Hi everyone, I Chair the New Haven, CT section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and set up a Yahoo! Group to promote discussion on various technical subjects. I posted the Rolling Stone article from Kieth (I think it was you Kieth) to see the reaction and wanted to say that this is the dialog I've been getting involved in regularly among people less active in the cause. My reason for posting this is to find out how some of you might respond in a similar discussion and if you have any comments about any of my responses. By the way, the resources I mention below were cut-off. But they came from the Biofuel group anyway. So, you should already be aware of them. Mike R Posted on NHASME04 today: -------------------------------------------------------- Hi Tracy, Well, I think we've agreed on most of what had been said in this thread so far. The rest I think we can agree to disagree. "We may be running out of oil. However, I think drilling in Alaska is more about laziness, politics and some guy who has political connections for it to get this far." In my opinion, a lazy person who wants oil would stay in Texas and just punch another hole next to the one they already have. As for Politics and political connections, I'm right behind you on that one. "The reason why we don't have more wind power is political not technical or environmental or financial."
Political/Technical/Environmental/Financial: These issues are not mutually exclusive. Some emerging energy technologies are not competitive (or profitable) compared with fossil fuels today, so private industry in the US has kept their distance. The public in the US has not adopted an environmentally conscious position like other industrialized countries in Europe (the US is only 4% of the worlds population but, uses 25% of the worlds energy). So, there is comparatively less political motivation to subsidize the development of these emerging technologies. I feel that this cycle will continue until other countries that are more progressive than ours, make advancements that make alternative energy technologies like PV cost effective and the US, in its nearsighted business vision, decides to play catch-up. I have no doubt that if there is no change in this trend, the US will lag behind in these technologies and other countries will offer superior products. This is assuming that our government doesn't make a unilateral decision to exploit foreign intellectual property and ignore international law (wouldn't that be a shocker). Mike "Tracy J." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: We may be running out of oil. However, I think drilling in Alaska is more about laziness, politics and some guy who has political connections for it to get this far. The reason why we don't have more wind power is political not technical or environmental or financial. The political guys put up the money. If the political guys didn't want to go to the moon for any reason, the money never would have been there to do it. It would be nice if diagonstic research was done on the subject that is trustworthy but there is alot of money to be made if there is a shortage. Tracy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Redler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 9:04 AM Subject: Re: [nhasme04] The Long Emergency > Hi Tracy, > > I think that your ideas about conservation and more sophisticated controls for home appliances are good ones. Your comment about price manipulation has merit as well. However, I think it's dangerous for people to believe that there is plenty of oil and that it simply isn't being tapped. The fact that we are going back into Alaska and exploring other regions for oil sends a message about availability. In fact, there have been numerous studies to support the argument that sustainability ended in the late eighties. Up until that time the world's oil producers were able to replace every spent well with a new one. > > Here are some resources that support the argument that scientists and government agencies around the world clearly recognize the coming shortage and eventually the end of oil as our main source of energy in the world. > ....Michael Redler Yahoo! Groups SponsorADVERTISEMENT --------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhasme04/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
