The Answers to Issues

[Aileron]

Unproven? Those processes have been used. In WW II, than Nazis got their fuel from liquefied coal when their regular supplies got cut off. It consisted of about 40% of their national fuel production. Sorry, but any technology that can fuel a thousand Tiger tanks while all industry was under constant bombardment, is anything but 'unproven'.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the gasoline making processes are currently implemented in South Africa.

 

The amount of time needed to research coal liquefication technology: 0 seconds

The amount of money needed to research coal liquefication technology: $0 dollars

The amount of time and money needed to implement coal liquefication technology: However much it takes to build a refinery. *

Having minimum wage workers afford to be able to drive to work: priceless.

 

*About one or two years, and a couple million dollars, both of which would turn a huge profit to whoever invested in it. Note, we won't have to make a new type of car, fuel station, and distribution network, which anything other than gas will require.

 

 

As for 'encouragement', you actually have it backwards. Look at any company in any industry. When economic times are tough, research and development is the second thing to go right after middle management. If a lack of fuel based depression occurs, there likely won't be any research going on at all, in alternative fuels or anything else.

 

 

Look, I know people want to believe that the current oil problem is a result of invading a country which has oil but wasn't supplying it, as well as OPEC being jerks about it, and I know that there is some truth in that idea too. But, the environmentalists are the ones who should get the primary credit for the current oil crisis. Every time we try to drill a new field, or install a new pipeline, or build a new power plant, its always 'no no no!'. They are also the reason why most alternative fuel ideas involved 'clean' things which suck. They generally get these doomsday scenarios in their heads, and once in they refuse to compromise.

[AstroProdigy]

Well I was actually referring to carbon sequestering as unproven. Coal liquefaction is proven, but there are lots of other concerns to something other than "does it work". Does a nuclear bomb stop an enemy country? Ok well since it does let's go on a nuking spree! This is all faulty logic.

 

When times are tough, the thing that is causing times to be tough is the first thing companies try to get around, at least rational ones. It takes hardship to promote the best innovation. If fossil fuels are depleted you think THAT'S when people won't try to figure out other sources of energy? I seriously can't understand how you can warp your thinking to justify your predispositions, but if it helps you sleep at night good luck to you.

 

It wasn't so much as invading Iraq that did it. It was the devaluation of the dollar caused by massive debt, allowing the oil companies to spike up prices in the name of "uncertainty" due to the conflict in Iraq and letting Saudi Arabia push us around even though we can easily influence them; we support their oppressive regime. I agree we should look into limited expansion of nuclear energy, but destroying the forests that are the only thing slowing down global warming and going to even dirtier fuels to avoid a dirty fuel to reduce the effects of global warming counter any type of intelligent logic that I could think of. It takes some serious denial of the facts to believe what you do.

[Aileron]

The idea is to subs!@#$%^&*ute a plentiful fuel for a scarce fuel. It is for economic, not ecological reasons. Yes, I realize it will be dirtier, but that extra pollution will all be at one spot and can be controlled. Besides, they would probably have to buy pollution credits from other companies which are cleaner, so our gas money would go towards subsidizing alternative energy rather than helping terrorists or the kind of regimes which cause it.

 

Overall, it goes back to the college version of Supply and Demand. Oil is a need, and demand for oil is inelastic. We won't have much effect on prices if we keep trying to reduce demand, because the Price vs. Demand curve is nearly flat. While reducing demand is one part of the solution, the dominant other part is to increase supply, but every time somebody talks about increasing supply of a fossil fuel, environmentalists view it as sacrilege.

 

Speaking of pollution credits, I think nuclear power plants should get some. They produce electricity just like an oil plant.

 

 

 

Necessity isn't always the mother of invention. The microwave wasn't invented due to a shortage of gas stoves. The computer wasn't invented to overcome a scarcity of slide-rules. The light bulb didn't get invented to halt a critical candle shortage.

[AstroProdigy]

That extra pollution will be all over the country and since the US is a world leader all over the world. Control it? With what regulation? You're deathly opposed to government regulation yet now you advocate for it? You have no idea whether there will be a comprehensive gas tax plan in place for it. We can't even get that today with all the problems oil causes. If you introduce something easier and cheaper then forget about ever getting a system to promote fuel efficiency or alternative energy until that becomes expensive too.

 

Our policies in the Middle East aren't just for our own sake. It's a way of putting a lid on China's international prospects because if we control the energy supply we control growth in China.

 

The price vs. demand curve is nearly flat? Who's !@#$%^&* did you pull that out of? The demand for oil goes down with increased fuel efficiency and with alternative energy becoming more compe!@#$%^&*ive. Increasing supply has always only been a temporary solution to the bigger problem of our lack of alternatives. Simply increasing supply again will only delay the inevitable, all the while accelerating global warming. It is sacrilege because we are pushing an environmental catastrophe that will make life much harder for our grandchildren simply because we are too cowardly and greedy to deal with the problem today.

 

Enough with the nuclear power plants that is completely unrelated to what your proposing with coal liquefaction.

 

Necessity is what accelerates invention. Simply hoping invention will happen on its own is irresponsible. When you do that you lose control of the pace of development and it slows down dramatically. I don't need to remind you all the innovations that have come directly out of military projects during World War 2 and the Cold War. That type of innovation would have taken much longer in peacetime. Innovation in space has practically come to a halt because of the lack of necessity felt due to the end of the space race.

[Aileron]

The extra pollution would be at a refinery rather than dispersed from thousands of cars. It could be cleaned up by putting a CO2 scrubber on the smokestacks.

 

The '!@#$%^&* I pulled it out of' is basic economics, mostly based on the easily observable fact that gas is rising but demand isn't falling. That alone means the demand for gas is inelastic. A fully inelastic demand curve is a straight line, so the demand curve for something as inelastic as gas would be 'nearly straight'.

 

While some vehicles have better gas mileage than others, usually people don't drive around unless they have to. I mean, in my case I drive a coup to and from work. If gas rises to $30 per gallon, I will still drive my same car the same distance to and from work. The only way to reduce demand by rising gas prices would be if gas got so expensive that the cost of driving to a workplace exceeds the salary workers get from that workplace. Only then will people stop driving to work and demand actually go down. Ofcourse, that means some entire industries would have to shut down. Also, that means a lot of people unable to earn money.

 

 

In WW II and the Cold War, the economy was running. How many technical innovations came out of the Great Depression? Yes, motive helps. We have motive. However, the other component is means, means our economy will lack if we voluntarily choke our fuel supply.

[NBVegita]

Innovation in space has practically come to a halt because of the lack of necessity felt due to the end of the space race.

 

So theoretically if we pollute our planet to the point that we need to find another planet to live, that should be an amazing stimulator for space technology. Once we developed the technology to colonize other planets, we wouldn't need to worry about pollution or natural resources because once we drained one planet we can simply move to another.

 

Pollution ftw!

 

[»Ducky]

It's a pretty logical view. Things are created out of need first and foremost.

There's a reason people joke about giving the 10 richest persons in the world cancer and finding 6 different cures in a year.

[Aileron]

Motivation is still only one of two pieces though. The other component is ability.

 

Drop the 10 richest people in the world out of an airplane, and they won't invent anti-gravity on the way down.

 

If we cut off our fuel options, the economy tanks. If the economy tanks, we lose the ability to do research. Already, gas prices have had an impact on food. If the price of gas ends up impacting every industry which uses it, there simply won't be money to spend on the future because the short term needs would be more dire.

[»Ducky]

Off the bat, no one is saying cut necessary fuel options. You simply evolve necessary fuel options. Because it's changed and not simply dropped, economies will not tank to the point you seem to suggest.

 

No one is debating ability at all. The need for the effect is what drives the innovation in the first place though, the ability comes down the road through trial and error.

 

If something is 'impossible' because of lack of ability, that doesn't mean that attempts won't be made until ability is discovered in some form.

 

People have been trying to fly for hundreds of years. It was only recently that they've discovered the ability to fly not because they lacked the material they needed but because flying was never a necessity and as such had a limited pool of ideas.

 

There are answers to our energy crisis, but while it's not a necessity, the answer is going to come slower than if it had when and if it becomes one. Swapping oil for coal is not one of these answers. It's a bandaid solution because yet again, it's a limited resource.

 

Astro nailed it perfectly when he said necessity accelerates innovation in a controllable manner and it's irresponsible to act otherwise.

We didn't need a microwave or lightbulb, they came on it's own. A product of invention not out of need.

But because it wasn't needed, you cannot control its existence in the first place. The invention of both where both whimsical and if not then, when? It could have taken 20 more years for that same innovation to take place.

If there WAS a candle shortage, that same lightbulb concept (or something there of) would have arrived much earlier than it had.

A ground breaking strategy may never come, but the more it's necessary to deal with, the higher probability you have of figuring it out.

Edited May 13, 2008 by Ducky

[Aileron]

Okay, so we evolve the fuel options...that's what I've been saying.

 

For instance, go from gas from the ground, to gas from liquefied coal, then eventually to hydrogen fuel cells.

 

Astro's the one who's saying we must skip the interim steps because fossil fuels are evil.

[AstroProdigy]

The extra pollution would be at a refinery rather than dispersed from thousands of cars. It could be cleaned up by putting a CO2 scrubber on the smokestacks.

You mean carbon sequestration that I've already said was unproven and only delays research of other solutions that are better?

 

The problem is there is no logical transition that comes "from gas from the ground' date=' to gas from liquefied coal, then eventually to hydrogen fuel cells". The middle step makes the last step take much longer because people would no longer feel they needed the last step while the middle step was easily around. An interim step would be a hybrid of the first and last step. The middle step you tried to insert in there is actually a distraction from the last step.

 

The economy won't tank because fossil fuels won't all of a sudden disappear in the next decade. Europe got better fuel efficiency by making gas very expensive, forcing companies to be more fuel efficient, and creating an impressive m!@#$%^&* transit system. If they had simply created an easier way to get fuel from domestic sources that were even more polluting than the last then they would have never gotten the improved fuel efficiency.

 

Aileron: Demand for oil is up because countries like China and India are rapidly industrializing. US demand for oil is actually falling.

Edited May 14, 2008 by AstroProdigy

[darkhosis]

[AstroProdigy]

Well part of the solution should be to temporarily keep and expand on nuclear energy, but in the long term we need to develop solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable power research and development so we can slowly phase out even nuclear energy (except for fusion which we should continue developing also).

[SeVeR]

With all the extra hurricanes from global warming we should have plenty of wind power! I still say we should harness the power of farts.

[ThunderJam]

I still say we should harness the power of farts.

Xter for president 08 <3