Story Comments
Posted by: ThackerAgency 1 year, 7 months ago
This page is a permanent archive of the comment below and its replies.
To view this comment in the context of the full discussion for the story, use this link.
-
Neutral
ThackerAgency1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
You beat me to it. I was going to submit this story. This is excellent news that we won't have to worry about global political unrest for energy independence. I did love North Dakota and Montana because they were so desolate though. I guess this will drive the price of the property up. Global warming is going to have to wait because we got plenty of oil.
Reply-
Neutral
Grrr1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
At the current rate of consumption in the US, that's maybe 8 months worth of oil, at best. How long does it take to develop, and how may acres of wilderness do we destroy to postpone the inevitable for less than a year? Too long and too many.
Reply-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Typical lefty. You know I hate listening to talk radio but that fat guy Rush was right. The lefties are now saying there isn't enough to make it worth the effort. Right on schedule. Do you guys have a web site or new letter (of course printed on recycled paper)? That way you can parrot each other and make it sound like everyone agrees with your communist lefty feelings. If there's oil in that area start drilling. When we're done with that let's start converting coal to fuel oil and gasoline. We have the technology and the need. In less than 10 year with proper spending and building could be energy independent. Something we haven't been since WW2.
Reply-
Neutral
Grrr1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
In less than 10 years we would have used up ALL the oil reserves you are talking about developing. We must curtail our demand before we can start rationing our domestic reserves, or it is a pointless effort with no payoff to anyone but big oil. There is no sense whatsoever in what you propose.
Reply-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
First the reserves I talk of include Alaska and off our coasts in addition to the North Dakota and Montana reserves. Also, when I mentioned the coal solution, it's very real. I work with a very large Swiss based firm specializing in everything from weapon systems to pet food plants. We're building 9 plants in China to convert coal into a crude type slurry that will then be refined into coal based gasoline. We hold more coal reserves than most of the world combined. When we tap that reserve, we will have an energy solution for the next 400 years, based upon your gloom and doom energy predictions. In that time, we would be able to solve many of the other options without having a knee jerk reaction to a problem. Like ethanol.
Build conversion plants, refineries and the like now.
Reply-
Neutral
Grrr1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
You are completely ignoring my earlier post. It doesn't matter how many reserves you talk about, until you get up to about 100 billion barrels harvestable for less than it costs to buy it outright. That might last us 10 years, IF we start reducing our need now, instead of continuing the increase. Plus it still has the worst aspect, in that it is very dirty fuel, both to develop and burn. It's a pointless waste of resources to develop another extension of the inevitable depletion. And yes, wilderness and wildlife are diverse resources of the likes that we cannot manufacture. If we we were to invest like levels of resources into pushing the commercialization of hydrogen cells, we fix the problem forever. Unlike strategic missile defense, it is feasible technology. And big oil should have been building those plants and refineries and the like during the last several years of record profits, instead of putting it off until crisis hoping we the taxpayer will foot the bill for them.
Reply-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
You're claiming I use old data, you're way behind in coal. Sure if you build the same plants the Germans did in the 1930's you're creating tons of waste, not today. Unlike then we have commercial uses for about 98% of coal based slurry. Everything from medical, power, plastics, and even road materials are now possible from this process. Plus you can control the carbon content of the gas and diesel in this process far easier than you can from crude oil.
As to the wilderness, do you really understand the vastness of the ares you're talking about. They cover millions of acres and we're talking about a tiny portion of that. Again, this isn't the 1930's. I work with energy and hydrogen cells are fun but we're really years out on that. At least on how to create it in a safe way. On hydrogen, I'm not sure which process you're talking about. My firm has been working on this for several years without coming up with a commercially solution.
Reply-
Neutral
Grrr1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Again, what in my posts are you talking about? Where did I mention coal plants? Yes, we use commercially almost every bit of the result of refining, but that doesn't have anything to do with mitigating the effects of continuing to burn carbon based fuels as our predominant means of transportation around the globe, on land, sea and air.
And to get an idea of the supposed vastness of the wilderness areas we are talking about, perhaps we should compare them to the very real and true vastness of the wilderness that we have needlessly and senselessly destroyed already? What is left of the amazonian rain forest is truly vast, yet pales in comparison to what it once was, the rate of deforestation, and it's effects on our atmosphere, many of which are unknown. For all the studies on how much oil is in ANWAR, how many have truly studied the effects of disturbing such regions beyond it's effect on local wildlife? Ignorance on behalf of unbridled capitalism is still ignorance.
Reply-
capecoralMComment removed: Retracted by user1 Reply
-
-
-
-
Neutral
aceofspades11 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
BB64 - you work for a foriegn company based in Switzerland, the country that is giving Iran unlimited credit to do nuclear experments, you are developing an industry in China , the last remaining communist country AND YOU HAVE THE NERVE to criticize the comments of a REAL AMERICAN????
You sir are the one who presents the real threat to this country.
Reply-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Not at all. My firm was purchased by the Swiss. With their money we were able to keep the American jobs American. As to the credits, the companies doing the work are Siemens and some Russian firm(or firms I don't know). China came to us, made an offer that included a lot of R&D money and we took it. Hey, we can do the same here but our leaders are too busy worried about baseball players and non-binding resolutions to actually do the job we hired them to do.
As to being a real American, I do take offense to that comment. Because of our efforts in China and India, we're keeping jobs here in the USA unlike guys like GE, Siemens, Walmart, Sears and even the DoD.
Reply
-
-
-
-
Neutral
Grrr1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
This is not a "lefty" argument. It is based on the fundamentally conservative principles of supply and demand. The result of an increasingly insufficient supply to meet an increasingly high demand is to price the market into practical extinction for anything but the most necessary uses. We must adapt to that inevitability now.
Reply-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Duhhhh, I mean Grr, I suppose you love the movies that show the earth a desolate waste land ruined by someone evil. There is a substantial problem with our past economy. When you're converting more than half of your corn production into fuel, you're throwing things out of balance. Add to that China and India buying up fuel even faster than we are.
Again, you want a tree hugging solution, you're not going to see that in the near future, our science and engineering simply isn't there yet. There is no such thing as a "warp" drive or cold fusion. For now we need a comprehensive energy plan and new plant construction. But the powers that be simply won't because both sides would rather play games instead of working together to find the answer. Barack owes his career to the far left and McCain, well who knows, bid business is feeling the pain caused by energy costs. But you will never get both sides together at this time. Too bad.
Reply-
Neutral
Grrr1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Despite the fact that you continue to completely ignore what I post and try and twist common sense into some liberal conspiracy, you are talking about wasting resources on stopgap measures that require the use of resources that probably should be held in trust for a real national emergency requirement, and not just burned for easier and immediate corporate profit. Yours is the argument that has been used by big oil to keep us on the teat for the last 40 years. The technology and science IS there, it needs resources devoted to development of commercialization. Resources that you seem to be advocating we keep piling into the pockets of the oil moguls, who are not paying us fair price for our oil that they extract to sell us, anyway.
We shoulda been there already, and yours are the arguments that have held us back, and continue to.
Reply-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
In both of our defenses, I think neither of us are commenting in order but responding in almost an eclectic method. The resources I'm talking about are coal reserves. We have huge reserves that would serve us many, many years. To convert this to gasoline is possible and would let us catch our breaths and move forward with a real energy plan. I'm not sure if you're one of the light rail guys that wants everyone to give up there cars, move into the factory housing and walk to work or what but in today's America we like the freedom to drive to work. As to profits, again your making a socialist or communist argument. Capitalism built this country, not socialism.
Again, I work with an international organization that is one of 4 companies that are considered energy experts. What you are looking for simply does not exist. I don't want to be mean but we're not there yet. Another 20 years, we might. But today we're a ways away.
Reply-
Neutral
Grrr1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
The logician in me would advocate that rather than wasting our coal reserves on conversion to oil in order to avoid developing alternatives to refined gas consumption, that they be retained for uses that require coal, some of which will continue in that need for the indefinite future. At least until 100% of our grid comes from nukes/hydro/solar/wind other non-carbon based fuel burning requirements.
Big oil is now and will continue to convert whatever it needs to all on it's own, without us having to relinquish further national natural resources to them, many of which have far more value as protected wilderness than as depletable sources of fuel.
Reply-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Even with the projection of 10 to 15 new coal fired plants coming on line over the next 10 years, we have an estimated 800 to 1,000 years of coal reserves. I think we would be able to spare a few decades of coal while we search for a solution. Again we need a balanced ticket. Coal can be a large part of it but it wouldn't be the only one.
Reply-
lovermanComment removed: Retracted by user
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
PsychoHosebeastComment removed: Spammer, Abusive7 Replies
-
-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
It's not that I'm calling him a lefty for the energy independence, we both agree there. We don't agree on how to get there. I can do it with the technology available in a rather short time span. Regardless of what some of you want to believe, fuel cells are at least 15 perhaps 20 years from being something the average person can afford. In the short-term, I'm recommend working with coal. It's low cost, easy to work with and reliable. You can use most of the existing refineries to work with this process to.
One product that frosts my corn flake is ethanol. It's a very inefficient and costly solution. When used it creates more greenhouse gases, costs about 3 times what gas does and takes 5 gallons of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol. Did I mention you can't ship it in a pipeline? Just another knee jerk reaction from the environmental crowd. Higher cost, less efficient, more difficult to work with, seems like a lefty plan to me.
Reply -
Neutral
DaneL1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
BB64 before I retired I worked on a coal degasification plant for generating power. It was a 110 megawatt plant not real big but very clean burning. It was one of the first pilot plants. This was in the high desert in So. Cal. They shut it down and sent it piece by piece to guess where......China!
Reply-
lovermanComment removed: Retracted by user
-
Neutral
mesodude1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
"One product that frosts my corn flake is ethanol. It's a very inefficient and costly solution. When used it creates more greenhouse gases, costs about 3 times what gas does and takes 5 gallons of gas to make 1 gallon of ethanol."
--Are you familiar with the history of oil refinery or the combustion engine? Those on the right conveniently forget that those technologies didn't exactly get off the ground overnight either. Let's put our cards on the table. What are the potential ramifications for oil industry profits if ethanol and other alternative fuel sources thrive? Why are Democrats and Republicans evenly split down the middle on the issue of global warming?
Reply -
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I know who put it together for them. The contract paid for my plane.... and laid the foundation for the 9 plants we're building.
Retired? Do you do consulting? Not that we're hiring but you never know. We always need good engineers who understand the basic principles.
Reply
-
-
-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I've actually met him at a golf course. In private he's a warm charming guy. I'm just so tired of hearing the same thing hour after hour. In case you didn't see, I was hurt on a job sight. I fell about 2 stories. I'm stuck listening to the radio. I don't like TV. Here in MKE we have about 7 guys in row who repeat just about everything Rush says. So perhaps I shouldn't call him the fat guy.
As to nerve, let's blame the morphine....
Reply-
lovermanComment removed: Retracted by user
-
-
Neutral
tchef1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
You know if he is so smart and always right like his believers tout why doesn't he run for president and fix all our problems? It's because it's easier and more profitable to armchair quarterback and no one notices when you are mostly wrong.
Reply -
-
-
-
Global_WarmerComment removed: Abusive
-
Neutral
tchef1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I think we need to look at this from both sides. BB64 works in this industry and has a lot of knowledge. Instead of just being defeatist and saying that every exploration is going to be detrimental to the environment. We need to come together and find ways to make use of the energy sources available in an environmentally responsible way. We have much better technology than we had in the past and can extract and use these sources of energy to help free us from foreign dependency.
Reply
-
-
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned3 Replies
-
Neutral
slate1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
LOL destroy widerness?
When was the last time youo've been around an oil rig?
THey need just a couple of acres,,, they are clean,,,,, if you mean destroy because you see something man made on the land, I'd suggest that we stop builing homes and roads,,, since we greedy humans have to destroy to build,,,,, do you feel 'guilt' when you put the key in your door when you get home at night?
Reply-
Neutral
aceofspades11 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
LOL destroy wilderness?
Have you ever been in southern Louisiana, the most polluted state in the nation? You can see the devastation caused by the petrochemical industry there. - Miles of bleached white dead tree trunks sticking out of the swamps full of working & abandoned well heads.
Most of this was caused years ago by mismanagement, but it is a lesson the be learned for the future.
Reply-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Ace, you didn't read his message. What you've described was the wildcat days of 75 years ago. Today that's not the case. Often the well sights are cleaner than the surrounding towns.
Also, I've been to LA. If the swamps are green, oil didn't kill the trees. Most of the trees you're talking about were killed by the salt water of the ocean washing into the swamps during storms. It the lower plants come back faster, it will take many years for the trees to fully return. At least where I visited in LA.
Reply-
Neutral
aceofspades11 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
BB64 b- this subject must be very important to you ,seeing that most of the posts are yours.
Pehaps in your zeal you are the one not comprehending what others have wriiten you said--
Ace, you didn't read his message. What you've described was the wildcat days of 75 years ago.
I said it was in the past - a lesson to be learned for the future.
you also said ---
, oil didn't kill the trees. Most of the trees you're talking about were killed by the salt water of the ocean washing into the swamps during storms. It the lower plants come back faster, it will take many years for the trees to fully return. At least where I visited in LA
That's precisely it - you have tunnel vision "at least where I visited in La."
Go down to Houma you can see the forest of white trunks of trees killed by the pollution - not the salt water. Many of those wetlands were not as wet when the trees thrived.
S.La. is rapidly losing to the die-off
Reply
-
-
Neutral
slate1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Yeah I've been there hundreds of times, and as you said that was the past and this is now and it's done cleanly.
On one hand I bet you don't mind if we back woods folks have trashed lands and have to live among the petrochem plants and refineries, so you can live in a pristine world and have your gas for your rice burner, the electricity for your lights and natural gas for your heat; as well as the real things you have around you that it takes crude oil to make. Gasoline and electricity is most likely the smallest portion that we use crude oil from.
If we get rid of oil as you wish and whine for, what will you use to make all the 'other' stuff? What will you use to replace the chemicals that we use for our medicine,,,, the roofs over our heads, the plastics for almost everything we use and the other 100,000 products that depend on it?
Drill in your own back yard, and stop you dependence on the southern states to 'deal' with the pollution while you enjoy your clean life.
Reply-
Neutral
BB641 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Slate, I tried getting Milwaukee to work with me on that. We have the old AO Smith Plant and the Pabst plants. Thousands of acres with plenty of access and infrastructure. They wouldn't budge. I would like to see higher paying jobs than the fast food joints and resale shops.
Reply -
-
Neutral
aceofspades11 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Slate - I agree with you - the need for fossil fuels is a modern day fact - I've been to the Alaskan pipeline - no environmental disaster as was predicted. I'm simply saying that proper oversight & management of our resources is vital for our survival.
I feel much less diminished as a human if a snail darter dies than I do if some indigent freezes because of lack of fuel for heat.
Reply-
Neutral
slate1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I agree, humans are more important than animals, unfortunately there are some that disagree.
This 'radical right winger' works in the Environmental Consulting Industry. One part of my job is to oversee remediation of soil and groundwater contamination, so I do know first hand the impact of people not being good Stewards of the planet.
With that being said, what we see now for the most part is that we are cleaning up the past sins of the industry instead of present sins. Not that the sins don't still happen, humans can be slobs and lazy. However with the new regulations and the very hefty fines levied out the petrochemical industry tends to follow the rules for the most part.
Reply-
Neutral
slate1 year, 7 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I still get miffed though when people whine about drilling and removing crude from the ground as if there is a guarantee of a Biblical disaster and would never agree to have anything like that around THEIR areas, yet they have no problem with the 'southern' states doing it because after all, why would those in other parts of the country care about the south being trashed as long as we keep sending them what they need.
Reply
-
-
-
-
-
-
Global_WarmerComment removed: Abusive
-
-
loading ...
miklkit
mcarpentry
PatrioticAmerican
Wolfie2007
tbhurst
Post Reply
You are not signed in to Propeller.com. Please sign in to post a reply.