tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post114731569343792366..comments2023-10-11T10:40:48.712-04:00Comments on The Miserable Annals of the Earth: Putting out fires with gasolineDoc Nebulahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13052810933464744998noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1147478091615031702006-05-12T19:54:00.000-04:002006-05-12T19:54:00.000-04:00I in no way mean to slight these very lengthy and ...I in no way mean to slight these very lengthy and very intelligent responses, and in fact, I'd love to be reassured by them. <BR/><BR/>As to the 9/11 conspiracy stuff, it's easier for me to refer people to the following link:<BR/><BR/>http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/coincidence-theorists-guide-to-911.html<BR/><BR/>If that doesn't give you at least something to think about, well, you're a better person than I am. <BR/><BR/>As to alternative forms of energy, specifically nuclear and ethanol -- <BR/>More nuke plants will solve the electricity problem, sure. I'm not an engineer, much less a nuclear physicist, but I very much doubt we can build a continental network of nuclear plants, to take the place of the natural gas driven plants we largely use now, particularly quickly. In fact, given how people tend to oppose building such plants anywhere near their homes, I believe the Powers That Be would have to go public in a big way with the validity of peak oil problems... and they don't seem to want to.<BR/><BR/>Having said that, if we do manage to get our nukes on, well, I'm no environmental expert, but I suspect we'll be paying for our electricity with enormously increased cancer rates and some serious toxins leaking into our groundwater. We already are paying for much of our technology, including the electrical infrastructure, in this way, if certain things are to be believed... but I have to assume it would get much, MUCH worse. Still, we like our toys. We'll probably grin and bear it... for as long as we can. And then we'll die, and it won't matter.<BR/><BR/>As to ethanol, the major problem with it is, as noted, the fact that it costs far more energy to produce it than we can burn back out of it. Now, yes, we do the same thing with the cattle industry, certainly, but that comparison is largely apples to oranges. When we are talking about ENERGY, it makes no sense, and avails us nothing, to spend more than we get out. If it costs us more in food to get the fuel to transport the food to market, hell, we might as well eat the food it's going to cost us in the first place. The cattle industry is driven by money; the energy industry is as well... but nobody will make any money by wasting more food to make fuel than we can then get back out of the fuel.<BR/><BR/>Also, an enormous amount of our biomass production depends on petreoleum derived fertilizers and insecticides. Take petroleum out of the picture and our food production potential drops dizzyingly. It's a very bleak picture. <BR/><BR/>But fuggit... there's nothing I can do about it, except be grateful my family contains some diehard survivalists who live in isolated rural areas. Maybe if it all collapses, I can get them to take me and SG and the SuperKids into the compound. Other than that, though, I'm just going to enjoy the hot showers while they last.Doc Nebulahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13052810933464744998noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1147475848569999332006-05-12T19:17:00.000-04:002006-05-12T19:17:00.000-04:00Really provocative post, Love. A few (mostly inco...Really provocative post, Love. A few (mostly incoherent) points.<BR/><BR/>I have a difficult time thinking that anyone could have gotten enough explosives, to do what they needed to do, into the Towers without discovery. Thousands of people working in those buildings, security cameras (which are monitored by humans), delivery people coming and going all the time...I don't know. And even once they were there, still no one knew? I don't know. I think, as you noted, that the debris pattern was unusually contained, but I'm more apt to second Mike's thesis that it was poor design. (Architects are responsible for 9/11...I could get behind that. Really.) Being in the industry, I have an idea (because I've worked on them firsthand) how many governmental building projects are pushed through without being fully code-compliant and/or without being built as they were designed. And the percentage is high. I worked on a state park building that was entirely wired with the wrong gauge wire. As it wasn't discovered until the end of the project, the inspectors, at the behest of the state officials, "overlooked" the deficiency and the building was opened to the public (still is, to my knowledge), faulty wiring and all. And certainly, something like "faulty wiring" could contribute to the damage a 747 crashing into a building is likely to cause. Sad that you can pay a few extra bucks to the government officials and it offsets putting millions of people's lives at risk, but that's a reality I have FAR more firsthand knowledge of.<BR/><BR/>With regard to the population increase vs. oil production decrease, I have to wonder, if we are hording reserves (or more accurately, if I understood your piece, positioning ourselves to maintain control of the reserves), wouldn't it make more sense (which, in no way should imply that I EXPECT this administration to make sense) to funnel the money we are sending third world countries into alternative fuel research? I realize that we have always tried to be the country that helps the underdog, but if it is a matter of decreasing the population to better position the US, it would seem to me that sending food to starving people is in direct conflict with our plan. And certainly the money we are utilizing to do so, could be, if not poured into research, used to increase the military presence in the oil-rich regions. <BR/><BR/>I'm wondering, too, how Dubya's attempts to open the Alaskan wilderness for more oil exploitation factors into this.<BR/><BR/>Like Julia, I have a hard time believing that the current power structure is ultimate evil. Perhaps, that's because, as bad as I believe they are, I have a difficult time believing that of most people. I do believe that the republicans (as I do the democrats, honestly) have an agenda that we may not know for years. I agree that the current war efforts have been a boon for the repubs, which is a sickening thought, and that Bush and Cheney are, very likely, padding the family coffers. Hard for me to believe (and maybe it's just because I can't bring myself to do so and not because the proof isn't there for me to see) that there is a grand plan by this administration to do ANYthing. They seem kneejerk on almost everything they do. I'd rather they spent a little more time planning and thinking through just about everything they do.<BR/><BR/>And while I've never really given it much thought, I think you are right on with <I>People like to be scared by their fiction, but we have no desire to be terrified by things that are real</I>. And I agree that people play on that reality far too easily and far too often.<BR/><BR/>Good stuff, H.SuperWifehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02856384425069616224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1147448794099921172006-05-12T11:46:00.000-04:002006-05-12T11:46:00.000-04:00I don't see Bush/Chaney as the great conspirators....I don't see Bush/Chaney as the great conspirators.<BR/><BR/>I think that gives them too much credit. As if they are super villians. <BR/><BR/>Bushco, in my mind, are more like the Mafia. They don't create any of the illegal activities, just take advantage of them.<BR/><BR/>Like vultures.Juliahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02216365213708551330noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1147406645578566532006-05-12T00:04:00.000-04:002006-05-12T00:04:00.000-04:00The impending doom facing us all on the not-so-dis...The impending doom facing us all on the not-so-distant horizon factors in no small way into my thinking on a daily basis.<BR/><BR/>I wish I didn't know what I know. I wish I'd never spoke of it previously. I wish Hubbert woulda kept his yap shut.<BR/><BR/>Ignorance is bliss.Natehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04492265703592804987noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1147364371024797842006-05-11T12:19:00.000-04:002006-05-11T12:19:00.000-04:00It's a morass, but it's always been one. Peak Oil'...It's a morass, but it's always been one.<BR/><BR/> Peak Oil's been kicked around for a long time, given that Hubbert presented his paper in 1956. It's wholly sound - what oil's there was made eons ago, and nature ain't makin' no mo' no time soon -- only slipping in the the edges of its math a little here and there because there turned out to be oil in more places than he knew at the time. <BR/><BR/> The problem's always been that on the one hand, people only respond to portents of imminent cataclysm, so the fringiest of the predictions were the ones that got play, and when they didn't come to pass in the '70s and ol' Ronnie Reagan came along in 1980 with his message of We're The Greatest On Earth, and how the future's so bright we've gotta wear shades, people went for it the way they always will. On the other hand, so long as there's enough of a supply to allow major international profits to be made, the cogs of the current machine will keep going.<BR/><BR/> My problems with the idea of a conspiracy to save the nation by invading the Middle East are that not only isn't it really working -- we could have gotten considerably more and freer-flowing oil out of the region by leaving Saddam in place -- but it's not the flow of existing supply that's the short to middle-range problem. It's China. It's the Third World movin' on up. It's the growth of demand. <BR/><BR/> If leaders were intent on a secret conspiracy to stretch our supply of oil for another few decades, the conspiracy would be to push the other-hued chillin's away from mommy's teat and keep more of it for ourselves. I'd be looking for signs of moves to sabotage upcoming, foreign economies, of giving them other, more pressing concerns to worry about. In the extreme, I'd be looking for a convenient plague to sweep Asia and/or Central and South America. Massive de-population would work wonders for the situation. The Chinese wouldn't be building huge, new cities if their population was in sudden decline and person to person contact was something to be feared.<BR/><BR/> If there's a conspiracy in all this, it's not for the benefit of our nation and society. It's for the people who are getting richer by the day by perpetuating and exploiting an era of terror. Aside from them, it's for the religious nuts who are jonesing for Jesus Christ: Mark II. <BR/><BR/> Having someone in the White House who's in the fraternity of <I>both</I> of those groups is a continuing source of fear. <BR/><BR/> Here in the U.S., Big Oil isn't Big Oil, it's Big Energy. Oil's simply the easiest, most versatile form. They'll squeeze the maximum profit out of it they can, but they'll push through other things before the machine stops.<BR/><BR/> No, I don't think they have, secure in their vaults, a pill that transforms water into gasoline or an engine that will get 100 miles on two ounces of gas. However, I fully expect we're on the verge of a tremendous resurgence of nuclear power, and coal gassification is about to go online, and while it still has problems we can expect the bio-fuel industry, ethanol principally, to take off as oil continues to float in the mid $70/barrel range, likely flirting with higher as Terror Alerts are fantastic for this biz.<BR/><BR/> Sure, ethanol doesn't pack anywhere near the energy punch of gasoline, and it's a poor energy transfer (in terms of how much bio-mass it takes to produce the end product), but if <B>that</B> was a major concern we'd be a nation of vegetarians anyway. Raising animals for meat takes up an enourmous amount of feed. If we shifted most of our diet towards vegetation, flipping the average U.S. diet to make meat the side-dish, there'd be no hunger problem (or at least far less of one) than there is now.<BR/><BR/> (Sure, that situation's much more complex because people aren't starving <I>now</I> because of an overall <I>lack of food</I>. They're starving because industry would rather plow it under or otherwise throw it away rather than devalue what they're selling by flooding the market or giving all the excess away.)<BR/><BR/> The collapse of the towers on 9/11 is more convincingly (to me) the end product of the fox watching the hen house. The Port Authority got to give a wink and a nod approval to their own project - the Twin Towers. They weren't produced to the engineering standards even of early 1970s, and had the flaw of being too cross-dependent on key structural elements to hold up once part of the structure began to collapse. Had it been someone else, some outside agency, proposing the project the designs never would have gotten an official stamp of approval. It was like letting the Three Stooges deisgn and build their own apartment block while Moe was the building inspector for the township. It's also a likely reason why the debris was so quickly cleared away and disposed of. "Jets crashed into them, they fell down. End of story. Nothing to see here. Go beat on a towel-head." <BR/><BR/> I'm not completely dismissing the notion of a larger conspiracy, but am merely pointing out that corruption is a simpler and therefore more likely answer.<BR/><BR/> I fully agree that the Alaskan Wildlife areas will be tapped; it's always just been a matter of time.<BR/><BR/> ...and -- appropriately enough given the subject matter -- I'm out of time.<BR/><BR/> I enjoyed the post.Mike Nortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13025995292338904959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18829500.post-1147363412424248482006-05-11T12:03:00.000-04:002006-05-11T12:03:00.000-04:00Yes, I want to think you are nuts and/or full of c...Yes, I want to think you are nuts and/or full of crap. The alternative is...I could barely get through your post, to have it actually happen...?Tony Colletthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00681683720184752588noreply@blogger.com