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Short Wave Sportfishing[_2_]

On Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:28:26 -0500, wrote:

On Tue, 05 Aug 2008 07:48:51 -0400, D.Duck wrote:

Now if we could only get some drilling going in the Gulf or on the
mainland. What's with this Ballken field in Montana/ND I've been reading
about?

Do you mean the Bakken Formation that was discovered in 1951? Lots of
oil there, but with current technology most of it will stay there.

We are not going to drill our way out of this. In this country, oil
production peaked in the early '70s. We are still the third largest oil
producing country, yet we have to import more than 1/2 our oil. Seems to
me, there is a hell of a lot more we can do on the conservation side,
than on the producing side.

I don't disagree - we can't "drill" out of the mess we're in.

However we can, and must, attempt to ease the crush on the economy,
jobs and lives by utilizing what we have to solve our own problems
rather than rely on countries who are antithetical to our unique place
in history. That means drilling until we can develop other methods of
supplying the energy.

It's basic - the world runs on energy produced by fossil fuels.
Period. At this period of time, we have nothing to replace fossil
fuels. We can talk about wind power and solar power all we want - the
plain truth is unless and until we develop solid alternatives, we have
to use fossil fuels - oil/coal - there simply is no other mass
replacement for them. Meaning we have to drill.

What is interesting to me about this issue is that up until two years
ago, including one regular here who I respect greatly, peak oil theory
was all the rage. Oil hits $150 a barrel and now we're awash in oil -
there's freakin' oil everywhere. The Bakken Field is an older field -
you are correct. What you apparently don't know is that while the
original field is fairly well played out, the field UNDER the old
field is huge - 400 Billion (with a B) barrels of oil that can be
recovered with new vertical/horizontal drilling techniques.

There is another problem with alternative resources and it's a curious
dichotomy in terms of ideology. On the one hand, environmentalist -
climate change advocates are telling us we need to get off fossil
fuels. Ok fine. Let's use the Oklahoma/Texas wind corridor as T.
Boone Pickens proposes to generate electricity.

Whoops - can't do that because it's also part of the Mid-American
Flyway for ducks and geese. The largest area of constant wind in the
world and Picken's proposal is being assailed by the very people who
want less use of fossil fuels because of the potential damage to the
flyway. And let's not forget those who oppose the project because it
will change the scenic views and vistas.

In the US, it takes 12 years (and that's a conservative estimate -
there is one proposal by Clearwater to add additional reactor to an
existing site in Texas that will be twenty years into the process) to
get a nuke power plant approved and additional 5 years to actually
build it. Those 12 years are the result of legal challenges - pure
and simple. We could be entirely off fossil fuels in the US for power
generation by now if only...

The problem is this - there is no clearly defined energy policy - the
Democrats don't have one, the Republicans don't have one and the
environmentalists - climate change advocates don't have one. All sides
of the issue are at logger heads over inconsistent and frankly stupid
concepts and outdated theories of social progress.

I'll leave you with this thought. Recently, MIT researchers developed
a process by which solar panels were engineered using the process of
photosynthesis and two common chemicals to split water into oxygen and
hydrogen and a simple method of using the product into fuel cells -
the solar panels work during the day and the fuel cell works during
cloudy days or at night. Sounds like a real benefit to mankind
doesn't it?

Here's the hitch - there is no way to tax sun power. In short we
won't see this technology put into production because the power from
the sun can't be taxed. In short, there is no "use" tax on free power.

You heard it here first. :)