and you’d have a comedy pairing that would make Vic Chalker and family look like an attempt to make serious super villains.
I swear you could make a couple of oddball characters based on Jaka and AsimovLives that wander through your various comic stories acting like… well… them before finally deciding to take their revenge on the world and you’d have a comedy pairing that would make Vic Chalker and family look like an attempt to make serious super villains
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Other than a bizarre obsession with the “Star Trek” film, AsimovLives seems innocuous enough. But Jaka–yeah, as I said on that “Marmaduke” review thread–you could do a whole novel based on a guy who, at age 39, has sworn never to have a family and does nothing but sit in front of a computer with an impenetrable belief that he’s right about everything. It could be a latter day “Confederacy of Dunces.”
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And yeah, AICN is rather curious. It’s where enthusiasm about movies goes to die, and people act as if a harmless film aimed at kids is a crime against nature. I swear, if they instituted a rule that said you couldn’t criticize a movie you hadn’t seen, and you had to sign your name to your opinions, postings would drop to single digits.
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PAD
Wait a minute, you took your daughter to see Marmaduke?! Well, this changes everything! I’m never reading X-Factor again!
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Seriously, though, I tried reading that thread, but good lord! Is this what AICN is like all the time? I had to stop reading before I went insane. It just reminded me why I don’t go to web sites like that.
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But I do feel obligated to come to the defense of The Care Bears Movie. I was actually pleasantly surprised by that movie when I watched it a few years ago. It’s basically a superhero movie with bears, so I dug it. The sequel, on the other hand…
Maybe I’m weird, but I can’t wait until I have kids and can take them to children’s movies, even ones that are bad. I, you know, just want them to be happy. Of course, as a writer, I’ll make sure to expose them to the greats and explain to them why they’re good. I’d guess that for parents, it’s not about YOU being entertained, but about your CHILDREN being happy. But I’m not a parent so I can’t say for sure.
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There is one exception: the chipmunk movies. I haven’t seen them, I’ve just watched clips of their singing on youtube. I will not pass judgement on the film as I haven’t seen it. I will say, though, that the idea of hearing that noise in a theater is enough to make me not want kids.
I will not pass judgement on the film as I haven’t seen it. I will say, though, that the idea of hearing that noise in a theater is enough to make me not want kids.
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The two films were amusing enough. Neither was incredibly original plot-wise–the first was a standard show biz vs. family story while the second was a typical fitting-in-at-high school riff, but it’s all new to the target audience. I can understand if the voices are a problem for you, though. Irritating voices are a very individual problem. I can’t stand Fran Drescher, for instance: Her voice cuts right through my head.
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PAD
My father used to say that he believed filmmakers would slip in a voluptuous woman into kids movies. They were for all the fathers who took their kids to see movies.
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Ten years after he told me I got the joke.
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Looking at the whole Marmaduke discussion, I actually really appreciate the note that not every children’s movie has to be E.T. That actually changed my opinion on the subject somewhat. Previously I’d thought that I’d only show my kids the best movies, but I see now that those movies are very rare and what matters is if the child is entertained.
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I guess that’s a break from Ebert, who despises children’s movies that don’t reinvent the wheel. I’m just hoping that by the time I have kids this 3D fad will have gone the way of the, well, last 3d fad.
There is a simple solution, which has been used before, and will, if all goes from bad to worse, be used again: wood gas generators, also known as gasogenes. See the Wikipdia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator
A french society has invented a motor that runs on compressed air (and the indian constructor Tata plans to use it in its automobiles), but for now there are a few kinks to work out. So my best guess is that we will go back to gasogenes sooner rather than later, like we were forced to do during WW II.
Gerard,
Sorry, but there is real science out there that basically makes it apparent that, while these ideas sound good in theory, in practice, they are non-starters, except to bilk innocent investors and governments out of their money.
Wood gas takes a lot of wood, and on a large scale we need to the forests to hold CO2, not release all of it out into the environment. Also wood is a lousy fuel. It is bulky, messy, and takes a long time to grow. There also isn’t enough of it for a society like ours. We would burn through all our forests in a couple of years!
And, compressed air is worse. It has very poor energy density. Again, looks good in the press, and in a press release, but will never be a viable technology for mass use.
Charlie
Well, every proposed solution has its drawbacks (although the fuel burned in gasogenes are the waste of woodworks -stuff that is thrown away or burned during the fabrication of furnitures, for example). Going back to horses and oxes? Well, the book Super Freakanomics tells us why it would be a bad idea (namely, the beasts’ waste). Biofuels? Take up a lot of land that could be better used for food. Electricity? First you have to produce it, then to store it.
So far, the only thing that seems to work is hydrogen fuel cells. And I’m sure there are problems there too. So rickshaws and bicycles? I don’t know. But whatever the solution, we better develop it quickly.
There is a simple solution, which has been used before, and will, if all goes from bad to worse, be used again:
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Striking a bargain with Mephisto?
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Or maybe that’s how we got into this situation in the first place.
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PAD
Whenever someone talks about returning to a simpler energy idea I flash back to what Gahan Wilson replied when asked what he thought would be the energy source of the future: “Slavery.”
Please tell me they’ve got it wrong. Please? Was waiting for take-out at a bistro yesterday evening when a news item came on CNN on their TV about the governor of Alabama being quite upset at President Obama for his moratorium on off-shore drilling?! Hasn’t this idiot been paying attention to what’s been going on?
So many people simply argue “drill or don’t drill” and commit themselves to never shifting their positions. This attitude, along with a meltdown and Jane Fonda, basically killed nuclear power in the United States. Now, with nuclear power plants having proven to be much safer than before, we’re starting to change our attitudes. If oil drilling were a perfect, never fail system (and BP has shown how it very much is not), we could drill anywhere without worry. Well, except for the pollution that happens after we use the oil.
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Oil, like nuclear power, is a difficult prospect: how much energy is worth one oil spill? You might say “none at all” and morally you might be right. But we live in a world where the best solutions are often made impossible. Oil rigs break. There are reports of a small, persistent leak in the gulf right now unrelated to the BP spill. At the same time, there are thousands of rigs in the gulf. The fail rate has dramatically decreased over the past fifty years. I’m not just talking about spills. People have died on these rigs.
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Deepwater Horizon, it should be noted, is a unique case. First, this is an example of rules being in place that could have prevented the spill. A particular failsafe device was not present when the procedure that caused the original blowout took place. This is in addition to various other engineering oversights that place blame squarely on BP’s shoulders. Finally, Deepwater Horizon was drilling a new well. Pressure in oil wells goes down as you drill them over time. That is one reason why this spill is so dramatic: there is a LOT of pressure in this well.
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It’s always frustrating when the rules are not followed and then the system itself is argued to be flawed. The short term moratorium was understandable as a way of showing the people of the United States that the federal government was acting and this wouldn’t be a Katrina inaction moment. The extended moratorium proposal, however, was nonsense. It was an action inconsistent with the failure rate of oil rigs, the unique properties of this spill and inconsiderate towards the economic impact on the local communities. I personally think Obama has done a pretty good job with this spill. I’m a Republican, but not a blind ideologue. This is the only real criticism I have of him regarding this spill. Honestly most times I get frustrated with people thinking he can, as he put it, go into the water and suck it out with a straw.
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But back to your original point: arctic drilling has been poisoned by political debate. You can’t have a calm discussion about its merits. People like Palin (easily my least favorite politician in the world) gobbling in that drunken, annoying tone of hers “drill baby drill” don’t help.
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The mentality is shifting though. Previously, the thought process was “Okay, if this spill happens and it leaks for a few days or a tanker spills out, how much damage will it do?” The theories were based on fixed amounts of oil and variable amounts of damage. Now the process is “If this spill happens, how quickly can we stop it? And how does that relate to the damage?” It’s a more complex, harder to understand system.
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Oh – one more thing, sometimes when long posts are put onto the web, people think it’s a rant or the person is upset. I’m not, I’m just horrifically long winded. Please read the post as if it were written in good spirits (which it was).
The problem that’s always going to exist with nuclear power is not degree of safety. It doesn’t matter if it’s ninety nine percent safer than oil or coal (which it may well be.) There’s still a one percent chance that an accident could occur, and the consequences are what no one wants to face. Jed Bartlett said it best, (and granted, he was a fictional president, but so was Bush, and Jed was way smarter) when it was pointed out that people routinely accept the safety risks in cars: “If a car crashes in Pennsylvania, people don’t have to stop eating beef three states over.” If there was an accident in a nuclear plant that was proportionally catastrophic to what’s happening in the Gulf, we’d have to evacuate North America, Mexico, and possibly parts of Canada.
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PAD
The question, I think, is if failsafes are adequate enough that a systematic failure becomes statitically impossible (like in the case of nuclear power – direct sabotage needs to occur for a modern facility to start leaking fallout).
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With Deepwater Horizon, the failsafes were arguably not advanced enough for where we were drilling and the ones we had were not followed by BP. The following question then becomes, are they adequate for where we would drill in the arctic?
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I’ll pass on commenting about Bush and opening a can of worms. Wait, I might have just commented. This last paragraph never happened. Look over there!
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*runs*
I have to reply to this topic. I dont normally make public comments but just this once i am goign to do it. 1) arctic offshore is a worse idea than drilling in the gulf of mexico. There is a lot less of an ecosystem up there to damage but its a lot more fragile. Oil if releases can be trapped under the ice and cannot be dispersed or worse it will form a gret big slick and freeze there. (this is from studies conducted by environment canada in the 1970’s) ( i was there.) to compund it anythign that happens means that the emergency response would have to come from far far away. Even a well organized system woudl require days or weeks to get materials to the site. And thats assuming its summer. the gulf spill has occured in one of the biggest concertaiton of oil equipment and chemical manufacturing in the world. in the arctic.. well not much.
second statement. Nuclear power is an excellent idea. Its one that has been derailed by the environmental lobby for far to long. modern systems are not 99% fool proof. (fools are very clever as BP has so able demonstrated.) they are in fact much closer to 99.999% fool proof. horrible things happen when there is a major accident but the same can be said of a major dámņ or chemcial plant. (try living in love canal). of the technology available to us its probabaly the best one for right now.
tom
comics fan, oilfield chemist and old guy who was in the arctic in the 70’s
The question, I think, is if failsafes are adequate enough that a systematic failure becomes statitically impossible (like in the case of nuclear power – direct sabotage needs to occur for a modern facility to start leaking fallout).
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Except no one is going to sit before congress and say, “It is absolutely impossible for there to be a systematic failure.” No one is going to say that, and if they did, they’d be accused of lying. Plus, if I were a senator, I’d say, “All right: You said sabotage would need to occur before fallout becomes an issue. Can you tell me with 100% certainty that a terrorist could not get a private plane or a helicopter, load it up with explosives, take off from a private airfield and fly it into the plant? No? Then we have a problem.”
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Imagine if, when the Twin Towers had fallen, it had released sufficient radiation to take out the population of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, parts of Pennsylvania. The death toll goes from 3000 to 30 million, plus God knows what it does to drinking water, beef supplies, crops, dairy. Fallout lands in the Atlantic Ocean, good bye fish. And so on.
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See the situation?
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PAD
But, PAD,
If you took a plane or helicopter and loaded it full of explosives, and rammed it into most modern nuke plants, you would kill a bunch of people on the ground, but the nuclear plant itself would be basically undamaged. If you could smuggle that same amount INTO the plant, and knew exactly where to breach ALL the different layers of safeguards, you could then get your ‘catastrophe’, but it still would not be easy.
Also, all those ‘B’ movies aside, radiation is really not that dangerous. Yes, if say San Onofre were breached, it would make things unpleasant in San Clemente, and Oceanside, mainly from falling real estate prices, but the actual increased cancer rate is more statistical than real. It is the unrealistic stigma of radiation that is the real danger…
You would have a worse disaster if you took that same planeload of explosives and hit the refineries and storage tanks in south LA county. The fires, pollution and economic disruption would be far greater!
Charlie
I agree with Charlie, who brings up the point that when we think of fallout, the numbers in our heads might be a bit too large. While I agree with your scenario that if there were a fallout cloud the size of the BP oil plume, it’d cost us the continent, the fortunate truth is that no plant could actually produce such a cloud.
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I wish I had a book that I could recommend on all of this, but everything I know about this is from articles I read throughout college (because, as an English major, I had a lot of free time).
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Then again, we do need to consider the possibility that a fallout incident could cause a man to become large, green, then grey, manifest his alternate personalities, shave his head, learn yoga and then have the last two wonderfully retconned in an act of artistic mercy.
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Actually, not to derail this conversation any further, but I realized something: there is a writer in Marvel Comics who became known for writing witty dialogue, focusing on characters, and had a super strong quasi-hero deal with psychological damage that kept him from being the hero he always could be. I am of course referring to Bendis and the Sentry. So my question is: does he owe you a check or something?
Ditto. Modern reactors are very expensive because they are very safe. Those shells are made to withstand a fully loaded passenger aircraft slamming into it. Even if, somehow, it managed to crack the shell (very unlikely) what would happen? Nothing. The inside is a vacuum such that the negative pressure keeps leaks from getting out. And besides the vacuum? A second shell around the reactor itself. Best of luck getting through with anything short of a heavy nuke. And if they have those, you’re screwed anyway.
Nuclear power is not something most people can be rational about. No matter how safe or efficient or cheap it actually is, in the back of people’s minds there is atom bombs and cancer and The Day After.
Perhaps when the last person who lived through the Cold War dies out, we can have widespread nuclear power plants. But even so, I doubt it.
We should oppose all drilling in all of US lands and waters. Why?
THE VALUE OF OIL IN THE GROUND GOES UP AS WE RUN OUT.
Then you can afford clean technologies to get it in the future. Also- the amount we could get now from these sources is minuscule compared to foreign dependence.
This will not appreciably help fuel costs in the US, but will only provide short term profits for corporations. Oil on US public lands belong to the US people (if we don’t do the right thing and give it all back to the indigenous peoples) and it is an asset that will grow in value over time.
No drilling in the US until the rest of the world runs out!