... and the saga continues ...
However, making this stuff appear in a format that seems logical within the editor that’s available on 8052.COM, which was clearly not intended for items on this scale, is difficult, so I’m trying something else. I probably should read the section in Jon’s NOOB article about posting formatted code. I already got lost a couple of times in the previous installment ... <sigh> ...


The French and Italian governments both subsidize wine production to such an extent that there’s a huge “sea of wine” that their governments buy and maintain in order to support the price of wine. They have about 80 million bottles of wine that nobody wants to buy. Clearly THEY see it as more than a luxury! If the Frenchman were willing to buy the wine at all, the government would see to it that he could afford it. In this country, nobody drinks wine costing that much of their own money. They buy it with the shareholders’ or taxpayers’ money.
Similarly, OUR government, particularly the current fossil-fuel-industry-controlled executive branch, makes every effort to ensure that everyone continues to consume the oil that makes them, personally, rich. They oppose, at every step of the way, any measure that would economize on usage. (What have they done to encourage stricter “cafe” standards, for just one example?) Do you remember the fiasco over zero-emission cars for California? The EV1 was quite a successful car in California, but, instead of producing them, the combined forces of the auto and oil industry were used to get the statutes repealed, that necessitated the introduction of these highly popular, very fast, and thrifty cars. The GM folks even claimed the cars would be totally recycled, but, as it turns out, they were shredded and buried in the Arizona desert. It’s only recently come to light that the oil industry was behind that more than the auto industry. That's clearly a case where the car-makers took the bullet for big-oil.


Simple economics guarantees nothing! Moreover, the current efforts by the energy industry are making it evermore difficult and costly, both economically and politically, to produce low-cost, high-efficiency housing, cars, and other devices. They do this in a number of ways, not the least of which is by wielding their enormous political influence. This influence forestalls the development of these alternative means and ensures that such development produces results over which they alone have control.
For example, here in Colorado, you can, IF you have distribution media (all of which is owned by big-energy) and IF you have funding (not likely if you haven't got distribution media), build a wind farm. However, if you want merely to erect a wind generator for your own use, you can no longer get a permit to do that, thanks to big-energy's political wrangling.




Well, when the company throws a party, it’s not considered “misuse” of the company funds, even if it involves spending tens of thousands per person taking people overseas to play golf. Who knows whose brother-in-law made $7K per bottle on that wine that was bought at the expense of the shareholders. They’ve got lots of money. They want their profit figures to remain small. What they want is for their stock to go up. Profits, if not used for something of benefit to the individuals high in the organization, have to be distributed to the shareholders. Who, pray tell, wants to do that?
The software release to which I referred, BTW, was for a mostly-owned subsidiary of an oil exploration company here in Denver. They’ve gone “tits-up” since then, as have many "oil exploration" enterprises, but oil companies were, then, and still are, famous for their unbelieveable extravagance.

...


It may seem surreal, but it’s clearly happening. Just look around!


Yes, you’ve probably seen it, but you clearly haven’t read it. It’s not just a theory. Just look at the things that Dubya supports. He supports using stem-cell lines that are owned by his cronies, whether they’re suitable or not. He then quashes government support for “real” stem-cell research. The result, of course, will be that other nations end up as the experts on this emerging technology. That doesn’t help his cronies OR the U.S. taxpayer.



They’ve managed to put in place restrictions at least in northern Colorado, that make it impossible for you to put up one wind turbine, though you can put up a dozen. Of course you have to have distribution media in order to get the power to where you’d have to route it in order to justify the huge investment. They, on the other hand, come begging to the public to fund their ill-advised distribution grid-based approach to generating power.


How about E=IR? How efficient are the transformers you know about? How many of them are used to transport and convert the power you get at your house? The power is transformed up to, say, 550 KV through a number of transformers, then routed at that high voltage to where it, through more transformers, is converted back to something you can use, right? How efficient is that?


When you, and others with more clout and foresight come to realize that on-site electric power generation is the most practical and efficient way to power our homes and automobiles, we’ll have made some progress. It’s been amply demonstrated to be practical and, with increased economy of scale, it will become cost-effective.

Right now, today, it costs XCEL energy more to have the coal shipped to their southern Colorado plants than what the coal costs them. It’s not efficient or cost-effective to use energy that has to be moved around before it gets to you. One Nobel-laureate (a chemist, but I can’t remember his name) has advocated the use of methanol as a medium in which to transfer energy from one location to another, rather than to pipe the natural gas from which it can be generated, simply because of the relative efficiency. He’s made the calculations to show that it’s cheaper to move the ethanol from natural gas in tank cars by rail than to pipe the gas across the state. He’s made the same remarks about the inefficiency of using long lines to distribute HV electrical power.






“They” have, in the meantime, ramrodded-through some statutory restrictions that allow you to build a wind farm if you have the means to distribute the power, but restrict a farmer from powering his dairy farm from a single wind-turbine. What’s also happened is that the types of equipment that you’re allowed to use, thanks to these restrictions, is so expensive, as compared to the size and scale of the equipment one might want to power his dairy equipment, or his irrigation pumps,


Unfortunately, they can, they do, and they will continue to do just that. You’re right, in that no amount of disinformation can convince the scientific community of the sorts of lies that the petroleum industry has been putting out for a decade or more.

Keep in mind, please, that that cricket has never done anything to hurt the planet. Humankind, on the other hand, has never done anything else, at least since well before the invention of the wheel.


--- It might be one of the places where I got lost in the edit.



Well, everybody SHOULD care! It’s not a gradual shift. In fact, it’s no shift at all, because the corrupt, energy-invested Republicans have insisted that the “most efficient” way of generating hydrogen is from petroleum and natural gas and that’s where they’re investing our money. Production of hydrogen from petroleum and natural gas requires lots of energy from current non-renewable sources. The alternative schemes that the energy-industry-invested Republicans, corrupt as they are, are promoting, do not, in general save on pollution, save on cost, or save on fossil fuels. They simply use a different route for the taxpayer’s money into their pockets.

What the energy industry is fighting against the hardest is localized power generation, which has already been demonstrated to be the lowest-cost, most effective, and most efficient way to get the job done. Their worst fear is that everybody will drive electric cars, charged by their owners’ local photovoltaics, which are also capable of keeping enough energy in battery-reserve that they will never need to be connected to the energy-industry’s infrastructure.

The off-grid houses that have been demonstrated over the past decade are the energy industry’s worst nightmare. Once there’s no need for the power cables, people will want ‘em “outta there.” That will make the cable company wonder where to hang their cable. The phone, of course, will be able to go wireless by then, though they won’t want to do that either. The phone can go underground, though, as can the TV cable, not that we need it.


Nuclear power generation is only a solution for those who see themselves living at a “safe distance.” I doubt you’ll find many nuclear energy supporters willing to live within 100 meters of a generating facility. The worst thing about it is that it requires that it be connected to the distribution grid.



The what?




Something tells me that the residents of Nevada, or those of Nebraska or South Dakota, would differ with you on that. I you really like nuclear energy use by the U.S. energy industry, then YOU should volunteer to live within a 100 meters of the plant, and on the downwind side, and have your family and a couple of dozen relatives with you. I think, given that mandate, you’d feel differently as well. Your relatives probably would.

I suspect it would work better if ALL energy generation were local to the end-user.

Keep in mind, too, that when those guys in Utah, Pons and Fleishman, I think, published the results of their experiment, it was quickly attempted by universities throughout the world. Those which received large contributions from big-oil, not just U.S. oil, but just the same, big-oil, failed to achieve the predicted results, while a substantial number of others, who didn’t receive oil industry funding, managed it. Now I don’t know the details, but it’s an interesting coincidence, isn’t it?



It depends on whom you believe. I’ve heard enough remarks from big-energy that amount to, “if 20% of the world population had to perish in order for us to have a 5% bump in our bottom line for the next quarter, it would be OK, with me.” That’s because he doesn’t get his bonus from that 20%, but he does get it for the 5% bump in the bottom line.

There are vastly better fixes than that.


Yes, but until they’ve tapped into it, they won’t know. They’ll lie from here to kingdom-come in order to get what they want, but they won’t know how much until it’s all gone.


One problem with that claim is that they say it MAY have that much oil. Again, the USGS works for Dubya, and what works for him is what they spout in public. If you know any of the guys who do the actual research, some of them are here in CO, after all, you can get much lower numbers, on the order of 1% of that.

Many years ago, the U.S. got involved in a seriously problematic war in southeast Asia. The reason for that war, however, wasn’t because, as some folks said, because JFK wanted to prove the potency of the U.S. military machine. It wasn’t that they needed to “honor their commitments,” either. It was because of the vast resources of oil in the South China sea, off the east coast of VietNam. The people in VietNam knew this, though WE were never told.

Once it was determined that the reserves in the South China sea weren’t mature enough to be of value, given the refining technology of the late ‘60’s, the Nixon administration decided it prudent to give up on that war of acquisition.




There are hundreds of engineers who, once again this year, have demonstrated this to be false, who’d take exception to that. Keep an eye on Denver’s channel 12. They’ll be re-running this year’s installment on that energy-efficient housing challenge.


It’s not rationing and it’s not price controls. It’s taxes, and they do that every day.


I didn't leave it out, I just mocked it elsewhere so that I could individually mock your ideas of rationing and subsidies.
The point, however, was that it’s not a subsidy at all. It’s a penalty for reckless, irresponsible use of a scarce and precious resource, the use of which causes grave damage to the environment. Those who use too much need it to be more precious, so we raise the cost to them in the hope that it will change their selfish, reckless, iresponsible ways. It’s better than killing them, isn’t it?


While I certainly agree that there’s a lot more to Dubya’s refusal to sign on to the Kyoto protocol, than just stubbornness, e.g. having to do with the fact that the U.S. had a head start on managing greenhouse gas emissions before the rest of the world “caught on,” and that by the year that the Kyoto community decided should be used to set standards for emissions, the U.S. had already made progress the others hadn’t, which would put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage, I don’t think it’s ALL politics. It may well be, as they say, a bad policy, but, IMHO, it’s a good principle.


What you’re saying is that they’d have to adjust. I think they could do that.

The beaucrocrat would have nothing to do with it! The standard would be P=$10^(Ndiv10-1) where P is the price per gallon and N is the number of gallons of petroleum-based fuel consumed per week per household or corporation. Hertz, clearly, would stop providing gasoline for its rental cars.


Yes, absolutely. If you’re willing to use as much as 50 gallons per week for your household, then $10K per gallon would be about right. Nobody would pay me for “doing nothing.” You, or someone like you, could buy my ration or a part of it, or someone else’s, for, say $100 per gallon, not for doing nothing, but for using less gas than you because, despite the fact that I’m an old cripple, I’m willing to walk the mile to the Safeway, rather than driving my car. This would provide everyone with an incentive to economize by driving a less fuel-consumptive vehicle, by driving less.

You’d figure out very quickly where you’d have to move in order to minimize the amount of driving, and where you could walk, or ride a bicycle. You’d probably not fly your airplane very often, though.


Yes, but they’re squandering a precious non-renewable resource that’s vastly underpriced to the end-user, thanks to subsidies and hidden support to the producers, in the U.S. and the use of which gravely damages the world environment. They’d not be paying me or anyone else for the fuel, just for the right to use the ration. It’s like the cigarette rations we had when I was in the Army. I didn’t always smoke, so I let one of the other guys, who smoked more than his ration allowed, to use my ration. That’s what got me to quit.

To which I’d add that it disturbs me that the same government officials that lease land to oil companies to cattle grazing interests for $2/acre/year charge only 5 cents per acre for oil companies. Now, I know these are auctioned, but they set minima and reasonable time limits of, say, 4 years for grazing interests, yet they allow oil companies to leas the same land for 99 years at a nickel per acre. Big oil then leases the land to cattle grazers, who, because they’re not subject to the restrictions that they’d have to contend with if they’d leased the land from the government directly, can leave their cattle on a single piece of land until it’s absolutely and totally ruined and will take 20-50 years to recover. This degrades prairie land to desert. It’s an environmental catastrophe.

I’d particularly want to eliminate oil-depletion allowances, discounts on land leases, and subsidies for new infrastructure development. If you listen to the big-oil people now, while they’re in fat-city with their 30-60% increase in profits over previous years, they talk about how they have to renew their infrastructure. However, when they actually set about to do that, they come begging to the government for subsidies to pay for it.

Then, too, there’s the cost of this misadventure in Iraq and in Afghanistan. When are the big-oil interests going to reimburse the taxpayer for that? Admittedly, the initial effort to unseat Saddam Hussein was a capricious notion of Dubya’s since he was p*ssed off about that assassination attempt on his daddy. However, I see no way in which the U.S. can benefit in any way, even remotely, for this unprofitable investment no matter what the outcome. Initially, I suspect, it was motivated by some people’s (Rumsfeld, Cheney) hope to gain influence over if not control of Iraqi oil resources. Now, it looks, as it often has looked when the U.S. military is involved, as though, not having a troop-count advantage of 100K : 1, the U.S. will have a tough time even escaping from Iraq without catastrophic losses in life and resources. Cheney should have realized that he needed 4 U.S. boots on the ground for every man, woman, and child in Iraq. He, of all people, should have known how ineffective the Halliburton companies would be at providing the needed services. Instead, these fools thought they could “do it on the cheap.” These are the same fools that run our energy industry. Doesn’t that tell you something?

RE