Oil Vs. Alternative Energy

Thats my point. We really only learn after a disaster has happened, thus testing our abilities.

We can only solve our energy problems with big investments in new and emerging tech. Nuclear energy must become a mature technology and we will learn to rely on it as a transition to the next energy type.

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Bill-

fm wrote-

Quote:

Bill, what did spendi say re:uclear power, I have him blocked so I dont see any of his babbl;ings any more.

I'll explain that for you as it's possible you are mystified.

You see- fm has been an expert and a genius for a long time. Now-- it is well known that if one has been an expert and a genius for a long time faith in one's expertise and genius does not dissolve overnight. It is a reluctant and tardy process.

When he discovered that he had no answers to my questions on the Science threads he took the step of blocking my posts so that it was no longer necessary for him to deal with them. This procedure, unheard of in scientific discourse, enables him to maintain his faith in his status as an expert and genius.

Why he should ask you what my babblings on here were all about I can't imagine.

He's now seeking a fair wind and a calm sea.

Aren't we all?

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Spendy, how did fm manage to block your posts?

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He closes his eyes while scrolling I think. He likes pretending he has more technical expertise than is actually the case.

One of the major problems with a discussion, fm style, about NPPs is a failure to take account of the nature of the regimes in countries belonging to OPEC.

The NPP may well be economically feasible at an oil price of $120. But those regimes have a lot of slack. They can make their subject populations have it.

So they sit tight at $120 and watch us invest billions in NPPs and then when we have incurred all the costs and taken all the risks and diverted resources of wealth and manpower into NPPs from other things and are ready to switch on and sit back smiling they drop the price back to where it was just a short time ago and nobody wants NPP juice anymore. You all know what bargain hunters are like.

Beuatiful ain't it? And fm is leading the suckers.

Beware of simple solutions. They generally exude from simple minds which are themselves an axiomatic consequence of sticking your head up your arse so you can only consult with your own entrails.

What we should do is reduce our demand. Sit on the porch reading Grandad's library and learn something rather than rushing around all over the place and learning nothing except how to become exhausted and in the **** at the same time.

Oil would soon be back at £20.

I never read Bonfire of the Vanities. It seemed pointless reading it after a title like that.

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spendius wrote:

He closes his eyes while scrolling I think. He likes pretending he has more technical expertise than is actually the case.

One of the major problems with a discussion, fm style, about NPPs is a failure to take account of the nature of the regimes in countries belonging to OPEC.

The NPP may well be economically feasible at an oil price of $120. But those regimes have a lot of slack. They can make their subject populations have it.

So they sit tight at $120 and watch us invest billions in NPPs and then when we have incurred all the costs and taken all the risks and diverted resources of wealth and manpower into NPPs from other things and are ready to switch on and sit back smiling they drop the price back to where it was just a short time ago and nobody wants NPP juice anymore. You all know what bargain hunters are like.

Beuatiful ain't it? And fm is leading the suckers.

Beware of simple solutions. They generally exude from simple minds which are themselves an axiomatic consequence of sticking your head up your arse so you can only consult with your own entrails.

What we should do is reduce our demand. Sit on the porch reading Grandad's library and learn something rather than rushing around all over the place and learning nothing except how to become exhausted and in the **** at the same time.

Oil would soon be back at £20.

I never read Bonfire of the Vanities. It seemed pointless reading it after a title like that.

I am convinced that we can become energy independent. However, the difficulty lies in penetrating the abject ignorance that prevails in this country, as well as overcoming the entrenched power of the oil companies. Regarding the former, most people think that we will become oil independent, and that the price of gasoline will plummet, by merely drilling offshore. Of course, this view is ridiculous.

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Advocate wrote:

Spendy, how did fm manage to block your posts?

It's called the "grease monkey." You put it in your browser. So far, I prefer to sort fools manually.

Advocate wrote:

I am convinced that we can become energy independent.

This is good, because we certainly have the ability.

Advocate wrote:

However, the difficulty lies in penetrating the abject ignorance that prevails in this country, as well as overcoming the entrenched power of the oil companies.

You should start by taking steps to lessen your own ignorance. A couple hours of Googling the technologies already mentioned here would do wonders for you (and Spendi). Your next statement proves how utterly uninformed you currently are.

Advocate wrote:

Regarding the former, most people think that we will become oil independent, and that the price of gasoline will plummet, by merely drilling offshore. Of course, this view is ridiculous.

"Most people?" Really? I challenge you to quote even one such person that believes such nonsense. This idiotic straw man is what happens when you pontificate from ignorance. I suggest you spend more time reducing your own ignorance and less time displaying it.

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O'Bill, it is really not worth my time rebutting a moron who thinks this country can easily accommodate a couple of billion immigrants, and that all the world's water shortages can be eliminated through desalinization. I think you may have been eating to much greasy food in your restaurant.

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Bill- slagging everybody off isn't going to cause any effects worth a blow.

I asked you a question yesterday about the number of NPPs you think will be needed to replace 50% of your 2004 oil consumption.

I've asked you one today about the economic feasibility of NPPs with oil at $60, say.

No wonder you think fm is an expert. You're two of a kind. I doubt you could run a bingo session between you never mind a national energy policy.

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Bill wrote-

Quote:

It's called the "grease monkey."

An apt name.

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Notice how the advocate of idiocy cannot furnish one single quote to back up his claim about what most people think. Pathetic.

spendius wrote:

Bill- slagging everybody off isn't going to cause any effects worth a blow.

I asked you a question yesterday about the number of NPPs you think will be needed to replace 50% of your 2004 oil consumption.

I do not know and didn't feel like doing your homework. If you have a point to make that requires that information; look it up and do the math yourself.

spendius wrote:

I've asked you one today about the economic feasibility of NPPs with oil at $60, say.

A. Today, Oil isn't much in competition with other forms of electricity production. I don't remember seeing any Oil-fired powered plants.
B. If you'd read what I wrote the other day; you'd already know that I believe any significant drops in the price of gasoline should be offset by additional taxes that in turn should be used to subsidize the development of alternatives. Wouldn't this eliminate the potential problems you alluded to?

spendius wrote:

No wonder you think fm is an expert. You're two of a kind. I doubt you could run a bingo session between you never mind a national energy policy.

Says the fella who thinks the dozens of people killed at a reactor that would never have been licensed here (Chernobyl), and the ZERO even injured at TMI are cause not to transition away from fossil fuels whose mining, drilling, and transportation dangers, kill thousands (not to even mention the environmental disaster that some believe their use creates). You won't be getting my vote.

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O'Bill, you really deny you made the statements I attributed to you? If so, that makes you a big liar on top of your abject ignorance and stupidity.

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Advocate wrote:

O'Bill, you really deny you made the statements I attributed to you? If so, that makes you a big liar on top of your abject ignorance and stupidity.

Quote me moron, and your enormous straw man will be as obvious as your lack of integrity in argument.

This, btw, is what Advocate is trying to distract himself away from:

O'Bill wrote:

Advocate wrote:
Regarding the former, most people think that we will become oil independent, and that the price of gasoline will plummet, by merely drilling offshore. Of course, this view is ridiculous.
"Most people?" Really? I challenge you to quote even one such person that believes such nonsense. This idiotic straw man is what happens when you pontificate from ignorance. I suggest you spend more time reducing your own ignorance and less time displaying it.

Still waiting for one single, solitary example of "most people." You are a lame joke.

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Bill wrote-

Quote:

Notice how the advocate of idiocy cannot furnish one single quote to back up his claim about what most people think. Pathetic.

I don't know what that means. If "idiocy" is a reference to another thread then most people in the US are against atheism. And I have made no claims on this thread that I know of. I have simply asked a few questions of those who are making claims.

When a question of such a nature is snubbed on the grounds that you don't do my homework, for which I am thankful, a suspicion arises that you don't know the answer. And you should have some idea because to proceed without knowing how many NPPs are required is to mislead people. One cannot be in favour of NPPs in the abstract.

It isn't a point I'm making. It's a point everybody wants to know the answer to. How many NPPs are you promoting and what effect will the number have on competitive energy production.

Quote:

Today, Oil isn't much in competition with other forms of electricity production. I don't remember seeing any Oil-fired powered plants.

Come on Bill. You're being pedantic. Oil is liquid coal. And to replace 50% of US oil consumption I assumed you were envisaging electric cars and such like.

Quote:

If you'd read what I wrote the other day; you'd already know that I believe any significant drops in the price of gasoline should be offset by additional taxes that in turn should be used to subsidize the development of alternatives. Wouldn't this eliminate the potential problems you alluded to?

That's a political question. I have no idea whether Americans would vote in such a policy. I'm inclined to doubt it. I think falls in the gasoline price would be offset by higher house prices and retail sales and various other things in a very complex coalition of choices.

I can't see that eliminating the problems I mentioned. Why would it?

Quote:

Says the fella who thinks the dozens of people killed at a reactor that would never have been licensed here (Chernobyl), and the ZERO even injured at TMI are cause not to transition away from fossil fuels whose mining, drilling, and transportation dangers, kill thousands (not to even mention the environmental disaster that some believe their use creates).

I can see why you wouldn't vote for somebody who said things you don't understand.

Serious politicians only pay lip service to how many people are dead. What matters about Chernobyl is not the dead, heroes all, but the long term devastation of vast areas of land, including parts of the UK, and the public perception of NPPs as a result. I never mentioned TMI. I didn't even mention the Windscale event which cost the agricultural industry in the region (i.e. the government) a very large amount of money and which disrupted lifestyles and put the fear of God into everybody. And they were lucky with the wind direction.

We started on this with fm's bravado assertion that NPPs were safe. By saying such a thing, with you sat at his side nodding, he put himself in the position of the man come to sell the policy to a wary public. I am playing the part of a bloke in the front row at the gig. You belong on the top table. Not me. I have already admitted to not knowing what's the best in these matters.

I'm not making policy. You are. You are supposed to answer questions from members of the public.

And I'm not up for election so it doesn't matter whether you won't be voting for me.

I'd make a damn good President though. Gas rationing would be first on the list. You get 10 gallons each a month and you can make a market in it. And a currency with the coupons. That would make OPEC **** itself.
I accept that there's a few loose strings to be tied up. That would be the job of my underlings. If you wish to give a G1 coupon each to the rescue services that would be up to you.

And I would let the schools teach what they want. There would be few anti-ID schools and the ones there were would be dens of iniquity and vice ridden degeneracy as the pupils threw Darwin back into their teacher's faces.

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The "Advocate of Idiocy" was intended for Advocate, who continues to not provide a single quote to back up his claims about what "most people think." No surprises there. Instead; he's trying to resurrect a long ago burned up straw man that he keeps forgetting never stands... and astonishingly still continues to deny that large-scale desalination is already a reality. The moron didn't think it was possible and despite reams of proof, still makes reference to it as if it were some outlandish pipe dream. Hence it is his own brand of idiocy he must be advocating.

How many Nuke plants is an interesting question, but you falsely put the burden on me to answer it. I'm not of the belief that coal fired plants will be completely replaced... and contrary to your claim; I do not need to know how many would be necessary to do the whole job. My point is simple: More= Better. As in: More clean Energy= Less Dirty Energy AND Less dependency. I don't have time to answer your whole post now, though, sorry.

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

Advocate wrote:
Spendy, how did fm manage to block your posts?
It's called the "grease monkey." You put it in your browser. So far, I prefer to sort fools manually.

Do you sort your own posts out, Bill?

Sorry to slap you up the side of the head with that comment, but seriously, I think you deserve some of your own medicine once in a while, as you love to dish it out, you should be able to take it when you deserve it too.

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There are just as many oil field geologists who dont buy the "peak oil" concept of M King Hubbert. (and not for the crazy iseas of abiogenic oil either). Since most petroleum reservoirs are in areas where the reservoir rocks are folded by compression, there are many deeper, heretofore untested fields. The Black River Fm was just a section. It became a gas produces by dumb seismic section luck. The gas was found at extremem depths and has tipped off the gas industry so that there is now a boom in gas drilling throughout N America. If the plays show up as they are expected, we will have enough gfas to run our country for about 200 years (and thats with gas fired powers plants) . This is a two part issue.

1Its good because , well 200 years of anything is good

2 Its Bd because we will, true to form, wait until December 25 of the 199th year to be worried about the end of gas.

Jimmy Cartyer as the only leader who had the cojones to tell it like it was and to get us thinking about the "end of oil" and to begin planning for the next energy fazes. Nobody listened to him. Instead, Reagan took all the incentives off. and delayed any progress for at least 20 years

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What's up with delaying progress fm?

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You tell us Spendi... Religionists have been the experts at that line of thinking.

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farmerman wrote:

Jimmy Cartyer as the only leader who had the cojones to tell it like it was and to get us thinking about the "end of oil" and to begin planning for the next energy fazes. Nobody listened to him. Instead, Reagan took all the incentives off. and delayed any progress for at least 20 years

Every president in my memory since the oil embargo of the early 70's has talked about alternative energy, but truth is, oil has been the cheapest, most efficient source for many uses. Jimmy Carter's research program was basically useless and a waste of money for that reason. Further, we can offer tax incentives and so forth in efforts to direct our path to a different avenue than oil, but there is a limit to how much the government can skew the free market, and if the government tries to alter too much of what the market does according to the laws of supply and demand, then the law of unintended consequences kicks in. I think we are seeing that now on a smaller scale with ethanol.

An illustration of what I am talking about might be if the government says no more building houses with wood, because of presumed environmental reasons. Tax incentives to build with steel, or adobe, or other materials could be utilized, all of which would cost the taxpayer and the consumer more money, simply because wood is still the best and most efficient material for alot of types of construction. Thus shortages of other materials, such as steel, would likely appear along with all the inherent problems with price, etc., in the form of unintended consequences.

There will be more energy phases, but I think we can't get the cart before the horse. Now we are experiencing the normal phase of higher prices, which stimulates research and technological advancement within the market intself, not by government. Necessity is the mother of invention, not the other way around. Price and scarcity will stimulate progress, not the other way around.

Further, oil will not flow freely, then stop suddenly, it will be a gradual process, over a very long period of time, and the length of that period is of course highly debatable. Further, supply will probably never totally be used up, but the price and difficulty of producing will stimulate competing energy sources, while oil becomes more valuable for specific uses. It is safe to predict the use of oil one hundred years from now, so when politicians proclaim that we must wean ourselves off of oil within a decade or two, I would chalk it up to ignorance of reality, plus an ignorance of how the market works.

I have recommended this book many times, but again, Thomas Sowell's book Basic Economics, should be required reading for all politicians.

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This is all just so complicated.

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Oil Vs. Alternative Energy

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