Energy
The price of oil flirted with the $70 mark today. I guess that unrest in Nigeria and Hugo Chavez' nationalization of the oil industry in Venezuela (He needs the money to buy some submarines. Edwardo's right, we're back in a Cold War with Russia!) has got the Nymex in a flutter.
On sunnier fronts, businesses right here in Connecticut are going solar. They're finally realizing that all that space on their roofs can be put to good use. I'm a little disappointed that GE had to use grant money to go solar. It's not like they couldn't afford to do it on their own. I would've much rather seen that money go to smaller businesses, as they don't have GE's deep pockets.
Getting back to putting useless space to good use, the US is about to get its first offshore windfarm on old oil drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico (Texas!). But if seabirds start dying, expect it to encounter stiff resistance from environmental groups a la Altamont and Nantucket.
Last week the Senate passed an energy bill that fell a bit short of the mark. I'm expecting W to veto it. Environmentalists are happy that there are no new subsidies to the oil, coal, or nuclear industries, which is why he'll veto it.
Like it or not, coal will be a part of our nation's power generation for decades to come. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal and we're far from a peak. Unless greenies are willing to get over their aversion to nuclear power and consider using pebble bed reactors, there's really no way that this energy hungry country is going to get enough electricity. Sure, conservation would go a long way, but most Americans are lazy and can't be bothered with inconvenience or sacrifice.
But the future need not be dark and sooty. We already have the technology to clean up coal. Coal gasification is already being used to strip out sulfur, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. There's no reason why it can't be used to strip out CO2 as well. It can then be sequestered miles underground in deep saline reservoirs. Now if the energy bill mandated that all new coal burning plants had to use this technology, or something similar, I'd like to think that it'd be something that we could all get behind.
Of course there don't seem to be any technological improvements to the process of mining coal. It remains one of the nastiest processes. Whole mountains are levelled and local streams polluted with runoff from strip mining, the easiest (read cheapest) means of extracting coal near the surface. Unlike diamonds, there doesn't seem to be an easy solution here.
In the meantime, I'll keep using CFL's, running appliances at night, turning the hot water heater off during the day, unplugging the TV's when not in use, and saving up for the day when I can buy some solar panels.
\_/
DED
On sunnier fronts, businesses right here in Connecticut are going solar. They're finally realizing that all that space on their roofs can be put to good use. I'm a little disappointed that GE had to use grant money to go solar. It's not like they couldn't afford to do it on their own. I would've much rather seen that money go to smaller businesses, as they don't have GE's deep pockets.
Getting back to putting useless space to good use, the US is about to get its first offshore windfarm on old oil drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico (Texas!). But if seabirds start dying, expect it to encounter stiff resistance from environmental groups a la Altamont and Nantucket.
Last week the Senate passed an energy bill that fell a bit short of the mark. I'm expecting W to veto it. Environmentalists are happy that there are no new subsidies to the oil, coal, or nuclear industries, which is why he'll veto it.
Like it or not, coal will be a part of our nation's power generation for decades to come. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal and we're far from a peak. Unless greenies are willing to get over their aversion to nuclear power and consider using pebble bed reactors, there's really no way that this energy hungry country is going to get enough electricity. Sure, conservation would go a long way, but most Americans are lazy and can't be bothered with inconvenience or sacrifice.
But the future need not be dark and sooty. We already have the technology to clean up coal. Coal gasification is already being used to strip out sulfur, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. There's no reason why it can't be used to strip out CO2 as well. It can then be sequestered miles underground in deep saline reservoirs. Now if the energy bill mandated that all new coal burning plants had to use this technology, or something similar, I'd like to think that it'd be something that we could all get behind.
Of course there don't seem to be any technological improvements to the process of mining coal. It remains one of the nastiest processes. Whole mountains are levelled and local streams polluted with runoff from strip mining, the easiest (read cheapest) means of extracting coal near the surface. Unlike diamonds, there doesn't seem to be an easy solution here.
In the meantime, I'll keep using CFL's, running appliances at night, turning the hot water heater off during the day, unplugging the TV's when not in use, and saving up for the day when I can buy some solar panels.
\_/
DED
Labels: energy, oil, solar, technology
posted by DED at 2:44 PM
8 Comments:
I agree with this completely, thanks for the post.
If oil flirted with $70 yesterday it's doing the nasty with it this morning.
OT - Hey ded, when I try to watch some videos with Firefox it brings up a plugin download. I tried it and I still can't view the vid. Do you know how to fix this?
Mort: Heh. Oil's bumpin' ugly.
I presume that you've restarted the browser after the download and install. Sometimes, even a pc re-boot is necessary. Plugins are supposed to be pain free, with little work done by the end user other than download / install / reboot. What plugin are you trying to use and what video format are you trying to watch?
What plugin are you trying to use and what video format are you trying to watch?
Mostly MSM news sites like CNN money, etc. I haven't tried download/install/reboot immediately, consecutively, :/ - maybe I'll try it again.
I've got Media Player on my Microsoft stuff, and my IE-7 stuff but for some reason Firefox won't read it. It is very frustrating.
I'm stumped. I just tried the video for "Titanic Auction" and it worked fine. I did get a warning message stating that the site couldn't figure out which version of Windows Media Player I was using, but I hit "play video anyway" just to see what would happen. And it was fine.
Do you have Firefox 2.0? Older versions did have some plugin problems.
Yes, indeed, coal and nukular, as King George calls it, are most definitely in our energy future. In the meantime, the price of oil, save for some demand destroying event (other than PO itself) will, over time, grind higher, with spectacular spikes ocurring from time to time.
I think I have the latest and greatest. Maybe I need an upgrade. Personally I think it is a conspiracy between Bill Gates and CNN to irritate and otherwise disgruntle Mort. They could have saved themselves the trouble, as I am usually like that anyway. Thanks for looking into it just the same.
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