Offshore drilling again!

[Hu Phlung Pu]

Great news! It's being reported in the lounge that Carl Rove owns property in Rosemary Beach. Maybe we can show him what it feels like to be scared and exploited if he does not help us out on this issue.

I think not lad.

In my experiences, the politicians are willing to tolerate brown goo on the beach as surely as they tolerate brown goo on their noses......from all that corporate arse kissing they need to fund their campaigns with.

 

[Uncle Timmy]

Recent pics of a mid-east oil spill. Just imagine this in SoWal.

 

[Beachlover2]

From what I am reading we are losing this battle - is there anything else we can do?

I find it all too convenient that BP is having problems with the pipeline now during the crisis and peak usage time of the year. It is time to put the profits into finding new sources of energy.

 

[Cheering472]

From what I am reading we are losing this battle - is there anything else we can do?

I find it all too convenient that BP is having problems with the pipeline now during the crisis and peak usage time of the year. It is time to put the profits into finding new sources of energy.

I agree and we certainly do need to find a new energy source. You can bet oil companies will not use their profits to find it though. As a matter of fact they use their profits to lobby against such action by the government. They have spent lots of money with politicians to insure we stay dependant upon their companies for oil. Welcome to corporate America.

Sad that Brazil has an alternative fuel system and we don't. GM even supplies a car that's been adapted to that very system. Someone please tell me how a country with as much technology as ours hasn't done this before Brazil?

 

[TooFarTampa]

I agree and we certainly do need to find a new energy source. You can bet oil companies will not use their profits to find it though. As a matter of fact they use their profits to lobby against such action by the government. They have spent lots of money with politicians to insure we stay dependant upon their companies for oil. Welcome to corporate America.

BP ("Beyond petroleum") says it is. :roll: :roll:

Sad that Brazil has an alternative fuel system and we don't. GM even supplies a car that's been adapted to that very system. Someone please tell me how a country with as much technology as ours hasn't done this before Brazil?

Brazil's ethanol production strategy could not work here, for many reasons. First of all they use sugar cane to produce it, and I believe that at some point Brazil was hacking away at the rainforests to put in more cane fields. The only place we could do massive sugar cane plantings for ethanol is in Florida, and no we don't have the space or the ability to serve the entire nation. I hear that converting sugar cane to ethanol is (other than the rainforest issue) a fairly clean process.

Not so much for corn, which requires lots of pesticides and fuel just to grow. We could convert corn to ethanol on a really massive scale, however the energy return would not be as great as the energy put into it, according to some studies. On a smaller scale it might be able to help us.

I spoke to someone recently who is trying to build a factory to use natural hydroelectric power in the western desert states to convert cellulose to ethanol. I think that's pretty similar to what Willie Nelson's group is doing? Anyway that approach seems to have promise but is again, small scale. We are addicted to oil and the government needs to have stricter fuel mileage standards in place.

I don't claim to have a full grasp of the issue, but I am very interested in it. I would love to put solar panels on our house and go off the grid or actually add power to the grid that way ... I think that's the wave of the future. Saves fossil fuels and all that.

 

[Cheering472]

TFT I had previously heard the history of Brazil's ethanol program and it's inability to work for us here. However I am impressed with their desire to wean themselves from oil, and jealous that our country hasn't done something to help us do the same.

There are other solutions to this problem, not just ethanol. Our government goes to offshore drilling, and fails to fund projects to help reduce oil dependancy. I still believe we should have some program implimented here by now, or at least in the works.

I like your solar idea, we need solar panels to fit on a car.

 

[2bohemians]

We recently heard something about soybean as opposed to sugar cane or corn. Believe someone said that you get like 'more bang for your buck' or something like that. Would love to know more about it. Anyone else heard anything about it?

 

[SHELLY]

I like your solar idea, we need solar panels to fit on a car.

No, we need solar panels to fit on a "HUMMER" a car just won't do!

 

[Cheering472]

No, we need solar panels to fit on a "HUMMER" a car just won't do!

It may take the Hummer to haul the panels.

 

[TooFarTampa]

TFT I had previously heard the history of Brazil's ethanol program and it's inability to work for us here. However I am impressed with their desire to wean themselves from oil, and jealous that our country hasn't done something to help us do the same.

There are other solutions to this problem, not just ethanol. Our government goes to offshore drilling, and fails to fund projects to help reduce oil dependancy. I still believe we should have some program implimented here by now, or at least in the works.

I like your solar idea, we need solar panels to fit on a car.

Cheering I agree with you 100 percent. Unfortunately while our "leaders" in both parties are busy squabbling over EVERYTHING and doing virtually nothing, many folks in the private sector have taken on the environment as a cause, partly because they are more conscious of it and partly because they see opportunity. Wal-Mart is one example. Just saw this, from the latest Fortune magazine:

Wal-Mart to sell ethanol?

It's not just the big companies but a lot of smaller ones too who are becoming more environmentally sensitive. Thank goodness for them. :clap_1: