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Hemp......
You can't make plastics from hemp. Plastic is where the bulk of the worlds petroleum go, not fuel.
Hemp......
Most of the pro oil people are saying that "well, we only had one accident in 30 years" (which I believe is an outright lie).
Wouldn't it be a lot better and cheaper to seek safer energy sources?
If there were better energy sources, you wouldn't need to ask this question.
There isn't an equal because the infrastructure is not there IMO.
What other source of energy has a better energy-density than oil?There isn't an equal because the infrastructure is not there IMO.
What other source of energy has a better energy-density than oil?
Methane?Well, that's easy. :fart2
Most of the pro oil people are saying that "well, we only had one accident in 30 years" (which I believe is an outright lie).
Wouldn't it be a lot better and cheaper to seek safer energy sources?
I first supported off shore oil drilling, I was under the impression that in a worst case scenario that they would do a better job of plugging the leak. However this worst case scenario proved that they can not handle it. I still support drilling in Alaska, it shouldn't be that hard to plug a leak above ground.
The problem though is, even if the US doesn't off shore drill in the Gulf Coast other countries (like Cuba, China, and Venezuela) are, and I am 99% certain that their safety standards on oil rigs aren't as good as ours. We will still have potential spill threats from other countries' oil rigs. Either we force everyone out or we suck it all up before they can get to it
I did not know that Cuba, China, and Venezuela are drilling in the Gulf.
Other countries ink deals for oil drilling off Florida Keys | Commercial Diving | cDiver.net | The Commercial Diver NetworkWhile the debate about drilling off the coast of Florida continues in Washington and the state Legislature, several international companies are getting started on projects that could bring oil rigs within 60 miles of the Keys by year’s end.
Companies from nations like Norway, Spain, India, China, Russia and Brazil have signed exploration agreements with Cuba and the Bahamas that could mean drilling south of Key West this year, and 120 miles east of the Keys in the Cay Sal area of the Bahamas in fewer than two years.
Last week, Cuba’s communist newspaper Granma reported that the country’s state oil company Cubapetroleo, or CUPET, inked a deal Tuesday with Russian company Zarubzhnieft to begin exploring for oil in four of the 59 blocks the island nation divvied up off its coast in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow with the University of Miami’s Center for Hemispheric Policy, said the Russian-leased blocks are too small and will be too far west into the Gulf of Mexico to be much of a concern to South Florida.
But the projects from other countries’ energy companies, particularly from Spain’s Repsol-YPF and Norway’s StatoilHydro, may add a new twist to the ongoing debate about domestic oil and natural gas exploration.
These companies are major players in the exploration industry, and they wouldn’t be eyeing this area of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean if they weren’t confident their efforts would bear fruit, Pinon said.
EDITORIAL: Obama surrenders gulf oil to Moscow - Washington TimesNow Russia is using oil exploration to establish a new presence in the Western Hemisphere. It recently concluded four contracts securing oil-exploration rights in Cuba's economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. A Russian-Cuban joint partnership will exploit oil found in the deep waters of the Gulf.
Cuba has rights to the area in which drilling will be conducted under an agreement the Carter administration recognized. From Russia's perspective, this is another way to gain leverage inside what traditionally has been America's sphere of influence. It may not be as dramatic as the Soviet Union attempting to use Cuba as a missile platform, but in the energy wars, the message is the same. Russia is projecting power into the Western Hemisphere while the United States retreats. The world will not tolerate a superpower that acts like a sidekick much longer.
Yeah, it's just not in US waters.
Several companies are trying in earnest to take advantage of gulf oil, and we just don't seem to be interested, in the name of green.
Other countries ink deals for oil drilling off Florida Keys | Commercial Diving | cDiver.net | The Commercial Diver Network
EDITORIAL: Obama surrenders gulf oil to Moscow - Washington Times
There's also talk and negotiations between India and Cuba from what I've been reading.
Most of the pro oil people are saying that "well, we only had one accident in 30 years" (which I believe is an outright lie).
Wouldn't it be a lot better and cheaper to seek safer energy sources?
Given this trend, by the end of this decade it should be competitive with oil, and by 2025 we'll be able to get nearly ALL of our energy from solar power at a cost-effective price.
Ummmm this is the only oil rig spill in the last 30 years? How is that a lie?
SkyTruth: Hurricane Katrina - Gulf of Mexico Oil SpillsSpeaking of oil spills, SkyTruth images revealed significant spills covering a large area of the northern Gulf of Mexico in the wake of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. At the time, nobody was talking about what had happened to the 4,000 offshore oil platforms - and 34,000 miles of pipeline on the seafloor - when Katrina ripped through the Gulf as a Cat 5 storm, followed a few weeks later by Hurricane Rita. Attention was rightly focused on the unfolding human tragedy, as well as the 7-9 million gallons of oil spilled from damaged pipelines, refineries and storage tanks onshore.
But for months after the storms, officials from government and industry repeatedly claimed that there were no "significant" spills in the Gulf. That line is still heard even now. Yet in May 2006, the U.S. Minerals Management Service published their offshore damage assessment: 113 platforms totally destroyed, and - more importantly - 457 pipelines damaged, 101 of those major lines with 10" or larger diameter. At least 741,000 gallons were spilled from 124 reported sources (the Coast Guard calls anything over 100,000 gallons a "major" spill).
Wells and platforms were shut down before the storm, so leakage from those facilities was minimal. Pipelines were shut down too. But what the officials failed to mention is they don't require industry to "purge" pipelines before a severe storm - so they were probably still loaded with oil, gas or liquid gas condensate. Any section of pipeline that was breached leaked all of that product into the Gulf within hours of the storm. That's what we think accounts for the widespread slicks seen on the imagery from September 1 and 2, covering hundreds of square miles and obviously emanating from many points of origin. These slicks dispersed after several days of high winds offshore, as shown by our followup imagery taken on September 12, but a few problems remained as evidenced by ongoing leaks from wrecked platforms.
This report from MMS details the pipeline damage that occurred.
Do you have your bicycle tuned up and ready to go?
There will be -that- many solar-powered cars?Solar energy is quickly becoming competitive. The cost of solar power is following a Moore's Law-like trajectory, dropping by about half every 2-3 years. Given this trend, by the end of this decade it should be competitive with oil, and by 2025 we'll be able to get nearly ALL of our energy from solar power at a cost-effective price.
There will be -that- many solar-powered cars?
15 years from now?
Thats a --lot-- of cars over the next 15 years.Depends what you mean by solar-powered. If you're asking if we'll see cars with solar panels on them, probably not. What I think we'll probably see is a lot of electric cars, which plug into a mostly solar-powered electric grid. So in that sense, yes, the cars would be solar-powered.