[rant relocation] PHEV -vs- Cost -vs- Energy Independence

I probably shouldn't bother, Greg M is not interested in a discussion, he's convinced that most of the people here are wackos and he doesn't understand basic geology, our dependence on oil, OR the grip OPEC has on our economy.

"We've got some of the largest oil reserves in the world but it's the environmental wackos that keep our use of those resources tied up in lawsuits. I wonder where their funding comes from?"
ahhh...NO. We most definately do not.

"Why do we send so much of our money to countries that hate us when we have the resources we need right here? "
Because we DON'T have enough here to supply the demand.

"Less than half of a barrel of oil is used for making gas".
Out of 42 gallons, 20 is "gas", 9.2 is deisel and fuel oil, 4.1 is jet fuel. Sorry, the vast majority of a barrell of oil goes to "fuel".

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]gasoline[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]19.5[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]distillate fuel oil
(Includes both home heating oil and diesel fuel)[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]9.2[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]kerosene-type jet fuel [/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]4.1[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]residual fuel oil
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](Heavy oils used as fuels in industry, marine transportation and for electric power generation)[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]2.3[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]liquefied refinery gasses[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1.9[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]still gas[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1.9[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]coke[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1.8[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]asphalt and road oil[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1.3[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]petrochemical feedstocks[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]1.2[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]lubricants[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]0.5[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]kerosene[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]0.2[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]other[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]0.3[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Figures are based on 1995 average yields for U.S. refineries. One barrel contains 42 gallons of crude oil. The total volume of products made is 2.2 gallons greater than the original 42 gallons of crude oil. This represents "processing gain." [/FONT]

 

Even if we tapped all of those oil reserves, it would barely put a dent in our oil imports.

And "clean coal" is an oxymoron. Let me know when existing coal plants have their ash-handling fixed up, mercury emissions filtered and CO2 sequestered. Then maybe we'll talk (and we still haven't addressed the effects of mountaintop removal due to coal mining).

A bit myopic. Unfortunately, it seems that the a significant portion of the country has been brainwashed to only care about the dollar and how their actions only directly affect them instead of thinking of the bigger picture.

The majority of "those people" do not deny that the earth goes through cooling and warming periods. You don't think burning 7.5 billion barrels of oil a year and a billion tons of coal a year (and that's just in the US) has any effect on the environment or climate?

It's been repeatedly proven that sun spot activity has minimal influence on the earth's climate.

Check your facts - while the main stream media may have spouted off on the "next ice age", there was nothing close to the scientific consensus that we have to day regarding global warming due to man. In fact, most scientists then acknowledged that they didn't understand climate enough to say whether or not climate was warming or cooling.

You do realize that 10 years is not a long time when talking about climate? You also understand that 1998 happened to be an abnormally warm year. The Earth's temperature is definitely trending up. Did you not catch the news that surface ocean temperatures are currently at an all time high?

Uh, greenland has been been "green". It was called that to attract settlers.

I'm disappointed. While you have managed to bring up just about every single climate change myth known to man, you have completely failed to bring anything new to the table.

 

Yeah sure,

I'm not a wacko, but caring about the environment is the first step in preventing this:

from turning into this:

 

^^ I used to have some book called "The Earth From Above", and it was always sad to see some of the most beautiful places were always owned by the poorest countries, and thus treated like poop.

 

When one person choses to do the right thing, it may not really make any difference in the grand scheme. When 304 million people decide to do the right thing, all of a sudden their individual actions don't seem quite so trivial. All you can really do is decide whether you're going to be one of the ones that does the right thing or not.

Thats all well and good until one of your kids gets sent off die in a war to make sure we have enough gas to feed our guzzlers. Or get lung cancer from breathing all the crap in the air. Or end up huddled in a cave fighting over scraps if you end up being wrong about climate change. Then you might be wishing you'd spent the money. Its kind of like those people cutting education budgets who think they're doing it for their children. Guess what, if we raise a generation of morons its not really going to matter how in debt we are

Funny how the environmental wackos always seem to be a lot better at math than the drill baby drill wackos. Something to do with the afore mentioned education budgets maybe.

The current total US proven oil reserve is 21 Billion barrels. We currently consume 19.5 Million barrels/day, but only are able to produce 4.95 Million barrels/day. If we were to somehow increase our entire extraction and refining throughput by 4x, our entire proven reserve would last 1076 days, or 2.95 year. The largest oil field discovered in the last 50 years, Prudhoe Bay contained about 13 billion barrels. The largest potential field on our radar, the one around the ANWR might contain 10 billion barrels. That would last another 512 days, or 1.4 years. If we magically found another Prudhoe today it would give us another 667 days, or 1.82 years. Its believed that the outer continental shelf might hold 85 billion barrels, but it will be extremely expensive to get at and take 10-15 years to develop. At that time US consumption is projected at ~25 million barrels per day, meaning the Trillions of dollars in infrastructural costs and decade to decade and a half of development would keep us running for another 9 years. Even at our current rate of production, our discovery of new oil isn't able to keep pace. Consequently proven reserves are down ~40% over the last 30 years. At 4x our current production rate, there is just no way for our domestic reserves to keep up.

Very true. But we don't have to be a part of it. The only reason we are forced to is we need their oil.

Lets see. Al Gore made a few mil making a movie and writing books about global warming. A few researchers and some startups have been tossed a few mil by the gov to look into alternative tech. The oil and auto industries depend on things staying exactly the way they are to keep making Trillions of dollars a year. Who do you think has the bigger incentive (not to mention resources and opportunity) to deceive?

Like any good scientist I don't pretend to know the answer. I observe, I read, I experiment, and then I make the best guess I can. Then I test that guess, see what happens and begin the process over. Unfortunately most of the people arguing the issue are not scientist, and don't need any proof. All they need is one inconsistency (real or imagined) and they say HA! you guys don't know what you are talking about and the whole thing must be bogus. Right now the overwhelming evidence (as agreed to by most scientists) is that we are heading for serious trouble. It took millions of years for the earths natural processes to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere to arrive at our current climate. It doesn't take a genius to imagine that taking a huge part of that carbon and putting it back into the air in a very short period of time might be a bad idea. Particularly in light of the evidence that carbon concentration in the atmosphere has a strong predisposition towards positive feedback, which is to say that more carbon = higher temp = more carbon - higher temp etc. Positive feedback systems have a nasty habit of becoming unstable when perturbed, which is a reason to be very concerned. There are always pieces that don't fit, things we don't yet understand, and those who disagree. That doesn't make the basic theory unsound, on the contrary it provides the path to challenge and refine it and increase our overall understanding. Unfortunately we will probably never really know who was right and who was wrong until its too late. If we do nothing and we're wrong, it could very well mean major upheaval, infrastructural destruction and disruption on a scale never before seen, and even the end of modern civilization as we know it. Personally thats not a gamble I want to take.

Rob