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Gloom and Doom
The price of a gallon of gasoline keeps going up, up, up, and is expected to reach first-born levels right about the time the summer driving season begins. The presidential candidates are scrambling to come up with a solution to the highway robbery and cast blame on the other guy. And a Christian Science Monitor editorial, "Voters Aren't Energy Dummies," declares, "The problem is...they've both got the wrong problem, and are pandering to short-term consumer instincts...The real problem is that gas is just too cheap as the Age of Oil nears empty." Wha?
The LA Times has the gloom and doom, "Pump Prices just a Drop in the Bucket of Fuel Woes." The part of Chicken Little is being played by Caltech physics professor and vice provost David Goodstein. In his new book, "Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil" (how's that for a scary title!), he finds that two trillion barrels of oil is as high as proven reserves have ever gotten, we have run through almost half of that total, and we are no longer replacing what we consume through new discoveries and development. It's getting harder to find and harder to get out of the ground. And demand is rapidly increasing.
Caltech chemistry professor Nathan Lewis adds to the D&G. He figures that the total energy used in the world will increase from 13 trillion watts today to 28 trillion watts in the next 40 years. Lewis thinks it would be a mistake to continue to rely on fossil fuels even if we weren't running out. The atmosphere probably couldn't withstand the release of so much carbon dioxide.
A large, long-term research project on the scale of the Manhattan Project is needed to convert the world to alternative fuels. Lewis and Goodstein are optimistic that it can be done, but time's a wasting.
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oh man, at last i know one, and txguinan beat me to it!!?? of course it's Otis, Dock of the Bay. i'd know it in my grave. what i get for being lost in my own cosmos and not coming visiting.
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Hell, they're not banning them. They're giving them away. You can claim 100% of the price of a Hummer as a tax deduction if you use it for business.
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Time is a-wasting. It's ridiculous. Beyond that, I really do believe that vehicles like Hummers and full-size SUVs just should not be manufactured anymore. In fact, they should be banned!
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I absolutely agree with Lewis; that fossil fuels are a bad idea regardless of price or future availability. But haven't we been saying this since the 70's? It's Hummer vs. Prius, and as you say, time is running out...
Otis Redding ~ "Sittin' On The Dock of the Bay!" ...wastin' time..
4/7/04 11:33 PM