On the other hand, most places in the country don't have the 300 days of sunshine a year that Colorado typically has. So you probably won't get anywhere near the theoretical maximum efficiency. Cloudy day? You only get half the power. Dark overcast? You might get 10% power. That makes it impractical even more people.
Yes, there's some subsidies for fossil fuels. The strategic reserve is mostly just recognizing the fact that we depend on it to a very large extent for our day to day lives. No energy source is subsidy free. (ok maybe the Rossi e-cat.:D ).
So it's not suitable for wildlife, no people live there, it's not scenic. Sounds like if we have to tolerate oil spills, an area like that would be the place.
It's not a question of eventuality, it's a question of what should be the highest priority now. Solar power is not there yet as a replacement for fossil fuels.
The strategic reserve is just a temporary buffer nothing more,
There is also a fair amount of subsidies for solar panels all over the US. The reason is that solar panels are _not_ a sound investment, even if you have the money. http://www.weatherimagery.com/blog/solar-panels-cost-effective/
Fossil fuels are mainly subsidized with tax breaks on exploration, do elaborate on how you think they're subsidized.
Fossil fuels run the country though. On the other hand, renewables use a huge amount of subsidies and don't even provide all that much power at present, or even in the immediate future.
But historically speaking, the promises of technology in drilling have been borne out. Whereas renewables research has always over-promised and under-delivered.
The only difference I can think of, is that the government funded the renewables research.
I've heard elsewhere that they're actually not going to build roads, but use ice-roads to ship heavy equipment. There's probably some risk of a spill, but oil spills on land are generally localized, ie, immediately around the pipeline, which is still comparatively little area.
ANWR is just an example, there's loads of oil all over the US and offshore which the US gov doesn't allow to be drilled.
And you can not get an accurate estimate of an oil field without actually drilling into and extracting oil from that field. So we have very little idea of how much oil is actually there in the US.
Plus, any current estimate would be with current technologies and doesn't take into account technological improvement and the inevitable increase of extractable oil over time.
It's never going to be that drastic, it isn't like a tap that just turns off. There's going to be plenty of warning for peak oil, you would see oil discoveries reduce a fair bit beforehand. Besides, the US could probably afford to pay more for oil than the rest of the world, and thus have more time to adapt.
You are asking to switch to renewable sources which are not ready yet. More dams are unlikely to be built. Nuclear is unlikely due to NIMBY. Solar+wind are not capable of providing large scale power yet. Switching away from oil will therefore damage the economy and reduce quality of life overall.
War is different, all sorts of things happen due to necessity during wartime. People accept all sorts of limits for the duration of a war.
"It's better to keep people poor, so they can be more environmentally friendly." Is that a fair summary of what you're trying to say ? This is generally not true poorer countries are generally not as environmentally friendly as rich ones.
It is the bigger economy, the stronger economy which is better capable of adaptation. See the difference between floods in say Katrina and floods in Pakistan. A richer country could afford to spend more on gas, and also more on alternate sources of energy, if and when peak oil occurs.
Nobody's talking about repealing the Clean Air Act. There is/was a real issue with pollution, but it's possible to go too far in reducing it. The costs of any legislation also need to be taken into account.
Additionally, people can and do make that tradeoff, which is why people still work in coal mines, petrochemical factories and other polluted hazardous conditions.
It's only a tiny area of ANWR that they want to drill in. The area that is to be developed is remote, uninhabited, doesn't have much wildlife and has been called a wasteland.
Most of our lives are spent in delaying actions. In the long run, we are all dead.
How would that help anything? When subsidies fall below a certain point, solar panel sales will drop. It is essentially the same as subsidizing panel purchases, but I suppose the drop will be more gradual.
Are you expecting a sudden drop in panel prices, a sudden improvement in efficiency or something like that?
Slashdot Mirror
Yup, lets send all the good people to:
1. Write grants.
2. Read grants
Awesome, you are just using good people in creating more bureacracy, because that's what we really need right?
Americans' Global Warming Concerns Continue to Drop
It is very rare that athletes have no copies of the fast twitch gene.
gelatin, for its limited range of benefits that can easily be found in plants
Please. Gelatin is what collagen is made out of, it has many benefits for joints with no equivalent in plants.
How about the Former Department of Homeland Security? Because it should be dismantled.
On the other hand, most places in the country don't have the 300 days of sunshine a year that Colorado typically has. So you probably won't get anywhere near the theoretical maximum efficiency. Cloudy day? You only get half the power. Dark overcast? You might get 10% power. That makes it impractical even more people.
Yes, there's some subsidies for fossil fuels. The strategic reserve is mostly just recognizing the fact that we depend on it to a very large extent for our day to day lives. No energy source is subsidy free. (ok maybe the Rossi e-cat. :D ).
It's not possible to find proven oil reserves, because drilling has never been allowed in certain areas.
1. A bunch of oil rigs have left the gulf due to regulatory issues with the Obama government, and a few more will likely leave if things dont improve. http://biggovernment.com/kmooney/2011/07/20/ten-oil-rigs-have-exited-the-gulf-of-mexico-since-president-obamas-moratorium-went-into-effect/
2. ANWR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Refuge_drilling_controversy#Estimates_of_oil_reserves
3. The outer continental shelf http://www.boemre.gov/revaldiv/RedNatAssessment.htm
All places where there's oil, but no drilling is allowed.
So it's not suitable for wildlife, no people live there, it's not scenic. Sounds like if we have to tolerate oil spills, an area like that would be the place.
What do you mean? Lots of companies were chased off from drilling in the gulf coast after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
It's not a question of eventuality, it's a question of what should be the highest priority now. Solar power is not there yet as a replacement for fossil fuels. The strategic reserve is just a temporary buffer nothing more, There is also a fair amount of subsidies for solar panels all over the US. The reason is that solar panels are _not_ a sound investment, even if you have the money. http://www.weatherimagery.com/blog/solar-panels-cost-effective/
Fossil fuels are mainly subsidized with tax breaks on exploration, do elaborate on how you think they're subsidized.
Fossil fuels run the country though. On the other hand, renewables use a huge amount of subsidies and don't even provide all that much power at present, or even in the immediate future.
It's good enough for slashdot. Oh, and this is not even counting the potential deposits that nobody is allowed to drill yet.
But historically speaking, the promises of technology in drilling have been borne out. Whereas renewables research has always over-promised and under-delivered.
The only difference I can think of, is that the government funded the renewables research.
I've heard elsewhere that they're actually not going to build roads, but use ice-roads to ship heavy equipment. There's probably some risk of a spill, but oil spills on land are generally localized, ie, immediately around the pipeline, which is still comparatively little area.
Here's an interesting article for ya. "Can the U.S. return to its long-gone throne as the world's top producer of crude oil? A Goldman Sachs report, quoted in the Sunday Times of London recently, contended that shale plays and new technologies could push total production to 10.9 million barrels per day by 2017. " http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20111008_49_E1_CUTLIN650117&allcom=1
Snopes doesn't disagree with calling the area a wasteland, scroll to the very bottom. http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/anwr.asp Tiny area by a fraction of ANWR.
ANWR is just an example, there's loads of oil all over the US and offshore which the US gov doesn't allow to be drilled.
And you can not get an accurate estimate of an oil field without actually drilling into and extracting oil from that field. So we have very little idea of how much oil is actually there in the US.
Plus, any current estimate would be with current technologies and doesn't take into account technological improvement and the inevitable increase of extractable oil over time.
On the other hand, "Do Something, Anything" is generally not a good response, especially when our knowledge is awfully incomplete.
Absolutely. I don't know how subsidized they are, but remove subsidies from everything. Food, nuclear, coal, oil and everything else.
It's never going to be that drastic, it isn't like a tap that just turns off. There's going to be plenty of warning for peak oil, you would see oil discoveries reduce a fair bit beforehand. Besides, the US could probably afford to pay more for oil than the rest of the world, and thus have more time to adapt.
You are asking to switch to renewable sources which are not ready yet. More dams are unlikely to be built. Nuclear is unlikely due to NIMBY. Solar+wind are not capable of providing large scale power yet. Switching away from oil will therefore damage the economy and reduce quality of life overall.
War is different, all sorts of things happen due to necessity during wartime. People accept all sorts of limits for the duration of a war.
"It's better to keep people poor, so they can be more environmentally friendly." Is that a fair summary of what you're trying to say ? This is generally not true poorer countries are generally not as environmentally friendly as rich ones.
It is the bigger economy, the stronger economy which is better capable of adaptation. See the difference between floods in say Katrina and floods in Pakistan. A richer country could afford to spend more on gas, and also more on alternate sources of energy, if and when peak oil occurs.
I don't support the bailouts either. Defense is one of the few things that is actually necessary.
Nobody's talking about repealing the Clean Air Act. There is/was a real issue with pollution, but it's possible to go too far in reducing it. The costs of any legislation also need to be taken into account.
Additionally, people can and do make that tradeoff, which is why people still work in coal mines, petrochemical factories and other polluted hazardous conditions.
It's only a tiny area of ANWR that they want to drill in. The area that is to be developed is remote, uninhabited, doesn't have much wildlife and has been called a wasteland.
Most of our lives are spent in delaying actions. In the long run, we are all dead.
How would that help anything? When subsidies fall below a certain point, solar panel sales will drop. It is essentially the same as subsidizing panel purchases, but I suppose the drop will be more gradual.
Are you expecting a sudden drop in panel prices, a sudden improvement in efficiency or something like that?