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The Red Tape to build Nuclear plants is the biggest obstacle to their construction.
Coal was used to power trains decades before Diesel locomotives and the United States has enough Coal to provide power for many years. The difficulty with burning all that Coal would be increased air pollution.
Wind Power and Solar power are difficult to store. When an affordable battery is invented that can store HUGE amounts of electricity, wind and solar could contribute significantly toward solving our energy problems.
GL2
I'm sure the disastor in Japan with the quake, given that some of those here are of the same design, will keep nuclear a last ditch possibility over anything else for a long long time. And when you irradiate all that water, just where do you store it over time if there were a lot of such plants? The problems with other forms are more immedicate, but while people see them now, the payoff with nuclear will come down the road and so it seems 'safer'. There is a cost to everything.
In the end, wind and solar will be the winners since they won't ever run out as long as we have any need of electrical power.
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I was astounded to hear lately that there is more oil in Canada that there is in the middle east. If this is true.....WHY aren't we getting it from there and choking off the money we're giving the middle east?
these could be cool, not sure how truly feasible they are. if they could replace all our transport trucks, that would rock! imagine how much less traffic!
but, would there be enough helium for tens of thousands of these balloons? looks like we have alot in the US
About 80 percent of the world's helium is in the United States. In 1996, 20 U.S. plants produced helium from gas wells. About 86 percent of U.S. helium comes from five large underground regions: the Hugoton Field that lies beneath Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas; the Keyes Field in Oklahoma; the Panhandle and Cliffside Fields in Texas; and the Ridley Ridge area in Wyoming.
woot woot!
could be a way for the US to create alot of new jobs. But, as with so many things, this idea will probably be ignored...
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I was astounded to hear lately that there is more oil in Canada that there is in the middle east. If this is true.....WHY aren't we getting it from there and choking off the money we're giving the middle east?
not as easy to mine/refine. and from what I have read, even if they went into a full massive production mode, it would barely make a dent in our needs.
most people dont understand how much we in the US actually use per day. we use roughly 19,148,000 barrels/day!
also, oil is sold to the world. unless we want to make the oil companies state run (thats socialism people!!!) we cant dictate who the oil is sold to. it goes on the world market.
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I was astounded to hear lately that there is more oil in Canada that there is in the middle east. If this is true.....WHY aren't we getting it from there and choking off the money we're giving the middle east?
It is a very time consuming and difficult process to achieve the green light from the dozens of governmental entities who get a vote on building an oil pipeline from Canada to US refineries, and extremely difficult to impossible to achieve a green light from many of the anti-growth and environmental NGOs who have undue influence on governmental regulators.
I'm hopeful that within 20 years there really will be a pipeline to carry oil from Canada to the USA.
Histories channels moderna marvels has a good program on crude and just why it know as the reason behind modern industrialzation.It wil take decdes to even think about replacing the vast number ofd prducts based on it. The usage is amazing and nohting now is really wasted in a barrel.
In 1975 I took a college class called 'Energy and the Environment.' It was in the physics dept, and the instructor was a rather beefy guy of around 32 yrs-old, who had a shaved head, wire-rimmed tinted glasses, and usually wore leisure suits to class.
He told us authoritatively s that we had about 40 years supply of oil left in the world. I remember going home on the train soon thereafter, and excitedly asking my dad, who worked for the state DOT, 'what are we going to do with all the roads and bridges in 40 years when we run out of oil?'
I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I was astounded to hear lately that there is more oil in Canada that there is in the middle east. If this is true.....WHY aren't we getting it from there and choking off the money we're giving the middle east?
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I live in Nebraska and one of the hot button issues right now is the Keystone Pipeline. A Canadian company wants to build a pipeline to carry Oil Tar Sands from Alberta to the Gulf Coast of Texas. The idiots in charge want to put it across the Western Nebraska Sandhills! This area is porous sand with the Ogallala Aquifer underneath it. THE WORST ROUTE possible. I am not a GREEN Nut but even I think this is complete idiocy. They could reroute it a hundred fifty miles East and put it in across land with less permeable soils but that would raise the costs significantly. A major oil spill in the Sandhills could be an even bigger disaster than the BP blowout. Google Sandhills and Keystone pipeline for more details.
Saw a discussio with some oil men and geologist about the shell oil in Texas and north Detoka. They thought at first the natural gas would be easy to extract but not the oil. But they have discovered it can pretty ealiy be done now. They said their is enough oil there to actuallly cut our consumption of foreign crudeby 50% in ten year when developed. That is a trillion dollars appoximately a year not shipped overseas .They said for years to come after that it would change the eqaution of the oil industry.Bascaically with the econmy driven by crude and its by prducts that would take centuries to replace ;if they could or at reasonable cost; that is great news.Like alwqays we are goig to have to do things we would prefer nt to if we are to survive nayhting like conditions now.
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