Rising Fuel Costs?

[chriscokid]

When looking for a good scientist, sometimes the smartest one is the laziest.
He will find a way to reach a goal expending the least amount of energy....LOL!

[manxdog]

Well'p here we go again,

Energy is were most of my working life has, is and will be spent. The lack of thought as to solar and wind is what boggles my mind, previously someone mentioned common sense, well it is lacking. To think that wind an energy that is...unreliable and ...testy at best can not become the base of our energy system, are we going to power a jet with a wind turbine, ummm no. I here solar touted, it has a return at an even high investment, so what is needed is the gov. has to POUR money into green energy companys to make them solvent until now they are starting to go bankrupt, by the way there going backrupt with OUR money. No offense to the dirt farmers of the mid-west but ethanol is another negative energy system. More energy to create than energy recieved, again supported by subsidies. Nuclear, excellentenergy return over its life-time but we need to depleat the rods better or develop a way of using fusion rather than fision, now thats a tough one but possible. Oh you also need to remove the stigma from nuclear, good luck!! Theres always steam, cut a tree, renewable, stoke the fire, build the head of steam and away you go. Dang were back to that jet needing to fly.

"fossil fuel", now thats an interesting term, through school we were told that dino's died and left behind oil, but our researchers, albiet not found in the main-stream press, have been finding that the oil we have is not from dino's but may and probably is from good ol' mama earth and the organisms inside her. In short the fields we depleated, dry, years ago are no longer dry but were able to pump again. Does that mean we may not have all the answers, yes. Are you the public going to her the truth, no. Not unless a financial gain or political plus could be had. My last statement may sound cynical but I have found that power and position are the things that "drive" people.

In short, the world is not "running out of oil" academia, the press and politicians, who don't want to be castegated by the media, will tell you different but we have many centuries of "fossil fuel" left. I think that finding a fuel system that we can depend on and has a great return on investment is where our brain energy should go. My choice is a think tank of scientists, like the Manhatten project, to develop fusion, inexpensively.

Divorce the gov from the scientist. Remember thats how we ended up with "global warming" by the gov giving grant money if a scientist could show global warming. Scientist selling there souls for money. I guess it s no different than any one else it just rubs me wrong to have political scientist, financial scientist, and finally yet small in numbers the true scientist who take no money or grants with strings attached or try to be on a board or TV and get accolades from there colleagues but just give the facts and live with the results.

Sorry for the rant but... I'm sure theres some yellow iron in there somewhere

CMD

nothing to apologise for in my opinion, your post has made interesting reading.
your right about the scientists to. theres so much to this subject I dont even know where to start, if we narrow it down to cars, machinery,planes etc, Ive always thought there must be better ways to power them than fossil fuels and Im sure there must have been some ingenius designs the designers/creators of which would be now very rich or very dead such is the state of the world today, run by greed and the love of money. I mean the technical advances in just about everything you can think of and a car still has a collection of metal parts clanking around to propel it? ok, theres a lot more to a modern engine now in every aspect of it, but it still works on a principle from over a hundred years ago! you cant say that in all that time nobody has come up with a better idea?
Im not a tree hugger and love petrol (sorry, gasoline!) engines.
we pay $10.80 a gallon (if Ive worked it out right!) over here and its proberly the only thing keeping our economy afloat.
I would love the idea of things being economic to run but the goverment just wouldnt have it, needs its money to come from somewhere to pay for is cock ups.
when you mention nuclear fusion, Im sorry but all I can picture right now is a certain car from a great set of films and everybody pouring their rubbish into their cars to make them go! would look strange on the front of my R2!
all we can do is bitch about it and wait for society as it is to collapse and go back to the middle ages.
feel better now!
Il now shut up till I can think of something smart to say!

[edb]

Hi Team,
this came in an Email this morning--food for thought.

Here are the statistics on the cost of power generation in 2010 from the Australian Government’s own Productivity Commission:

Coal fired power station $79 per kw/h (kilowatt/hour)

Gas fired power station $97 per kw/h – or 1.2 times the cost of coal power

Wind farm power $1502 per kw/h – or 19 (nineteen) times the cost of coal power

Solar power $4004 per kw/h – or 50 (fifty) times the cost of coal power

I wonder why these stats are not in the recent Carbon Tax Government brochure; they are certain to warm the hearts of those who pay the electricity bills.


Now let us look at a country which has adopted The Green thing ~ Spain.

The new "green economy" in Spain has been a total flop. Socialist leaders promised that implementing hardcore restrictions on carbon emissions and forcing the nation over to a "green economy" would result in a flood of "green jobs". But that simply did not happen. In fact, a leaked internal assessment produced by the government of Spain reveals that the "green economy" has been an absolute economic nightmare <http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/spains-green-policies-an-economic-disaster/> for that nation. Energy prices have skyrocketed in Spain and the new "green economy" in that nation has actually lost more than two jobs for every job that it has created. But Spain so far seems unwilling to undo all of the crazy regulations that they have implemented.

Spain's national debt is so onerous that they are now caught in a debt spiral where anything they do will harm the economy. If they cut government expenditures in an effort to get debt under control it will devastate economic growth and crush badly needed tax revenues. But if the Spanish government keeps borrowing money their credit rating will continue to decline and they will almost certainly default. The truth is that the Spanish government is caught in a "no win" situation.


AND this is what will happen here in Australia if this carbon tax is implemented, only worse because what is proposed in carbon tax here will cost us 10 times what the EU raises.

[fastline]

I think what is mostly missed here is ANY ambition to change. Hovering around current figures as an excuse to rely on black crude until we die is pretty narrow. The idea that crude regenerates is unfounded and holds no geological weight at all. Again, I agree that fossil fuels have to be used but what everyone seems to be missing here is just because it does not work today, does NOT mean it cannot work tomorrow.

I stated solar facts not because it makes financial sense today, but because as an engineer, I hover around energy like a drunk rat. The Sun produces it free and clear. We have not even TOUCHED the surface of solar I assure you. Everything I preach might seem like a pipe dream but please raise your hands if I told you 30yrs ago that we can make a phone that will fit in your pocket, go anywhere, and be able to do your banking while sitting on your boat, you would have believed me????

Compare the computer from only 20yrs ago to today. If America makes a conscious stride towards a goal, it WILL happen. Energy is energy. We miss a BUNCH of it because we cannot harness it. I am certainly not implying that everyone should suck up a HUGE bill for renewable energy because that will not happen BUT, if I asked you just 15yrs ago if you thought 5 dollar gasoline was possible, how would you answer? It is HERE people. I have a TON of data, ideas, and common sense practice. Matter of fact, go find me a modern coal shovel that is not electric. Electric has some very strong points and despite the knocks on electric, the ONLY hold back on electric is storage in which we have move mountains in just the last 5 yrs.

Imagine a fuel cell the size of your ancient lead acid starter batter that holds 1M watts and will charge in 15seconds, emit zero emissions, and provide all the torque you could need. It is NOT a pipe dream, it is just a goal that has yet to be met. I might be speaking on deaf ears on this but again, I run numbers every day and we are not as far away as some people think. You just have to think outside the box a bit.

[willitrun]

we knew this was coming back in the 70's when opec cut us off. we've never had a real energy policy. the u.s. needs to get off it's duff and get on with it. we're smarter than this.

[rjh-md]

Yes the US does need a smart energy policy desperatly ,as everyone can see whats happening now .Its been the failure of that missing policy by this current adminstration in Washington that has intensiflyed that problem .The idea that we could change to solar ,wind etc by switching on a switch and making it happening by pouring tons of tax payer money into these industies only to watch them fail dosen't seem to solve the problem.
We need to explore and use our fossil fuels NOW ! Let private industry develop alternate energy sources as science addes them suscessifully to the market place ,with out government politics that produce croney capitalism ,and waistes our money . Thats always been the real sucess story in the USA.

[fastline]

NASA is a specific organization I would like to see working on the issues. They are already funded and have ALL the required skills and equipment. They single handedly changed the USA with new developments. Many of the products we use today are because of NASA. I know any transition will take 10yrs plus but it is the start that counts.

I think wasting tax payer dollars and our ag resources on corn Ethanol is ridiculous. It is obvious that it will never be a viable energy source. Hydrogen has more going for it than Ethanol....

[Catmandu]

NASA are one of the Government scientists I was talking about. We have refuted many statements they have purported to be fact, yet when challenged the scietific evidence wasn't available, just theorems. Now if the congressional overseers didn't hear or read what their constituents required, then NASA would loose funding. So you lie to keep your job,....that is the government science so many of us loath.

Your staement that solar is freee fails to understand the value of; land, equipent, infrastructure, lifetime obsolesence, failure rate and maintenence.

The fact that the puddles are filling up refuted the geological surveys. Remeber when we punched our first puddle on the slope we had 20yrs that was in 1972...

That dragline shovel is run by electric, generated by,...coal.

Fishing vessel runs on electric drive motors generated by,...diesel, you can run the diesel motor at a even rpm leveling out its efficiency, but its still diesel. Electric motors have a place just not as the primary.

I went to a seminar in 1981 where the professor was discussing how the cars in 10yrs will use batteries that can support the car being displayed and only charged once a year. Sounded good but the physics didn't support his dreams. That Doctor of technology is still touting 10yrs and is no closer than he was 30years ago, other than he has recieved grants every year to continue his "reaserch".

Science doesn't lie, just the people disseminating the information.

Common sense needs to be more common and make cents.

CMD

[drujinin]

Well the wife said if I get a new tractor then she wants a new car!
I told her the Prius is not economically viable as the batteries still need to be charged and it doesn't have a long history to prove reliability. I told her she can have a Jetta TDI as the Diesel is more economic than a Gasoline engine or Battery powered car.
Windmills? Still not built quite right in the transmission but with new designs on the generators.
Solar Panels? New less expensive, slightly less efficient designs coming out that are cheaper to manufacture.
Natural Gas? Will be cheap for a while but will catch up as pipelines are laid to every house in the Eastern US.
Ethonal? Yeah, I can't figure that out either, production cost wise.
Soybean oil? Better but still costs to produce.

Anyways, I get the Diesel tractor, now to decide which one?

Jeff

[dpendzic]

"Well the wife said if I get a new tractor then she wants a new car!"

BUY AMERICAN!!