Gasoline fumes?
Published Friday, July 25, 2008
Look at that! Gas is "cheap" there, I said as we drove past the large sign touting "$3.86" for regular unleaded.
Who would have ever believed that $3.86 per gallon would be considered "cheap" for gas?
After floating above $4 per gallon, anything below that suddenly seems so much better, but it's still way too high for most of our comfort.
Has anyone seen legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens' "plan" for weaning America off foreign oil?
It contains some interesting facts and it seems like an achievable plan, and obviously a worthy cause.
What do you think? Is the plan doable or has the combination of "cheap" gas and its noxious fumes gone to my head?
Comments
Not just "doable," but being done on small scale. Check this out: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...
If Rock Port, Missouri can do it, the nation can do it (trust me on this: I grew up about 40 miles from Rock Port; we're not talking the "progressive capital of the world," here).
What we may need is a president who can use his "bully pulpit" to rally the country behind the plan, much as JFK did in about 1961 when he vowed to put a man on the moon in 10 years. On July 20, 1969, I watched in awe as Neil Armstrong took "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Pickens' plan strikes me as much less "pie-in-the-sky" than Kennedy's dream of putting a man on the moon must have seemed at the time.
And there will never be a better time to try than now: It will take oil to build these wind farms, after all, and somehow I don't think that will be cheaper, say, 10 years from now.
(A something-I'm-still-curious-about note: Driving across Iowa in May, I saw a wind turbine in what looked from the highway like an apartment complex; I wondered then, and wonder now, if that turbine "powered" the complex. It was just interesting.)
Dangyankee: Thanks for the article about Rock Port. I suspect you're correct that the only way this kind of thing can be made to happen is by a determined president pushing hard.
Interesting comparison to Kennedy's "moon" dream. I think you're correct that what Pickens proposes is far less far-fetched than Kennedy's.
I loved the following quote in the article:
"We're farming the wind, which is something that we have up here," Crawford said. "The payback on a per-acre basis is generally quite good when compared to a lot of other crops, and it's as simple as getting a cup of coffee and watching the blades spin."
Kevin, I liked that quote, myself: I grew up on a farm, and "getting a cup of coffee and watching the blades spin" sounds like a whole lot more fun than putting up hay or walking beans or feeding the cattle when it is 20 below zero (in that ever-present wind up there).
We have to do SOMEthing, though, and Pickens' plan is the most viable I've seen yet (Arizona is doing good things with solar energy, too). If it is true that we are importing 70% of the oil we use, that makes us extremely vulnerable. What if OPEC decided simply to cut us off? We need their oil more than they need our money at this point; that is, they could live without our money for 3 to 6 months more easily than we could survive without their oil for the same period of time. Simply cutting off our supply for 3 months could destroy us (winter or summer--yes, we need heat in winter, but we are so computer-dependent that we can no longer do without air conditioning, either).
If we don't do something, our children (or nieces and nephews, in my case) face a pretty bleak future, in my always humble opinion. Working people have been getting shafted in a variety of ways for at least a generation, now; this latest rise in gas prices therefore is killing them (us). What happens if gas goes up another 50%, or 150%? Most people no longer have the option of walking to work (I'm an exception since I work at home), and small-town America is worse even than in the cities because there is virtually no public transportation here, and even employees of the same business often live so far apart that car-pooling isn't generally an option.
Maybe what I like most about Pickens' plan is that it is an actual PLAN, not just a lot of, um, wind. More than that, it inspires even in cynical me a little hope that we, the people of the United States of America, can regain control of our nation's destiny. As long as we are near-totally dependent on others, we have no control.
(Yeah, I can be longwinded sometimes. Sorry.)
Thank you for bringing the Pickens Plan to our attention Kevin along with a link. I'd heard a little about it on the news last week, but I was in a hospital cafeteria, out of town, and didn't get to see it very well.
anything that will work, I think most everyone is open to anything that will work. But we can't just wait 10-20 years and allow our economy and our lives to dwindle away while we wait for a miracle. In the meantime we have to use the resources we have, which is what I like about Pickens Plan, use natural gas, wind, solar, and our oil that we have not reached out for as well. Already just the threat of our desire to expand areas open for exploration has brought the price down. Our wonderful President Bush lifted the Executive Moritorium on oil exploration!! Instantly we see a oil price drop, REMARKABLE indeed! OPEC has a finite supply and is running scared, they want to keep us dependent and play a game (my opinion) with the price, just high enough to make a killing, but low enough to keep us from increasing our domestic supply, thus keeping us hooked.
By the way, has anyone tried converting their vehicle to burn hydrogen?
there is a method of using electrodes (nothing more than bare wire ends)from your battery, placed in a container of WATER, only a quart of water lasts hundreds of miles I believe, this electrolysis converts H2O to a gaseous form of HHO, which will burn with O2, and water is the byproduct.
http://www.runyourcarwithwater.com/?hop=...
check it out, I've heard it really works and that the major car companies are coming out with models that have the conversion kid installed, so you can burn gasoline or water,
I was really just about to order the conversion kit, but my truck is brand new, and then I bought a motorcycle............and haven't driven my truck in several weeks, .............
but I'm very interested in this. I've heard the oil companies are trying hard to discredit the conversion process and bury this as quick as possible
I was just researching this a little and electrolysis of water creates Brown's GAs , a mix of H2 and O2. And that this is the exact reverse of a typical fuel cell process in which Hydrogen and Oxygen are combined to generate electricy and water.
I wonder why this hasn't been utilized before?
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A U.S. scientist has developed a new way of powering fuel cells that could make it practical for home owners to store solar energy and produce electricity to run lights and appliances at night.
http://www.reuters.com/article/environme...
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