It is common belief that the use of gasoline in the internal combustion engine and the pollution created by obtaining and refining oil is destroying the environment. This flies in the face of the increase in life expectancy since the advent of the automobile and the use of gasoline. In the 100 years of auto growth we experienced a 65% increase in life expectancy Of course many factors contributed to the increase of 28 years to our lives, not the least of which was oil.
Fletcher Hall reminded me of “Better living through chemistry.” many of those chemicals are derived from petroleum. Who can deny that our quality of life has had a remarkable improvement in the past century? No one can deny the fact that we can do better in cleaning up the waters and the air, but at what cost to that quality of life we enjoy? While we are seeking better ways to fuel our economy, is it necessary to destroy that which brought us to this point?
I happen to believe conventional wisdom is often wrong. I doubt bio-fuels will not vanish as some yet untested method , such as hydrogen fuel, becomes possible. In the meanwhile can we please use what we have. We shouldn’t have to stop eating so we can put gas in our cars.
Joel Brandes
Chestertown
Stephan Sonn says
So oil production and products are responsible for the good life
and not to be disturbed by excess environmentalism or new technology
because that will disrupt prosperity. Gosh, I never thought of that .
Three cheers for oil slicks and air pollution, our chemical buddies
Joel Brandes says
Whale oil was once considered a renewable resource as was fire wood. Not only oil, but coal fueled the industrial revolution. Like it or not, we will be dependent on fossil fuels for our future for quite some time. It takes about seventeen years to turn over the automobile fleet. So for at least that long we will be burning gasoline. We are not going to see sailing ships transporting cargo ever again. Can you picture aircraft powered by solor panels?
To be a tree hugger does not require that one ignores reality. It does require some sensible methods of protecting the enviornment while enjoying a high quality of life. I do like being able to travel beyond the county border. I enjoy throwing a switch to heat or cool my home. So “DRILL BABY DRILL.”
Ben Ford says
I guess the life expectancy has nothing to do with penicillin. Or a move to the 40 hour work week. Oh, and by the way, there ARE solar airplanes. Sheesh. Talk about not being able to see the forest for the trees. I don’t think anyone is advocating the idea of doing away with fossil fuels, but to discard the value of future (or current) technology is absurd. “Drill baby, drill”? My god.
joe diamond says
Stephen, Stephen, Stephen….you are not getting it!
If something happens and then something else happens the first thing causes the second….IT IS a common belief!
However, brother Joel missed what really happened first.
It was not the internal combustion engine and the hydrocarbon smog that produced the improvement in world health. It was rock and roll!
Rock music, loud but cool music did it.
Throughout the industrial revolution and the feudal period before it…..No rock music…ergo…….short unhappy life.
Advent of jazz, blues and recorded music…things got better…………..kids now have cool little music sources that can really scream…..life is good!
Post hoc ergo propter hoc don’t ya know!
Joe
Stephan Sonn says
Kinda classic anyway.
Joel Brandes says
Just for the record, it takes twenty eight (28) square miles of solar panels to equal the output of one (1) nuclear plant. five thousnd (5,000) acres of windmills do the job of the one (1) plant. How many birds must die to have those windmills? Forget about the noise they create. Those miles of solar panels would block the sun from reaching crops that could have been planted to feed us. No I’m not going to cut down the trees surrounding my home so the sun can reach the ugly panels on my roof. I chose not to live near a generation plant, so don’t expect me to construct one in my back yard.
Bob Whittaker says
-trees will be cut down to make room for solar panels
-windmills kill birds
-solar panels will replace farmland, robbing us of a food source
-nuclear plants require less space
I can’t tell if Mr. Brandes is being satirical or if these are really his beliefs. First, he discredits renewable energy sources because they will HARM the environment. Next he suggests that solar panels would be installed on top of farm fields (rather than in desserts, on top of urban buildings, or on residential roofs of homeowners interested in free energy). Finally, he touts nuclear plants as solution because they don’t require much space.
He seems to fear that “going green” means reverting back to an Amish lifestyle. In fact it’s already happening and people are barely noticing a change in their day to day routines. American CO2 emissions hit a 20-year low in 2012. 38% of the 2012 emissions reduction was due to natural gas replacing coal, but 58% came from installing more renewable energy, including 27% from new wind energy. This trend continued in January 2013, when 100% of the new electric capacity added in the USA came from renewable sources, primarily from 958 megawatts of wind and 267 megawatts of solar energy.
On top of the environmental benefits, clean energy is good for the economy. Source: https://bit.ly/13CvOi0
“The lesson to be learned here is that investment in green tech, clean policy, and carbon pricing are beneficial to the economy. Delaying implementation of these mechanism could potentially cost us a lot of money. The funds for investment in green technology have to come from somewhere, and a carbon emissions price can provide those funds, as has happened in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.”
Fred Patt says
Also consider that the nuclear power industry would not exist if not for the massive government investments in R&D, which continue today. Imagine where renewable energy would be today, with anything close to the same level of support.
Fletcher R. Hall says
Biofuels indeed do have a real possibility to help reduce the current dependency on foreign oil and fossil fuels. Biodiesel, ethanol, cellulosic biodesel,l among others, will be part of the transporation fuels of the future.
However, this nation has no ccoordinated energy policy. Every President since Richard Nixon has talked about our dependency on fossil fuels and yet the nation is still without such a policy.Biofuels are now in production. Yet, this promising development has been cripplrd by the lack of support by the current administration after a good start by the previous administration. And, Congress has played with the subsidies need by newly developed sources of fuel. There are several other types of new fuel in the development stages, yet support for these innovative products is at best marginal and at the whim of the politicans in Washington.
Real progress in the battle to reduce foreign oil anf fossil fuel dependency probably will come from the private sector of our economy, as did the invention of nylon, orlon and kevlar, which now helps to protect our troops who are in harms way.
Lets hope the private sector survives and will continue to prove that “progress is our most important product”. An old slogan of General Electric.
Not nostalgia, just a fact.
Keith Thompson says
Food for thought…
How much does our foreign policy contribute to our dependence on foreign oil? In one sense, we pay less than our European counterparts for oil but how much of that cost is offset by the expense of maintaining military presence in the Middle East to protect our oil interests? How much of that support of our oil interests contributes to the terrorism issues we have with radical Islamists who’d rather that we not be in their country? How much more would private enterprise in the United States be motivated to pursue alternate energy sources if we weren’t getting the relatively cheaper oil that our foreign policy expenses bring us?
RD Sweetman says
Maybe I’m a dreamer, But I’m still hoping someday, somewhere someone within my lifetime (Probably not) will actually come up with breaking the physics barriers and actually produce Nuclear Fusion for everyday energy consumption…
Stephan Sonn says
Lets future cast.
Just as whale oil was replaced by fossil oil, so will fossil oil have a successor.
Before that happens completely there will be an East coast migration west.
Secure cyberspace communications will replace automobile commuter transport.
Modern Civilization will in two generations will revert to road worrier presentation.
with scattered island city fortresses that will also have wars.
Joel Brandes says
“FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSIT REACTION” Brazil has succeeded in fueling their fleet of auto’s with bio-fuel. The destruction of part of the rain forest was part of the cost. Land that could have been used to grow food has gone over to sugar cane. Before we go hell bent into bio-fuels and abandon the use of fossil fuels it would be beneficial to examine the consequences.
Our use of corn to produce ethanol has driven up the cost of food while not reducing the cost of gasoline. When we reach the point where only the corn stalks are used and the corn itself is saved for its original purpose, then and only then, does it make sense. Before we abandon gasoline fueled cars, perhaps we should look at the progress made since the sixties in cleaning up their exhaust. Maybe we should be looking to sceince to further clean them up. It comes down to a determination of the best way to solve the problem. Lets not let chicken little plan our future.
Stephan Sonn says
Your positioning Mr Bandes is for your stock portfolio.
From one old man(72) to another, you are making a Wall Street lawyer’s argument for your stock portfolio not for your grandchildren. Seems like yours is the name of an attorney written up in the newspapers in recent years, or is it a case of mistaken identity on my part?
Dan Marley says
Perhaps Mr. Brandes would be less enthusiastic about nuclear plants if he lived in Washington State. Radioactive waste is nasty stuff even if you don’t “live near a generation plant”.
From CBS news: https://cbsn.ws/YXtFHP
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State is called the most contaminated nuclear site in the country. For decades, the federal government has been struggling to clean it up. But now we’re learning of new underground leaks of radioactive waste.
And time is the enemy.
The bomb that brought an end to World War II was built with plutonium that was produced at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Southeastern Washington State.
In the years that followed, Hanford has become the nation’s nuclear dumping ground, a final resting place for 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge, encased in 177 underground storage tanks.
Tom Carpenter, executive director of the environmental organization Hanford Challenge said, “A third of these tanks have failed already. One third! They’ve leaked a million gallons, there’s more to come.”
Just last week, Washington’s governor confirmed six of those tanks are actively leaking again. Gov. Jay Inslee said, “Washington State has a zero-tolerance policy on radioactive leaks.”
But the federal government has already spent billions of dollars and decades attempting to clean up the site.
CBS News’ cameras were not allowed on the property, but did capture an above-ground replica of the tanks that are leaking. They were designed with a single layer of steel for maximum life span of 20 years, but the first tanks were built back in the 1940s.
Carpenter said, “They lost their integrity, essentially, their engineered design life, right around the time that we sent a man to the moon in the 1960s.”
And while Inslee says that the current leaks pose no immediate risk to the public, the cleanup at Hanford goes on. It’s estimated it will take at least 40 years at a cost of more than $100 billion.
The problem is “scandalous,” according to CBS News contributor Michio Kaku, a physics professor at the City University of New York.
Kaku continued, “At the time of sequester, taxpayers spend $2 billion per year just maintaining the cleanup operation. Then it was revealed that hundreds of gallons of high-level toxic waste have been leaking over the last several years right into the ground. Eventually into the groundwater and maybe the Columbia River.”
Radioactive waste is a “witch’s brew of chemicals,” Kaku said, explaining it contains the most dangerous chemicals known to science like plutonium, enriched uranium, nitric acid and solvents. “We have 56 million gallons worth of this toxic stuff,” he said. “To get this into perspective, to get your head around this, imagine 80 Olympic-sized swimming pools containing the most toxic substance known to science of which two Olympic-size swimming pools have leaked right into the ground and eventually into the water table and, perhaps, even into people’s drinking water.”
Kaku said we need to consider the problem as an emergency. “The government promised 10 years ago that it’s under control. Now we realize it’s not,” he said. “They have to take the waste, put it into new vats that are double, triple lined. They have to drill to assess how far the waste is. And it’s a ticking time bomb. In 15, 50 years — we don’t know when — it’s going to hit the ground table. When it hits the ground table, it will go right into the Columbia River, and remember, that’s one of the major rivers in the entire Pacific Northwest.”
“Very scary,” Kaku said. “It the legacy of the Cold War — Russia and the United States. We both have black eyes when it comes to handling nuclear waste.”
Stephan Sonn says
This argument does back to a prehistoric times.
When the cave tribe would urinate and defecate upstream and down steam
neighbors suffered the consequences of sifting through floaters for drinking water.
The upstream brutes said tough luck. It is the same thing today.
with modern day polluters and their culture
joe diamond says
Stephen,
That is right out of the Army field manual! You take the cooking water from upstream and position the horse urinal and equipment wash downstream. Troops swim in between. This is true even if Detroit is up river.
Joe
Joel Brandes says
To anyone that cares what motivates me to contribute to the Spy, (I thank Dave for the chance) it is two fold. First it does help me fill time where I find nothing better to do. More important, I wish to provoke thought. We see so little of it coming from the political leadership of both parties. I claim no special knowledge, but only post what I have learned from the internet or books (I’ve read 35 in the past three months).
Thankfully, there are some people in this thread that make valid points. Not all, but some. I used a nuclear reactor because it was sure to provoke. In reality it could be any source of generation based on equal megawatt generation. FYI, Govt. inspectors approved the Horrizon rig just prior to the disaster. The nuclear plant refered to by Mr. Marley is one of the oldest, if not the oldest in the country. Why did the govt. inspectors not shut it down if it was at risk? BTW, France produces 80% of its power with nuclear.
Mr. Sonn, I’m not sure if it’s a compliment that you think I have legal expertise of have a mythical stock portfolio in which I reap huge gains for my letters. However, your wrong on both counts.
joe diamond says
Joel,
Could be fun…….France does lead the world in reactor use. They taught the world to build the same reactor over and over again…unlike the USA where they reinvent them with each construction. What the world is now watching is how France deals with replacing their reactors as they all need to be refuled at the same time.
BP is in trouble about that rig in the Gulf of Mexico because they had a tool pusher and a US inspector overseeing the rig that blew. BP had previously fired their own inspection department and the engineers who objected to the construction techniques and rejected expensive installations as incorrectly done. BP is paying fines for negligence because they should have known better.
Keep at it!
Joe
Fletcher R. Hall says
Wish we could get this many comments regarding the new Kent Foward initiative.
Actually, for fuel, I support hot air, which is manufactured in Washington.
I would have said energy, but Washington ran out of that long ago.
Fletcher Hall
Chestertown