When asked what his or her thoughts were about the rising fuel cost here was their input.
May 26, 1:50 - challenge accepted.
* Speculation on oil futures continues unchecked, pushing the price past $200/barrel.
* World markets switch to pricing oil in Euros, further destabilising the dollar.
* Despite increased control of both houses of Congress, lawmakers are unable to act.
* US economy in depression.
* A cascade of goverment bankruptcies begin as municipal, county and state authorities realise that funding streams have evaporated.
* Troops are pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
* Iraq and Afghanistan goverments fall.
* Lebanon is taken over by Hizballah.
* Israel, now realizing that Washington has abandoned them, strikes Iran.
* Syria and Iran both respond with counter-strikes using WMD.
* Russia and China align with Syria/Iraq threatening the US if it intervenes on behalf of Israel.
* Defcon 1.
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I don't see any alternative energy solutions for 3 reasons.
1. Some alternative "sources", like hydrogen or electrical, are not true new sources of energy, just just convenient modes of energy transport.
2. All new sources of energy that are capable of significant impact on the US economy have been taken off the table by politics.
3. The timeline I described is less than a decade at best and months at worst. Nothing can be done to repair the system in time.
8 comments:
It's all very possible and we're probably not far from such an event happening. I personally don't care if they toss WMD at each other over there, nor do I care if in that region is terminated with a few big bangs. What I don't want is for them to bring their little religious feud over here nor do I want a dime of our tax money to be spent on healing their wounded, taking in their sick or rebuilding their part of the planet. Keep the crap overseas and let them fend for themselves. We need to get out of there now and let them fight their own wars. May the best unassisted country win.
It's getting better everyday. Gas in Gustine is $4.45, $4.55 and $4.65 a gallon. I'd say $6.00 a gallon isn't that far off. Have you noticed how the price of small cars is going through the roof too. Heck, give it a few months and you'll be paying $35K for a low end Honda civic five speed with hubcaps. Still think it's all just going to be fine? Think again. Your lives are about to take a turn as George Miller said, but it's not a right or a left; it a downward turn just as LLNL is going to do.
As a long time member and Sierra Club leader, I've wished for higher gas prices for a long time. My reasoning has always been that the longer gas prices stayed low, the faster they would ultimately rise and the harder it would be to adjust. If we keep our heads, there's still decades of oil remaining that can provide us with time to adjust.
And we don't need the oil in Artic Wildlife Refuge - better for national security to keep our oil in the ground until it REALLY becomes scarce. You might say oil in undeveloped fields is our nation's ultimate strategic reserve. And I like the caribou, too!
One of the great things about LLNL is that we do have the opportunity to work on projects that can REALLY improve our nation's future - such as alternative fuels - especially if the restructuring succeeds and overheads come down. I'm working hard right now with several others to build a biofuels program.
Here are some of the things the nascent biofuels program is starting with: LLNL is helping design a biofuels research center in Southeast Asia and has a number of projects supporting the deconstruction of lignocellulose - which is the only hope for corn ethanol to meaningfully reduce the US demand for oil - and even that is debatable as some of you will almost certainly point out.
What makes energy difficult? Politics. What makes layoffs opaque? Politics. What makes large, capital intensive projects that change the world possible? Politics.
My thought for the day. Engage in, and even enjoy, local politics (NOT the same as living with, or the ultimate death sentence for any organization, accepting, the status quo) and prosper or consider moving to a new locale with politics more to your liking.
May 27, 2008 10:04 PM
Here's the bottom line. We can do research in tandem but we need to utilize our natural resources as a means of producing power that we know works and we can build quickly without doing any more drilling that'll harm to the environment. Hydrogen is the answer no matter what those against it say.
Has anyone considered this gas price increase is nothing more than a ploy to get the people to insist on more drilling in Alaska, to allow the building of nuclear power plants or almost anything the big oil companies want with a promise they'll get you cheap gas for your cars while in the meantime they continue to get richer and destroy what's left of this planet. They don't give a hoot about wildlife , the forest, the air, the water or even the people lives they destroy when they come in to drill. It seems that mankind is well on his way to self destruction all for the almighty dollar.
America doesn't have the brains or the will power. Maybe someone should show them the way. So much for the best and brightest
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/18/driving.iceland/index.html
The point of the timeline was that the chain-reaction of nasty events has already started and it's going to end badly for all of Western Civilization.
Read the book Down to a Sunless Sea by David Graham.
That some people care more about caribou than the economy is fine by me. But when a couple SS-25s hit Prudoe Bay those caribou are going to roast along with everything else in the area.
May 28, 2008 7:10 PM, we've been on the road to destruction since the dawn of human history. And somehow we're still here. Sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things happen. Odds are excellent however that the world will still be here and on balance no worse off than it is today long after you and I are no longer around.
May 30, 2008 7:08 AM
I feel sorry for the next generation and the BS they're going to have to put up with. If I could do all over again I would have never had any children. I almost feel sorry I brought them into this world and the FU mess it is now and will continue to be. We have gutless swines in charge of a bunch of cowardly people. What a combination of annelids. I guess they are deserving of one another.
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