Why does everyone keep implying that we we "Stop depending on Oil"--as if we have a CHOICE!?

Question

Please, if their is some other secret energy agent laying dormant out there, and in great (and i mean GREAT) quantity, please let me know.

Answer 1

We do have other options.  We put a man on the moon in ten years.  We could get off oil relatively easily.  But both parties are too beholden to oil money to actually do anything.

So the politicians talk about the ethanol scam and the retards talk about ANWR, meanwhile we still have $3 gas and are sending money to terrorists.

If we'd have listened to the "dirty hippies" 40 years ago we wouldn't be in this mess.

Answer 2

There's a joke about two men falling off a cliff, as one man with a parachute falls past the other, he notices that he is not wearing a parachute, and so he asked the only really relevant question "Did you jump or were you pushed?".

The plain fact that we are reaching a peak in light sweet crude is plain to see (see www.theoildrum.com).

The alternative sources (tar sands etc), could keep things going for another few decades perhaps but our appetites are increasing so our demand upon these resources will increase as well. Good estimates suggest that by 2030, we are in a much less friendly environment for oil production / dependency.

As it stands we already have to compromise our national interest to be captive to capricious authoritarian or terroristic regimes. This circumstance therefore does not change until WE choose to change it.

For one, I decided after 9/11 that a hybrid car and shorter commute were easily accomplished steps I could take to lessen my dependency.

As a nation however, we need to acknowledge that we use increasing - not decreasing quantities of oil.

Japan, by contrast, put massive investment into public infrastructure (mass transit, and nuclear & geothermal energy) such that they have used about 6 million barrels per day since the 1970's).

In the US, we use more than twice that (about 14million barrels per day as of 2004) our use is doubling every 10-15 years, so we aren't even headed in the right direction, while that doesn't include our domestic production as well, we need to completely rethink our situation.

No more sprawling Mc Mansions or Hummers, - 5 or 6 dollar gas may fix that problem naturally. However, we need to redevelop our economy around the idea of high-energy production centers in or near cities, hot-rock geothermal, coal and nuclear primarily, solar and wind etc, in more rural / sunny areas where appropriate.

Personally, having researched something into the idea of fusion, while it's possible that a fusion reactor is possible to create or come online in the next 25 years, it is to my mind a speculative energy systems, and have by necessity - no part in this plan since we are in the position of having to actually restructure our economy and lives around the existing crop of technologies.

For my money, the book "The Long Emergency" written by James Kunstler paints a pretty dismal perspective on the overall prospect of the US publics' ability to successfully transition to a more sustainable energy economy.

I personally do not share his pessimistic view, I do not however discount that there will be pain and possibly some noticeable austerity in our future, rather than the cornucopian perspective we have held to for nearly 90 years.

So in the end, we could choose - like Japan or Germany or other industrialized "first world" nations to intentionally transition our economy, OR we could just choose to run the engine of our economy as is or with slight modification until it sputters and falters at a time and in a manner not of our choosing.

The choice seems obvious enough, we must accept these costs / alternatives, because we have a stark future otherwise.

Answer 3

We need to put the fuel prices up or the Chinese will take over.

They cannot send cheap goods if it costs too much to export in fuel costs.

Answer 4

You are right, we don't have a choice. The oil companies are so engraved in our economy, it will be hard to make the switch.

We need government regulation and standards for the oil companies. We need the scientific community to research more renewable energy machines and put them on the market. The government won't regulate the oil companies since the economy depends a lot on them, and the economy is what powers the government (low economy=low income=less taxes). Scientists have the same fears about the economy.

I don't think we need a different energy source but rather more efficiency for the renewable power sources we already have.

It is possible to have energy efficiency up to 80% if we recalculate pi and apply it toward electron spins.

The value of pi is found in many equations that are related to energy. Our current pi has more than a billion decimal values. It keeps going on and on. We only use two of these billion decimal values.

The smallest miscalculation can throw something like an electron off from using its full potential. Electrons are very, very small.

There are a few other renewable energy sources we have the potential to tap into. Harnessing magnetic energy and heat in the higher atmospheres are those sources.

Answer 5

i have no clue how far into this they are...but eventually we could use water...and sooner than that hydrogen engines. And i have no clue what some of u r talking about...some hybrids look really cool, ( and sorry if i mixed up a hybrid with a Phev, im not totally sure on some of the cars that ive seen)

Answer 6

i'm with you in that one, but we can use wind and solar for electricity, but then there are limitations in that. and for vehicles unless some one buy me a freaking ugly hybrid or give me money for a tesla roadster i'm driving my v8 q45 which gets less than 20mpg

Answer 7

Yes there is other energy and lots of it. The problem of energy and polution is poor engineering and not a lack of supply. All the energy needed by humans can be generated by growing biomass and making oil. The major polution source is also poor engineering and can be fixed by doing new design work on how resources are used. For example the use of landfills should be replaces by recycling everything into raw material. Just about every everything is being done now is being done wrong nd its mostly because of poor engineering.

Answer 8

When oil runs out we will be forced to stop using it. That may be in 100 years or it may be sooner or later, but eventually it WILL run out. So we better get busy NOW to find alternatives before it is too late!

Answer 9

The bad news is, there is no great secret energy supply.  The good news is, we don't need one.

What do you mean, "as if we have a CHOICE!?"  Of course we have a choice.  People CHOSE to do silly things like buying houses 60 miles away from their jobs, and then buying 15-MPG trucks to get there and back.  We could have CHOSEN to do differently.

Even from where we are today, we could switch most of our energy demand from motor fuel to electricity (see links below to the Aptera, Venture One and Tango).  The remaining needs would be small enough to supply from biofuels.

I'm all for telling OPEC to take a hike, and Hugo Chavez to use his nasty heavy gunk on his moustache because WE don't want it.  Aren't you?

Answer 10

We do have choices, many people are off grid, meeting their own energy needs. An increasing number of people have solar panels, wind turbines, grow and use their own timber etc.

It is the DEPENDING on oil that is key because this says more about conservation of energy to me. We all need to use less oil, take personal responsibility for our own use and save a few pounds too. Eventually other technologies will become more affordable as more and more people convert to renewable energy sources and Government's invest more in the infrastructure.

So the message is do what you can and CONSERVE energy.

Answer 11

We should try out the renewable forms of energy more and more, like Europe.

Answer 12

Why did your government and your people insist on destroying your entire country with awful asphalt and vehicles?  You had other forms of transportation available in the past.  Those forms did not burn up the atmosphere.  If you agree to be bound by an illegal government you will pay the price as a culpable criminal.  And when your children ask you why you behaved such tell them you are a vain, greedy pc. of sh-t American.

Answer 13

NUCLEAR POWA!!!!!!

Lol. Yea... We should keep gas and oil for transportation but switch electricity and heating to Nuclear Power. It is alot safer now then it used to be.

Also... We should have voluntary solar heating and power to keep from electric gridlock and power outages.

Answer 14

you are absolutely correct.  so far, we do not have a different energy producing product that doesn't cost more in energy to make it.  in other words, look at hydrogen.  it takes a LOT of power to separate out pure hydrogen from H2O--it takes more power fueled by the evil petrol products to get the hydrogen out purified than it's worth.  

so far, no one has come up with an invention that could use wind power or solar power that would possibly be strong enough to get pure hydrogen.  no, so far, there are no other energy producing products that power our whole society than those made from petroleum, gas, and coal (all part of the same process that made petroleum, only different).  

i saw a real interesting program on cable TV this past week about what would happen when we do begin to run out of oil.  (it's not that it will vanish, it's that what is left of it will just be too expensive to take out of the earth and rocks that hold it.  also, the EPA refuses to allow drilling in the ocean off FL, for example, where there are vast amounts of oil).  

the program goes into ALL the different ways that we depend on oil.  think of it:  you use it to get to and from work.  companies use it to ship products, including food.  farmers use it to power machinery that makes farming easier.  if they couldn't use that equipment, it would be so much harder to get food to the public.  then it has to be trucked, and it must be refrigerated.  business meetings are often held in distant places where workers must fly to.  (i have such a problem with the recent UN meeting that was held in BALI, indonesia!  all those hot shots that went to that conference, flying there, staying in air conditioned rooms, living the life of riley, but forming a "consensus" that makes the rest of us seem inconsiderate to this planet when they could just have easily telecommunicated!!!).  

just think of your life without oil.  it sure would be different!  in fact, the entire world economy would collapse.  it would be madness.  there would be riots and looting and crime to take, take, and take some more.  this thinking reminds me of the movie Road Warrior.  

i'm sure that nuclear power plants will go back on line real soon, to produce electricity.  but who is to say that there will never be another chernobyl?  look at what happened there, and is still happening from radiation poisoning.  personally, i think those that are backing nuclear power plants are nuts.  but that is simply my opinion.  

think also of how little we know about how to live off the land if everything were to go into chaos over oil.  can you imagine if a terrorist were to set off explosions in the oil fields in saudi???  it could happen, and then we are going to fall to our knees.  the whole world will go into depression and starvation.  

nope, i totally agree with you.  right now we are so dependent on oil as to have it be a ruler, to have it in itself be royalty.  the god of oil.  

i won't get on my bandwagon about the falseness that's contained n all the papers of those of the "consensus."  but i will say that perhaps we are going to have to synthesize oil for a while using plants (similar to synthesizing diamonds--i'm very surprised that some entrepreneur that wants to get very rich is not already doing this, because it could be done).  is that good for the planet?  no.  but what way out of the dilemma is there?  

i'm glad you asked this question.  it is excellent.