A personal dislike is complainers without a solution. People who can explain, in great detail, what is wrong but cannot offer a solution. Their job is to bitch, mine is to fix, or so it seems.
Our economy is based on the consumption of energy, mainly petroleum based, and all the “green” programs won’t, in any reasonable time, change that. We need jobs, now, so the economic multiplier will shift to positive, not the current negative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_multiplier
We are up to our asses in natural gas. Forget peak oil. There must be a “peak gas” but I can’t find anyone who has a number. We need to convert to gas. Hey, I’m no great original thinker. Other, notably T. Boone Picket, have put forth the idea. Seems we have something like 283.9 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas deposits within the USA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens
Any internal combustion engine will run on natural gas. Natural gas is dry, so valve wear is an issue. Proper valves need to be installed. Unproven technology? Farmers pumping from the Ogallala Aquifer have been doing it for decades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer
Won’t work everywhere, in truck, etc.? Roush Industries spent a few months running medium duty vehicles in the hottest Arizona summer and coldest Colorado high altitude winter in 2011. Call them. For around $10,000, you can convert your F-550.
Per the US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, in 2006 there were 244,165,686 registered vehicles in the USA. Per the US Department of Energy, in 2007 there were 164,292 retail gasoline outlets. The incomplete figures I’ve found shows a minimum of $9,000,000,000 was given out by the Obama administration, mainly as loan guarantees, for “green energy” schemes. That money, spent on retrofitting retail petroleum outlets, would be about $54,780 per outlet. Say the average vehicle is driven 15,000 mile per year, gets 30 mpg, and gasoline costs $4.00 per gallon. That comes to $2,000 per year, per vehicle. I’m not sure what it would cost to convert a vehicle to run on natural gas, or compressed natural gas, but propane conversion can be had for under $1,000 to shade tree mechanics. There is less energy in natural gas than diesel or gasoline but there are many fleet managers who have done the math.
Imagine the number of jobs created by doing the conversion. The multiplier effect. The new startups; new entrepreneurs. The work for trial lawyers because of inevitable mistakes. The end of foreign oil considerations distorting our national priorities and values.
Give up liquid petroleum? No need, convert natural gas to liquid; convert coal to liquid. The technology has existed since the 1930’s and is proven.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel
South Africa, facing world wide sanctions and embargoes for decades, has a robust, proven, economical viable infrastructure based on the original Fischer-Tropsch system. Off the shelf technology, so to speak.
I’ve blogged on this subject before. My one voice, like my one vote, doesn’t mean much, but I’m voting and talking. Try to shut me up!
And finally, the Greenies. After all their rhetoric, they are proponents of genocide, the reduction of the number of humans on the planet.
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