Abundant Natural Gas and Oil Are Putting the Kibosh on Clean Energy

When the first automobile was sold - people didn't go out and burn all the buggies and shoot all the horses. The growth of that transportation option was gradual and began with the rich and then migrated down through the economic layers.

The transition from fossil fuels to green energy can work the same way - with a gradual increase in use and acceptance. Alternative energy cars will gain in sales if they prove themselves with reliability over time and savings, too. You can't force public opinion to favor them - you have to let it evolve.

Increased availability of fossil fuels now won't stop the progress of green energy. Creating artificial shortages by limiting use of available natural energy sources could cause more problems than it solves.

In time, the rising costs of dwindling fossil fuel supplies will lead naturally to use of alternative energy. By that time, green energy development will hopefully be ready to take over. You can't rush the future any more than you can change the past.

Diesel engines were originally designed to run on things like peanut oil (and still can) - re-imagine how the world economy would have turned out until today, had vegetable oils been primarily used and cultivated as many other alternatives for renewable fuel sources could have...

Gasoline was burned off as a useless by-product of oil production initially...until the oil boys like Rockefeller went...hmmm, wait a minute...

Tar sand mining in Canada is a big reason the US is importing less oil from the Middle East. I really hope you'll spend 11 minutes and watch this video to see what the US hunger for oil is doing to Canada:

Oil use is a problem - but other energies were suppressed when people figured out how rich they could get from it. Many members or congress are making personal sums of 5 and 6 figures yearly from oil companies. Speculators, not conservation, is what is driving prices now.

Kay is right, though - you can't just stop and switch on a dime. We're in a very deep economic crisis. You take people's means to get to work, you take more of the money they work for, and it's not going to solve much. How many can afford to buy a new car right now? How many can afford to convert the car they have? If a person can afford it, they should do it, but really - can you tell a whole nation of people "okay, we need to conserve, so you are SOL if you need to drive the car you have."

Better usage of crop land for ethanol - natural grasses that can be harvested many times compared to once a year - New cars that run on alternative power. - return to natural fibers for bags instead of plastic (or wood), even just little savings like people each driving one fewer gallons of gas a week can add up to big savings. (Even if only 1/3 of Americans drive, that's 100 million gallons a WEEK). What if we started growing hemp for cloth and stopped using oil for synthetic fibers? What if everyone who had the means had solar and a windmill installed on their property?

I would say that our first step should be to utilize what we've already done. Alaska pipeline oil was supposed to be for our own country. BP stabbed us in the back and is selling it overseas. So what if we start drilling for more? Are they going to do the same damned thing with it? Why isn't anyone insisting that oil not be exported.

We can't just STOP using oil until the infrastructure to do so is there and our corporations and politicians are NOT going to let that happen until they stop making such furious amounts of money for it.

Right now we need people with the means to do so to buckle down and switch to sustainable power in every way possible to take the load off the grid and help reduce oil usage. The poor are having a hard enough time maintaining right now and sure can't do much when they are struggling just to survive while they watch gas prices climb.

I've never heard anyone ever claim we can get off oil right away. Who is saying this? Maybe if we spend more time focused on what we can do, instead of what we can't do, we'd be a little better off.

There's many things we can do RIGHT NOW to reduce our energy needs. For the firs time in history, gas mileage is the number one factor when people are deciding to buy a new car. This is a good sign, IMO.

We can have energy audits of our homes and find out where our largest energy leaks are. Then start wiith the cheapest remedies first. Sometimes just a few bucks spent on caulking windows can save a small fortune on energy bills.

We can use black shades in winter to collect the sun's heat and white shades in summer to reflect that heat. We can paint roofs black in cold climates and white in warm climates to take even more advantage.

We can use mirrors and refectors to shine more heat onto our homes in winter and away in summer.

We can create solar air heaters and solar water heaters using materials from the junk yard and recycle stations.

We can drive a little less and alot smarter.

We can encourage more of a 24 hour work day. Many electric generators at the power companies run all night, when there's little demand, simply because it takes more energy to start and stop them than it does to just let them run. This means for a good part of the day, much of this energy isn't being used.

Kurt - business use of energy is a pet peeve of mine. There's a car lot in Idaho that has enough lights on at night to power half of a smaller town. It's literally like Noon there all night - they have a fence and I'm sure, security features. They could easily cut down 3/4 of those lights and still be safe. There's a lobby of a medical building - no inhabitants at night - that has the entire stairway and lobby completely lit all night when only one or two lights at exits for safety would allow anyone going in during an emergency to see just fine until they got where they could turn on other necessary lights.

Those corporations that received money from the gov for alternative energy, then went bankrupt and moved offshore or were sitting offshore to begin with and wasted the money before bankrupting should be banned from selling ANYTHING in this country ever again.



Businesses need to get a lot smarter about recycling yet. So do households.

People are becoming aware - things are starting to move in the right direction.

I thought about going to solar-powered electricity on my house, and what I found was that it would take me almost 20 years to recoup the cost.

$1500 in permit costs, and another $3500 in contractor costs, both completely ridiculous. The contractor costs are what chapped me the most. Not because I mind paying someone for doing something, but because I'm not allowed to do something that I know how to do, because of state licensing laws. And since the county I live in has bi-yearly eye-in-the-sky mapping of property for assessment purposes, I stand a better than even chance of getting popped if I were to go the 'rugged individual' route and do it without permits.

To top it off, where I live, or so I am told, the power company is not required to reimburse me for power that flows back to the grid through my meter. So yeah, I could save some electricity costs during certain times of the year, but any excess that I don't use doesn't go "in the bank" for me to draw on later.

So, I'll stick with what I have.

BTW, sealing up a house completely is so totally unhealthy. A house needs fresh air.

Steve - Nampa right off the main Highway? That's the one.

Is crime getting worse out there? I love Idaho but won't move back to the Boise area until they take care of that gang crap going on in Caldwell and Nampa. Of course - I probably won't go back to that area anyhow. I have my eye on Valley County.

As some of you pointed out the big question is how to make green energy sources profitable.

The energy market is just the BIGGEST market in the world. Getting free energy would (for now) be the end of the monetary system and society has we know it.

I itty that the, self called most (or only) intelligent organism on the planet and most likely on the solar system, does only look to profits and not to the wellbeing of all and the planet as one. As Agent Smith (The Matrix, 1999) said talking to Morpheus we are a virus to this planet we do not establish an equilibrium with natural resources around us. We change the planet as we want and do care about the future...

I'm starting on IM to try and make a difference

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