Depressing

What is "SO SAD" is that high petrol prices are no longer seen as a major problem that must be dealt with by most American's.
See the thread I started on The Pickens Plan.
Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

Never underestimate the ingenuity and drive of the American people to perfect and make economically feasible other forms energy as an alternative to oil.
I'm not particularly interested in anybodies "plan" since there is usually a self serving agenda behind such things. What I'm interested in is refining existing technology and innovation to create more.

Never underestimate the recalcitrant unwillingness of the U.S. government to adopt new paradigms.
Sadly, it seems as if nuclear energy (e.g., "fission") is our only option, at this time.
The current failures wrt the LHC don't foster a great deal of confidence in the containment tech necessary for fusion.
Once storage technology moots the CBR, then we can move-on to solar and wind.

The American Indians when making a big decision would have council, and they would talk about how this would effect 7 generations from now. Nucleur is leaving something for the 7th generation they proberbly wont want.
Besides, nucleur is lame. It sounds all high tech and all, but all they really are is steam engines. Heating up water to make steam and turn turbines? It's as silly as every house having a 55 gallon drum in their house they keep at 170 degrees 24/7 365 days a year for their whole life. There's no energy crisis, because if their was we wouldn't do such dumb shit. There's too much energy, that's the real problem.

Oh PLEASE! I am frankly stunned at how Jackson Brown and the other Nuke panickers convinced Two generations how bad Nuclear was.
Here are a couple of basic facts. 1. You can shield radiation with a stupid piece of PAPER! The problem is the paper breaks down faster than the radiation lasts. Simple. Encase the spent fuel in concrete, but you have to wait till it cools enough, otherwise the concrete cracks. It takes what 15-20 years for the fuel to cool enough, so leave them in cooling ponds. they can be above ground swimming pools for that matter. 2.We had the tech 20 years ago to re-process spent fuel, and re-use it again. (Fuel rods only use a small percentage of the energy in them, before they are pulled out) Re-processing was banned by guess who, even though he was a nuclear engineer (Jimmy Carter) due to public panic pressure. We still cannot re-process spent fuel. 3. There has never be a single death in the U.S. from nuclear radioactive release. There has never been a U.S. meltdown. 3 Mile Island, the safety systems worked as designed, although there were some mechanical and human failures. The amount of radiation released into the atmosphere, and public exposure measured per person was about he same as a chest x-ray. Chernobyl meltdown was caused by unqualified engineers performing electrical overcapacity tests WITH the safety systems disabled. (Otherwise they could not have done the unauthorized tests)
4. The amount of coal is that is needed to produce 1,000,000 Kilowatts (1 days worth for a million or so people) of power is 12 TONS. The amount of nuclear fuel to produce the same amount of energy.............1 Kilo. Serious
Energy density: Nuclear fusion (the Sun) is 683 Million MegaJoules per Kilogram, Nuclear fission (Nuclear power plants) is almost ten times less 88 million MJ/kg. Gasoline is way down at 46 MJ/kg by mass. By volume, Nuclear is 1.5 Trillion MJ per liter, by comparison gasoline is only 34 MJ/liter, (diesel is 37Mj/liter). Natural gas is only 10MJ/liter which is what we are currently building new power plants for. Which is totally stupid from a cost standpoint. We are only doing that because it is so plentiful (sort of). so is Hydrogen at around 10MJ/liter. France is 97% Nuclear, a lot of which they sell to Germany. Ironic huh....Considering what tree huggers France and German college kids are. I doubt they even know where their power comes from. From a total Green standpoint ( materials, byproducts, emmissions, etc..) Nuclear is the very lowest impact, next is probably Hydro.
Most power plants are steam engines. Steam power is relatively efficient at around 35%. Wind power is around 40%. Hydroelectric is a whopping 95% efficient. Solar is barely 15%. don't get me started on solar. Hydrogen is almost as stupid as solar.
ca

correction. by no meltdown at 3 mile I meant, the reactor core was 100% destroyed, (like chernobyl) which it wasn't. meltdown started, but was stopped.
ca

Clay,
Nice post thx good to see others looking at this shit.
I'll add that according to a recent wiki check appears corn alcohol in the US currently appears to be at a ratio 1.3, and that sugar cane crops grown near the tropics is probably the best bet where it comes to most efficently utilizing carbon taken from the atmosphere as fuel.
Only slightly boring IMO :

Excellent.
Controlled fusion is, pardon the pun, Da Bomb, f'sure. See non-electricity producing controlled fusion is sposed to start in 2018, in France. Yay, Frogs! mega-scientific project. Btw, I thought france was only 80% nuclear, not 97%. But whatever it is, might partially explain why france has a 32 hour work week. Sacre bleu!
Fusion is, iirc, perfectly clean, and could, in principle, be laser-ignited.
There is an acronym that describes a strategy of fission in "stackable" mini units. Proly not much bigger than a boiler for a 60 unit building. Nuclear-lite. Forgot where I saw this, but it sposedly has great potential. But, nowhere near the ultimate potential of fusion.
There is a research school of thought on solar that thinks they can get 60-90% efficiency from solar cells. If solar cells obey true Carnot efficiency, and it is valid to call the high temp resevoir 5600 K (sun surface), then a theoretical 95% eff exists for solar cells. This theoretical view, however, is not universally shared.
If solar cells do eventually become ubiquitous, you could in principle have home-grown hydrogen plants in every garage/attic in the world -- and the concommittant explosive mishaps.....
Electrolysis of water is a low-voltage deal, and every muthafucka on the planet with a few square inches of solar cells can in principle produce H2 and O2. Sheeit, we could make our own rocket fuel!
I think part of the problem is that such a self-sustaining garage-based independence is too much for a typical gummint to bear. It is, ultimately, the political equivalent of arming the Pubic with automatic weapons -- Gunner et al should be getting a chubby, just about now.
Ditto with electric cars. They are, in principle so effing simple, father and sons could put them together. With some partitioning electronics and dual wound motors, you wouldn't need steering linkages or a transmission. I don't think gummints will like that either.
People forget that the Beetle in the 60s/70s did fine on the highway with a whole 42 hp -- even the VW Bus. Air cooled!
iirc, 15 hp is about all's you need to maintain 60 hp, depending depending on drag. Just need longer on-ramps to highways. :)

Of course it's "self-serving". He doesn't pretend otherwise.
Jon Banquer San Diego, CA

That's because you're a simpleton.
You didn't cross post your followup to a half dozen of your favorite retard infested newsgroups. You couldn't have possibly grown a few brain cells and a conscience now, could you?

regular gas is 1.85 gal here today, did the word "drilling" have that much weight?

New York State currently has the highest petrol prices in the continental United States.
"drilling" sums it quite nicely. I really should keep a tube of KY handy so I can lube myself up every time I pull up to a gas pump.

NYS is *the* most oppressive state in the union, economically, for both bidnisses and citizens. Albany exists solely to assfuck the NYS population.
Only Hawaii is more expensive, and it has a 3,000 mile excuse.
Gas is currently $2.40 in Yonkas/NYC.
Keep in mind that this is only a minor respite during this downturn. When shit picks up again, gas is goin straight to $5++++.
Vaseline lasts longer. It is, after all, a petroleum derivative.
So, dude, now that you can semi-afford to fill up yer Winnabago, are you and yer upstate extended clan comin down to NYC to see me/the Rockettes over Xmas??

My point is all the thing really is...is old ass steam engine technology. We boil the water high tech, but the same system is still in use...steam engines. As far as 3 mile island..I lived in a single wide mobile home 10 miles from there, downwind too. My dad was in vegas looking for a job and I was stuck in a mobile home ghost town. The interesting part is I had a condition called juvenile arthritus. It went away that year, and never returned. Iv'e since had 2 kids totally healthy(knock on wood)(thank the LORD). I think I got cleaned. lol I'm not against nucleur power, I'm against steam engines.
Oh...and water heaters or course, but who isnt.

Tesla's great idea was to line up hydro electric power plants down the rivers of the world, and transmit the power to all wireless. Something like 1925? He knew back then hydro is the way to go 100%. Getting the power distributed was the real issue. He half figured it out by inventing ac current generators. We need another tesla.
And solar isn't that bad. But it depends how you define solar. Solar panels making electricity are not very efficient, but the panels on your roof heating up water in florida is extrmely efficient. Both is solar power. The solar tower they are building in Europe uses the heat from the sun to heat up a base, making the air rise in the tower thru a fan, or a turbine. I hear thats extremely efficient.

Been watching. 1.86 cheapest here so far. I want it to go to a penny a bucket. Cripple the whole middle east. They live in deserts. They will always pick money for water over money for bullets in extreme conditions.

Couldn't have happened to nicer folks...

Amazing what's not Energy Star compliant, these days.

$2.40 here in Batavia at a nearby Hess station. $2.10 at a Hess station near the shop 35 miles away in Rochester.
I gave up trying to rationalize that simply because it hurts a lot less if you don't try to fight it.
I don't want to know how you know that but thanks for the info anyway. :/