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1) It all depends on how your fractal column is setup. Diesel is easier to refine as it is lower on the column.
2) "Marginal increase in efficiency". I can get 40-50-60 MPG out of my car that is 10 years old. I had a 86 diesel, 22 years old that got 50 MPG. Identical cars (and I had them) only got 30 at most.
3) "Carbon speak" is all BS. And you measured on a 'per gallon'. If I have a gasoline engine that gets 30 MPG and a diesel engine that gets 50 MPG and I drive 10,000 miles per year. Unless the diesel puts out 5/3 as much NOx/CO2/PPM, the diesel is still better.
4) Your last point is a good one. If you can get 200k out of a Gasoline Engine and 500k out of a Diesel engine. What is the 'carbon footprint' of making that entirely new engine?
5) Diesel prices are not that much cheaper in Europe.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/gas1.jpg
vs
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/diesel1.jpg

A few % at most. At $10/gallon, $0.10 is not that much

About half that. According to the Department of Energy, the US average gas price is $4.039/gallon as of, uh, yesterday. (Which matches what I see, for what it's worth.)

OK, so that's less than half by $0.40, but that's still about half.

Calculating from these numbers, we arrive at

      2 * pi * 6.38e+6**2 * 20% * 0.5 kg * (1 - 1/1.062))

or 1.5e+12 kg as the increase in biomass over 20 years.

At the same time, the DOE reports that we emit 7e+12 kg of carbon every year. Even assuming the bulk of the biomass increase consists of carbon, we can see that Mother Nature has been capable of absorbing only 1% of our emissions in land vegetation and wildlife.

Before NCLB the federal government has some requirements to give money. NCLB changed those requirements, without allocating more money. School districts are allowed to tell the DoE to take their money, take their standards, and stuff them both into the same shredder.

I suspect the oncoming economic shitstorm may finally get corporations to really tighten their belts

You are wise to see this, but I do not think the full magnitude
of what is coming has struck home even with you unless you
follow the Peak Oil movement and Putin's statements since
the attempt on his life.

The World is poised on the edge of a paradigm shift.

World wide imports of oil dropped for the first time in
modern history by 100 million barrels in 2007, the decline
began in 2005.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_a.htm

This is not due to lack of usage, but lack of supply.

Go to google video and watch the 80+ min. copy of Crude Awakening
and you will see most of what is coming.

The part about Putin being upset takes a little imagination:

http://politicalinquirer.com/2008/03/15/putin-assassination-attempt-foiled/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-55

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tercom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

Keep in mind the kh-55 is an older design and rumor has it
that it was modified with stealth tech from the downed F117
during the war in Serbia.

I found some caves in a low fallout zone west of the major
metro area, and when it looks like it is all going to go
haywire I am going camping...near that area.

Good Luck !

You ALSO have to keep in mind that American oil companies have to compete with other oil companies on the world market. Unfortunately, for the American oil companies, the vast majority of the other world oil companies are nationalized and have a lock on most of their oil. The market is so restricted that a mere 7% of the total world oil production is available on the open market to compete for.

Total world production of crude oil (including lease condensate, but excluding natural gas plant liquids) in 2006 was 73.54 [million barrels per day] (preliminary). The US imports roughly 10.1 million barrels per day of crude oil.

That's right, SEVEN PERCENT. ALL the rest of it is locked up by nationalized oil companies and totalitarian governments. So the US can't even TOUCH 93% of the world's oil supply. It's just not available to buy!

So how are we buying it then? Maybe you meant extraction rights, in which case your desire to compel access to the resource rights of sovereign nations bears little difference to that of the hip-hop street thug cliché.

Now compound that with the fact that America has to import over 80% of her oil

Closer to 60%

to supply daily whims, wants and waste

Fixed that for you.

and every day the weak dollar and increased market pressure from China and other countries drives the cost for crude higher and our ability to buy lower and lower.

Well maybe we should have kept our manufacturing infrastructure at home then, no?

Oh yeah, and add to all that the fact that the vast majority of American oil reserves are locked up in areas where drilling is BANNED (ANWR, both East and West coasts, the west coast of Florida, and the High Plains fields.), AND the fact that we haven't built a new refinery in America in nearly 30 years (if not longer)

There's still plenty of headroom on refinery capacity. You do raise an interesting question, though: if people in Florida are willing to pay extra for their gasoline to forgo the environmental degradation, risk of catastrophe, and (the only one you're likely to understand) decline in property values, well, isn't that a rational economic choice?

and you will BEGIN to get a picture of the real reasons why gas costs are currently so high, and why they are historically so volatile.

Historically volatile? Except for a period around 1980, gasoline prices have remained relatively stable. Given a good such as gasoline with low demand elasticity (we can call this a "lifestyle choice" if you like), volatility in price is mainly due to either speculation or tight supply. I imagine the powers that be are hoping that talking up the former will draw attention away from the latter.

I should highlight the difference between reserves and flows. ANWR at its peak (about 15-20 years in the future) would contribute about 10% at best of today's daily consumption of crude oil. But hey, you just go ahead and keep blaming those Eeeevil Big Oil Execs and their OBSCENE 4% profits! Ignorance like yours must be fucking bliss. Over the last 12 months, BP plc boasted a 20.4% gross profit margin. ExxonMobil's gross profit margin was 40.1%. It's worth noting that ExxonMobil is chiefly a refiner and does little R&D relative to producers like Shell.

With all due respect, if you're actually interested in arguing a position, you may wish to refer to primary or at least reputable sources of information and get your facts straight rather than taking as gos

You ALSO have to keep in mind that American oil companies have to compete with other oil companies on the world market. Unfortunately, for the American oil companies, the vast majority of the other world oil companies are nationalized and have a lock on most of their oil. The market is so restricted that a mere 7% of the total world oil production is available on the open market to compete for.

Total world production of crude oil (including lease condensate, but excluding natural gas plant liquids) in 2006 was 73.54 [million barrels per day] (preliminary). The US imports roughly 10.1 million barrels per day of crude oil.

That's right, SEVEN PERCENT. ALL the rest of it is locked up by nationalized oil companies and totalitarian governments. So the US can't even TOUCH 93% of the world's oil supply. It's just not available to buy!

So how are we buying it then? Maybe you meant extraction rights, in which case your desire to compel access to the resource rights of sovereign nations bears little difference to that of the hip-hop street thug cliché.

Now compound that with the fact that America has to import over 80% of her oil

Closer to 60%

to supply daily whims, wants and waste

Fixed that for you.

and every day the weak dollar and increased market pressure from China and other countries drives the cost for crude higher and our ability to buy lower and lower.

Well maybe we should have kept our manufacturing infrastructure at home then, no?

Oh yeah, and add to all that the fact that the vast majority of American oil reserves are locked up in areas where drilling is BANNED (ANWR, both East and West coasts, the west coast of Florida, and the High Plains fields.), AND the fact that we haven't built a new refinery in America in nearly 30 years (if not longer)

There's still plenty of headroom on refinery capacity. You do raise an interesting question, though: if people in Florida are willing to pay extra for their gasoline to forgo the environmental degradation, risk of catastrophe, and (the only one you're likely to understand) decline in property values, well, isn't that a rational economic choice?

and you will BEGIN to get a picture of the real reasons why gas costs are currently so high, and why they are historically so volatile.

Historically volatile? Except for a period around 1980, gasoline prices have remained relatively stable. Given a good such as gasoline with low demand elasticity (we can call this a "lifestyle choice" if you like), volatility in price is mainly due to either speculation or tight supply. I imagine the powers that be are hoping that talking up the former will draw attention away from the latter.

I should highlight the difference between reserves and flows. ANWR at its peak (about 15-20 years in the future) would contribute about 10% at best of today's daily consumption of crude oil. But hey, you just go ahead and keep blaming those Eeeevil Big Oil Execs and their OBSCENE 4% profits! Ignorance like yours must be fucking bliss. Over the last 12 months, BP plc boasted a 20.4% gross profit margin. ExxonMobil's gross profit margin was 40.1%. It's worth noting that ExxonMobil is chiefly a refiner and does little R&D relative to producers like Shell.

With all due respect, if you're actually interested in arguing a position, you may wish to refer to primary or at least reputable sources of information and get your facts straight rather than taking as gos

You ALSO have to keep in mind that American oil companies have to compete with other oil companies on the world market. Unfortunately, for the American oil companies, the vast majority of the other world oil companies are nationalized and have a lock on most of their oil. The market is so restricted that a mere 7% of the total world oil production is available on the open market to compete for.

Total world production of crude oil (including lease condensate, but excluding natural gas plant liquids) in 2006 was 73.54 [million barrels per day] (preliminary). The US imports roughly 10.1 million barrels per day of crude oil.

That's right, SEVEN PERCENT. ALL the rest of it is locked up by nationalized oil companies and totalitarian governments. So the US can't even TOUCH 93% of the world's oil supply. It's just not available to buy!

So how are we buying it then? Maybe you meant extraction rights, in which case your desire to compel access to the resource rights of sovereign nations bears little difference to that of the hip-hop street thug cliché.

Now compound that with the fact that America has to import over 80% of her oil

Closer to 60%

to supply daily whims, wants and waste

Fixed that for you.

and every day the weak dollar and increased market pressure from China and other countries drives the cost for crude higher and our ability to buy lower and lower.

Well maybe we should have kept our manufacturing infrastructure at home then, no?

Oh yeah, and add to all that the fact that the vast majority of American oil reserves are locked up in areas where drilling is BANNED (ANWR, both East and West coasts, the west coast of Florida, and the High Plains fields.), AND the fact that we haven't built a new refinery in America in nearly 30 years (if not longer)

There's still plenty of headroom on refinery capacity. You do raise an interesting question, though: if people in Florida are willing to pay extra for their gasoline to forgo the environmental degradation, risk of catastrophe, and (the only one you're likely to understand) decline in property values, well, isn't that a rational economic choice?

and you will BEGIN to get a picture of the real reasons why gas costs are currently so high, and why they are historically so volatile.

Historically volatile? Except for a period around 1980, gasoline prices have remained relatively stable. Given a good such as gasoline with low demand elasticity (we can call this a "lifestyle choice" if you like), volatility in price is mainly due to either speculation or tight supply. I imagine the powers that be are hoping that talking up the former will draw attention away from the latter.

I should highlight the difference between reserves and flows. ANWR at its peak (about 15-20 years in the future) would contribute about 10% at best of today's daily consumption of crude oil. But hey, you just go ahead and keep blaming those Eeeevil Big Oil Execs and their OBSCENE 4% profits! Ignorance like yours must be fucking bliss. Over the last 12 months, BP plc boasted a 20.4% gross profit margin. ExxonMobil's gross profit margin was 40.1%. It's worth noting that ExxonMobil is chiefly a refiner and does little R&D relative to producers like Shell.

With all due respect, if you're actually interested in arguing a position, you may wish to refer to primary or at least reputable sources of information and get your facts straight rather than taking as gos

1) Trees are a renewable resource, 2) Aluminum is one of the things I allow is worth recycling, 3) Plastic makes up a small portion of the consumption of oil, about 80% gets burned as fuel in the US, 4) I don't buy this. Sure you can find impressive claims for energy conservation (40% for recycled paper, 50% for recycled glass), but it ignores several crucial things. First, we ignore real world recycling efficiency. How much of the recycling stream ends up in the landfill anyway? Second, we ignore the energy and time cost of collecting and sorting the materials. Getting what I gather are hundreds of millions of people to sort their trash and get that trash collected by specialized vehicles doesn't strike me as remotely efficient. And of course, energy (and to a lesser extent oil) is cheap, consuming peoples' time is not.

In summary, I think the true impact of recycling programs is that it allows municipalities to transfer the cost of garbage disposal to their residents. The net environmental benefit isn't that impressive (assuming it actually exists).

1) Trees are a renewable resource, 2) Aluminum is one of the things I allow is worth recycling, 3) Plastic makes up a small portion of the consumption of oil, about 80% gets burned as fuel in the US, 4) I don't buy this. Sure you can find impressive claims for energy conservation (40% for recycled paper, 50% for recycled glass), but it ignores several crucial things. First, we ignore real world recycling efficiency. How much of the recycling stream ends up in the landfill anyway? Second, we ignore the energy and time cost of collecting and sorting the materials. Getting what I gather are hundreds of millions of people to sort their trash and get that trash collected by specialized vehicles doesn't strike me as remotely efficient. And of course, energy (and to a lesser extent oil) is cheap, consuming peoples' time is not.

In summary, I think the true impact of recycling programs is that it allows municipalities to transfer the cost of garbage disposal to their residents. The net environmental benefit isn't that impressive (assuming it actually exists).

The actual cost of the nuclear insurance subsidy has been estimated at anywhere between 200M/year and 3B/year. So we're actually talking about an increase of 1.2x to 2.5x, as your report claims about $1.2B in nuclear subsidies.

But, as I pointed out earlier, it's pointless to take a big, established generation source and compare it to a new, marginal technology in terms of "subsidies per kilowatt". New technologies are supposed to require more research, represent greater risk to investors, and lack the economies of scale of the more established technologies. The United States *massively* subsidized nuclear technology during its earliest phases. I wonder how the nuclear industry of 1960 would have fared in your report.

When it comes to wind power, the primary costs are all in capital investment. Once the turbines are up and running, the fuel is free and the maintenance is rather low. So under the current subsidy scheme, all the subsidies I can find are handed out in the first 10 years of a wind farm's existence (depreciation over 5 years instead of 20, and a 1.9c tax credit for every kWH produced in the first ten years of a farm's life. So when you argue as though the subsidies scale linearly with the amount of renewable energy being produced, you're arguing against the flow of reality.

Look at page 76 of this report, where it talks about levelized cost calculations. Looking only at the operations, maintenance, and fuel costs of an installation, wind energy is the clear winner. So in ten years, when the subsidies supporting a wind farm dwindle to nothing, and the comparable nuclear plant is still getting millions worth of subsidized insurance, the "subsidies per megawatt" for those installations will paint a very different picture.

Renewables also have the advantage of being immune to fluctuations in fuel prices. Nuclear fuel (though a small part of the cost of nuclear power, fluctuates wildly in the markets), and the cost of natural gas has shot up by about 50% in the last year. This advantage of renewable power is entirely overlooked when you insist on reducing the whole, complicated picture to a simple analysis of "subsidies per kilowatt".

I also question the mathiness of your analysis of the costs of incentives. Though you say that cost of production must come down "by an order of magnitude" for wind and solar to make economic sense, the primary subsidy (the Production Tax Credit) weighs in at a mere $0.02/kWH. So there is no reason to require huge gains in economic efficiency. Rather small ones will do.

Once again, you bring up the old lie that the vast majority of any renewable penetration would have to be backed capacity-for-capacity by non-renewables. There are a dozen ways to make up for the intermittency problem.

* Geothermal is perfect for baseload, and thermal storage solar's generation profile very nearly mirrors the demand curve.
* The proliferation of plug-in hybrids that interact with a smart grid, charging when demand is low and selling back to the grid when demand is high.
* Interconnecting geographical regions, so that oversupply in one region can be matched to overdemand in another.
* Diversifying sources for renewables.
* Increasing energy efficiency to make it cheaper to build the generative capacity to serve a given human need.
* Weather forecasting to predict the highs and lows.
* Use of emergency generators as standby generative capacity.
* Load shedding.
* Rolling brownouts.
* Shutting off the TV and going to play outside.

Yes, those last three were listed in order of awfulness.

Lastly, you still haven't addressed hde huge hidden subsidy of all fossil power. Producers don't pay a cent for the right to dump CO2 in the atmosphere. Unless the economic cost of a ton of emitted CO2 is really $0.00, then the economic picture is heavily and artificially skewed in favor of the entrenched technologies.

What's the actual difference in energy costs, though? Not saying you're stupid or selfish for not donating, just interested in the real figures, if you've got any. I throw my system into hibernation most nights, and try to turn off the monitor at least when I go away for a couple hours during the day. What have you found your general savings to be?

A modern dual core processor can use about an extra 100 watts of energy when processing than when idle. This is from using a watt meter on a few computers of mine and checking it out. Shutting down or hibernating will save you 200-300 watts total I'm guessing. Personally I have a couple of services running on my computer all the time so I can't shut it down completely, plus I like being able to just turn on the monitor and start working/gaming/surfing. So if you are going to leave your computer running you can save 1 kilowatt-hour every ten hours just from the extra power pulled to do the processing versus having the CPU usage low. Prices vary, but if your CPU usage totals an extra 20 hours per day then that's an extra 2 kilowatt-hours per day or about 20 cents, totalling up to $75 or more a year in electricity bills. That also increases carbon emissions if your electricity comes from fossil fuels.

The American Medical Association restricts the supply of MDs, and by law you can't get most medical care from anyone who isn't an MD.

AC is correct: you cannot be a "realtor." You can be a "REALTOR" (Registered trademark) if the National Association of Realtors permits it.

Both restrict capacity of the labor in their industries. This is known to create at best Cournot competition. Meanwhile, a market that is not capacity constrained has Betrand competition - where the mere threat of entry can keep prices near their minimum. Cournot competition reduces economic efficiency (id est, screws you out of money).

I'd estimate the average working American is getting "screwed" (how much he pays less what a competitive market would cost) by about $6,000 per year (of the approximately $16,000/yr of medical expense he and his company pay). Your paycheck is probably light by $500 per month due to the AMA tax.

It is also worth noting that a supply shortage of saved lives is equivalent to preventable deaths. This artificial shortage raises prices of having your life saved while simultaneously reducing your odds of having your life saved.

The AMA and NAR are de facto monopsonists, restricting the ease of health care and real estate purchase respectively, and using your medical bills and need for housing to make their members artificially richer.

Don't believe that doctors are getting paid "too much"? See if you can find the trend in the Forbes best paying jobs in America:
1. Anesthesiologist
2. Surgeon
3. Obstetrician
4. Orthodontist
5. Oral Surgeon
6. Internist
7. Prosthodontist
8. Psychiatrist
9. General Practitioner
10. Chief Executive Officer
11. Physician and Surgeon, Other
12. Pediatrician
13. Dentist
14. Airline Pilot
15. Podiatrist
16. Lawyer

Productivity in the US has been going up steadily over the last decade, but real median income has gone down. Where does all that extra money go that you're not getting paid? Your company spends it on health insurance, most of which ends up in the hands of MDs.

OPEC dominates the trillion dollar global petroleum industry. The AMA dominates the two trillion dollar national medical industry. Politicians blame OPEC for our economy because doctors write big checks.

Peak oil is at least a good 10 years away, if not more. Look at the proven reserves of all the big oil companies (mainly State-owned; EXO and the like are small players) and you'll see that - even in spite of all the production - proven reserves either are flat or increasing. Meaning more finds.

Maybe because most alternative energy sources are big money losers? Take a look at page 16 of this report for the actual numbers about subsidies...

I predict once you can start to get alternative energy sources like solar and wind down an order of magnitude or so in terms of cost you'll see things turn around. However, for now they're getting somewhere around 100X the subsidy per Megawatt-hour that "Big Oil" gets.

An improvement from 15% to 40% simply isn't enough - natural gas and oil get around $0.25 per MWhr, while solar and wind get 100 times that amount per MWhr. And remember, those nasty "Big Oil" companies also pay over $3 in direct federal taxes for every $1 in profit. Over $200 billion flows into the Federal government every year in terms of direct taxes and fees (that's not including the taxes you're paying on consumption of their products).

Right now, and for the last 20 years, wind and solar have been huge money-losers, and only exists BECAUSE of the massive subsidies. If we subsidized wind or solar at a level to get useful output levels, we'd spend literally trillions more per year.

And then there's that whole baseload thing...

I'm well aware of what isotopes are used. The risks really aren't dramatic. The likelyhood of an RTG breaking apart is very small, and it is furthermore not prone to becoming airborne in the first place. Even in the worst case, with an atmospheric explosion that disperses large quantities of Plutonium 238, the local concentration will be extremely low. Even if significant quantities of the material is made airborne, yet concentrated in a localized area, you're only talking about a minuscule increase in your lifetime odds of developing a fatal form of cancer.

eg. Inhaling 15,000 microns of airborne Plutonium 238 is estimated to increases your cancer odds by just 1% over normal background radiation.
http://consolidationeis.doe.gov/PDFs/PlutoniumANLFactSheetOct2001.pdf

It's dangerous, but a pretty far-fetched and insignificant danger.

I can't find anything on the net that says that. Provide references.

Here's one for Germany and one from South Africa. And to the other poster: Sure, it was in a war economy, but they only had to produce such huge amounts of fuel *because* they were at war. The amount they produced during that time would easily have met all their needs during peacetime with plenty left over for export; even with the monstrous consumption from planes and tanks, and the use of tech that had only been around for twenty years, they still produced half of their petroleum needs (92% of their aviation fuel needs) from Fischer-Tropsch, and only started running out when they lost air superiority and we bombed their plants to rubble. As for South Africa, they're not abnormally blessed with coal; world coal reserves are utterly monstrous (esp. in the US). They had a had a shortfall of about 40% of their oil needs, and made it up in just a couple years. And coal is hardly the only way you can make syngas. Burning virtually anything that has carbon and hydrogen in it with insufficient oxygen produces syngas. In the case of coal syngas, it has about 80% of the original energy of the coal. After Fischer-Tropsch, the resultant oil has about 60% of the energy of the original coal.

You act as if all of this is no big deal but the truth is that cost of fuel is skyrocketing and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. So, if it's not big deal then why is gas getting so expensive?

Once again, *read the freaking page* that I linked at the very beginning of this thread. It exists so I don't have to retype everything over and over and over again.

To me a solution to the problem isn't just replacing petroleum with some super expensive shit that nobody can afford

Since when is ~$30/barrel production cost "super expensive shit that nobody can afford"?

And the reason there are "doomers" as you call them, is that I was around during the 70's when OPEC showed us how they have us over a barrel.

If you'd *read the freaking page*, you'd have some interesting insights into that, such as how shale and bitumen cost almost $100/barrel back in the $70s, and now bitumen is $10-$30 a barrel and shale $20-40. You'd also familiarize yourself with the critical concept of lag between when decisions are made to increase capacity and when the capacity actually comes online. Or, you can just keep arguing against straw men. That's certainly your choice if you want to come across as refusing to debate the actual arguments the other person has made.

The government didn't do jack shit about it so we still have the same dependency now as we did 30 years ago.

Yeah, except for huge investments in technology and mileage improvements so dramatic that it took years for consumption to catch back up, absolutely nothing.

The government started doing "jack shit" when prices went back down. It's why we need a serious gas tax in this country, like they have in Europe -- to prevent low oil prices from being directly reflected in low gas taxes, so the incentive sticks around. The income could be used to directly offset payroll taxes so that you don't disproportionately hurt the poor -- only the wasteful.

I just had to try to put that into perspective, so I looked up the net annual usage of electricity in the US. If we had somehow captured, converted and stored all that energy, the US would spend about 45 million years using it up (assuming linear growth similar to the last 10 years, and I didn't screwed up the math).

The largest nuclear power plant in the united states is Palo Verde which provides a maximum of 3.8GW.

The largest plant in the world is the
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Japan which has a peak theoretical output of 8.2GW, but is currently offline because of damage caused by an earthquake.

So 4GW of power would be significant.

Please feel free to cite the mechanism that will do this. Giving the numbers on oil usage in the electrical grid and wind power in the transportation grid would be very helpful in your answer (hint: the only type of transportable wind power is with electric cars).

Building wind turbines will do nothing to reduce oil usage until electric cars become commonplace. And then it wouldn't really matter if the electricity to charge the cars came from coal, nuclear, solar, or wind.

Are we really to the point where we have to start shutting off hot water heaters because we don't want to re-invest in the electrical infra-structure?

The only reinvestment needed is when your water heater fails, as they do not last forever. Or if you choose to work out the cost-benefit analysis of replacing it with something that doesn't consume energy around the clock, on the off chance you'll want hot water at any moment of the day. Replace it with an updated model that's more energy efficient. The US DOE are promoting newer water heater designs under the Energy Star moniker. You could possibly even put a timer on your heater, shut it down when you depart for work, turn it on an hour before you come home. That alone could save half a day's energy, though I don't know if water heaters handle well having their electric power cycled externally.

In most countries I've spent time in outside the U.S., bathing and kitchen water is heated at the tap, on delivery! "Just in time," a popular term in computer science and business, and operations research. This is just another move towards efficiency, one that benefits consumers, business, and our oh-so-contentious environmental concerns.

Nearly all those countries are also the top economies in their region: Brazil, England, Germany, Switzerland, Germany, France, Netherlands and so on.

Delivered energy is obviously in high demand today, thanks to our growing population and energy demands, and also thanks to the so-called market economy; even when demand is met, prices are still quite high. Here in the U.S., our energy prices are quite low relative to the rest of the world (from US DOE historical energy price tables. For an eye-opener, compare U.S. gasoline prices with some major Western European economies.

I get the impression that most U.S. energy consumers are unwilling to consider making change if it interrupts their perceived convenience, unless a significant arm-twister appears, such as high energy prices. Global warming? Hah, that's just s disproved theory, why should I bother with change? Change is scary. Don't make me leave my warm cocoon!

Are we really to the point where we have to start shutting off hot water heaters because we don't want to re-invest in the electrical infra-structure?

The only reinvestment needed is when your water heater fails, as they do not last forever. Or if you choose to work out the cost-benefit analysis of replacing it with something that doesn't consume energy around the clock, on the off chance you'll want hot water at any moment of the day. Replace it with an updated model that's more energy efficient. The US DOE are promoting newer water heater designs under the Energy Star moniker. You could possibly even put a timer on your heater, shut it down when you depart for work, turn it on an hour before you come home. That alone could save half a day's energy, though I don't know if water heaters handle well having their electric power cycled externally.

In most countries I've spent time in outside the U.S., bathing and kitchen water is heated at the tap, on delivery! "Just in time," a popular term in computer science and business, and operations research. This is just another move towards efficiency, one that benefits consumers, business, and our oh-so-contentious environmental concerns.

Nearly all those countries are also the top economies in their region: Brazil, England, Germany, Switzerland, Germany, France, Netherlands and so on.

Delivered energy is obviously in high demand today, thanks to our growing population and energy demands, and also thanks to the so-called market economy; even when demand is met, prices are still quite high. Here in the U.S., our energy prices are quite low relative to the rest of the world (from US DOE historical energy price tables. For an eye-opener, compare U.S. gasoline prices with some major Western European economies.

I get the impression that most U.S. energy consumers are unwilling to consider making change if it interrupts their perceived convenience, unless a significant arm-twister appears, such as high energy prices. Global warming? Hah, that's just s disproved theory, why should I bother with change? Change is scary. Don't make me leave my warm cocoon!

Are we really to the point where we have to start shutting off hot water heaters because we don't want to re-invest in the electrical infra-structure?

The only reinvestment needed is when your water heater fails, as they do not last forever. Or if you choose to work out the cost-benefit analysis of replacing it with something that doesn't consume energy around the clock, on the off chance you'll want hot water at any moment of the day. Replace it with an updated model that's more energy efficient. The US DOE are promoting newer water heater designs under the Energy Star moniker. You could possibly even put a timer on your heater, shut it down when you depart for work, turn it on an hour before you come home. That alone could save half a day's energy, though I don't know if water heaters handle well having their electric power cycled externally.

In most countries I've spent time in outside the U.S., bathing and kitchen water is heated at the tap, on delivery! "Just in time," a popular term in computer science and business, and operations research. This is just another move towards efficiency, one that benefits consumers, business, and our oh-so-contentious environmental concerns.

Nearly all those countries are also the top economies in their region: Brazil, England, Germany, Switzerland, Germany, France, Netherlands and so on.

Delivered energy is obviously in high demand today, thanks to our growing population and energy demands, and also thanks to the so-called market economy; even when demand is met, prices are still quite high. Here in the U.S., our energy prices are quite low relative to the rest of the world (from US DOE historical energy price tables. For an eye-opener, compare U.S. gasoline prices with some major Western European economies.

I get the impression that most U.S. energy consumers are unwilling to consider making change if it interrupts their perceived convenience, unless a significant arm-twister appears, such as high energy prices. Global warming? Hah, that's just s disproved theory, why should I bother with change? Change is scary. Don't make me leave my warm cocoon!

4> Along with that new infrastructure, you will have an entirely new level of security issues. I invite you to consider the explosive potential of a hydrogen tanker being used by "youths" as an improvised FAE.

"If Hydrogen-Fueled Aircraft Were Used, the Collapse of World Trade Center would Not Have Happened".

But I am in agreement that we should be building nuclear power plants

And create more problems?

I would try to find more ways to replace fossil fuels with electricity as well as finding more non-fossil alternatives.

In "A Solar Grand Plan" Sciam lays out how solar power can provide the US with 69% of it's energy needs by 2050. And the US has enough potential wind power to supply a lot of energy to the US as well. Other sources of energy are biofuels including hydrogen produced by algae, geothermal, and tidal power.

There are reactors at Chalk River in Ontario that have been operating continuously since the early 1950's. Most of the world's medical isotopes come from them.

At $0.11 on average per kWh, the savings is $1.7m annually, plus another $300k from the energy they sell to the power company. That's 45 years to recoup the investment ($90m), not including maintaining the turbines for 45 years (more info here)

Still, I think this should be the new standard for sustainable living and development.

And to put 16 gigawatt hours into perspective... the average household in America uses around 11,000 kWh annually. See Official Government Website

Rock Port, MO needs to add their watts saved to the total. It's like they switched out 64,000,000 incandescent bulbs for CFCs!

BS plumber estimate... We'll be generous and pay the plumber $100 per hour (actually only cost me something like $50/hr). My install including considerable rerouting of pipes took a little more than one morning. So that accounts for $500... Leaving $1500 of profit or something.

Also even in TX or OK gas isn't going to remain cheap forever, try

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n3010us3a.htm

US motor gasoline consumption is 388 million gallons per day. Ethanol only has 2/3 the energy of gasoline by volume, so you'll need 588 million gallons of ethanol per day to replace it. Even assuming we built enough reactors and the bacteria work fast enough, do you have any idea how much organic waste we have to rustle up to make 588 million gallons? Americans just drive a lot and buy a lot of gasoline. It can't go on forever.

We're talking about an alleged "addiction" to oil. In the US only 7 percent of our electric power is created from petroleum. Therefore, 93% of our electricity is not created by oil. So, what exactly is your point about France? Thanks. I won't be holding my breath.

Actually, based on some off the cuff calculations...

Current solar acreage is probably small. A very large solar plant takes .2 sq miles.
http://www.metaefficient.com/news/north-americas-largest-solar-electric-plant-in-switched-on.html
http://www.metric-conversions.org/cgi-bin/util/convert.cgi

Electric Plant
It looks like electric plants maybe about 75 acres to 170 acres.
(various google "electric plant acres" results.
Say 125 acres average.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/ipp/ipp_sum.html
350mw per plant (19,300mw/55 plants)
604,514 = 1727 electric plants currently

This equates to roughly 300 square miles of electrical plants currently. I'm not sure if the gov site includes dams, windfarms, and nukes. I know windfarms get pretty big (google: 40000-Acre Wind Farm (~62 sq miles), 2000 turbines over 200000 acres (~310 sq miles), Indian Mesa wind farm situated on 34000 acres in West Texas).

According to statistics, Saudi Arabia is planning to produce 12 million barrels of oil a day by 2009. So doing quick math, that would mean 4.2 billion barrels a year. If we had about 100 billion barrels, that would set us for about 23.4 years. Given how other technologies are advancing, that should be enough time for us to progress to a point where we wouldn't need oil at all.

This is incorrect. Transportation accounts for approximately 2/3rds of oil consumption in the US. See here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_market_basics/demand_text.htm

But this chart: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/wgtimus2w.htm says we import about ~1m barrels a day of gasoline. That equals about 19.5 million gallons of gas, no? 48 - 19.5 = we're still short about 28.5 million gallons per day.

Can you provide a source for your statistic? According to the DOE, transportation consumes 68% (2006 report) of the oil we use: http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html See "Share of US Oil Consumption for Transportation" about 3/4 of the way down.

"Big deal, we've got a huge, untapped reserve under the northern Midwest. Too bad we haven't built any new refineries in the past 30 years. "

Memos Show Oil Companies Closed Refineries To Hike Profits - Politics on The Huffington Post:

from an old deja link.. (referencing DOE website... link since removed.. I wonder why??? )

"The United States experienced a steep decline in refining capacity between 1981 and the mid-1990s. Between 1981 and 1989, the number of U.S. refineries fell from 324 to 204, representing a loss of 3 million bbl/d in operable capacity (from 18.6 million bbl/d to 15.7 million bbl/d), while refining capacity utilization increased from 69% to 87%. "

Current DOE refiinery stats. Indicates the number of large US refineries has droped to less than 135..

The wool has been pulled over your eyes.. 324 down to 140 .. at least 184 refineries closed in the last thirty years.. P.S. One does NOT BUILD NEW refineries if one is STILL CLOSING surplus facilities..

"Big deal, we've got a huge, untapped reserve under the northern Midwest. Too bad we haven't built any new refineries in the past 30 years. "

Memos Show Oil Companies Closed Refineries To Hike Profits - Politics on The Huffington Post:

from an old deja link.. (referencing DOE website... link since removed.. I wonder why??? )

"The United States experienced a steep decline in refining capacity between 1981 and the mid-1990s. Between 1981 and 1989, the number of U.S. refineries fell from 324 to 204, representing a loss of 3 million bbl/d in operable capacity (from 18.6 million bbl/d to 15.7 million bbl/d), while refining capacity utilization increased from 69% to 87%. "

Current DOE refiinery stats. Indicates the number of large US refineries has droped to less than 135..

The wool has been pulled over your eyes.. 324 down to 140 .. at least 184 refineries closed in the last thirty years.. P.S. One does NOT BUILD NEW refineries if one is STILL CLOSING surplus facilities..

Considering that 20 percent of the U.S. corn crop was converted into 5 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006, (and that amount replaced only 1 percent of U.S. oil consumption).

Source? Almost all gasoline is actaully 10% ethanol these days. Since gasoline accounts for 60% of oil consumption, wouldn't it stand to reason that ethanol replaces about 6% of our oil consumption at this point?

Finally, after processing corn for Ethanol, a great deal of high-protien livestock feed remains. The sugars from the corn get converted to ethanol, and the "everything else" is still used as livestock feed.

It's really a lot more complicated than you make it sound. Corn-based Ethanol will not solve our transportation energy needs, but it isn't all bad.

There are many reasons, IMO

• We use most of it. As of 2007 data, we use 134.400billion gallons/year, almost as much as the next 25 nations combined
• Transportation - costs of shipping, storing, the risks associated (it is both a volatile liquid and a volatile market!)
• Added perks (42gallons of oil/barrel, only ~20 becomes gas, the other is kerosene, heating oil, with the ability, if I understand the process correctly to adjust these ratios to meet demand. Example more heating oil in winter, more gas (relatively) in the summer.
• US standards for gas are likely different than other countries (see next point)
• Weird Foreign Refinery Rules
• Like someone else mentioned, volatility in other refinery countries.

There are likely more, but this is not my area of expertise.

Sources:

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Try some real data.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Try some real data.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html

The US total refining capacity was 17,443,492 barrels of oil/day, which yields on average, 340,148,094 gallons @19.5gallons gas/barrel of oil. The current consumption of gas in the US is 388.6 million gallons/day (as of 2006)

If those numbers are correct, we are at a 48,451,906 gallon/day shortfall of US domestic production capacity. Since no one wants a refinery in their backyard, there hasn't been a new one built since the 1970's (The last refinery built in the US was in Garyville, Louisiana, and it started up in 1976.)

So "we" as in the US, have a serious lack of refinery capacity.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html
A plurality (more than any single other source), not a majority (ie more than 50%). There is a difference.

I'm continually stunned by the abundance of misinformation our there about how oil is produced and distributed.

First of all, most of our oil does not come from Canada and Mexico. And a lot of it does come from the Middle East and our foreign policy does have a big impact on it.

Secondly, yes Exxon made $40 billion in profits last year. They also spend somewhere around $400 billion to make those profits. Big numbers mean nothing unless you put them in perspective. A 10% profit margin is nothing special.

Thirdly, there is no oil monopoly. Oil companies do not calude with each other, they compete. The oil industry is infinitely deeper than Exxon, Chevron, and BP. There are hundreds, if not thousands of independent oil and gas companies in the US alone. The people that have interests in the Bakken in North Dakota are not the majors. They are companies like EOG, Marathon, Kodiak, and Questar. These companies do not have refineries. They sell at the market price, they have no say in what their product goes for. They do not have enough reserves to make any impact on market prices even if they wanted to.

1 billion barrels / 85 million bpd

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/quickfacts/quickoil.html

Oh, btw, this is the map of the geo-thermal hot spots capable of generating electricity. The nice thing about this is that it aligns closely with where your population centers are. Not too surprising when you think about it. The hot spots are going to be warmer than other areas. But these would allow you to build goe-thermal power in the same fashion as they are doing at Chena, AK. In fact, Chena has a greenhouse and is selling power and vegetables to neighboring areas.