Termyn8or
Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
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Hold on here.
You have all heard of underground aquifers and streams. They exist all over the planet. Some underground streams might do wonders for the tree in front of your house, but others may erode the underneath of the ground and well can cause the collapse of your house. It would not be the first time.
Now see the bigger picture and see that we have pumped a sea of oil out of the ground already. How many barrels a day ? Do the math.
Physical laws state that a liquid cannot be compressed, as such that oil was supporting something. I wonder if anyone bothered to check the elevation over the years.
And I think someone mentioned all the other things oil is used for, part of it is making plastic, there are also numerous chemicals the drug industry buys, and a few other things. Gasoline is not the last word, but what of all these other things ?
Hemp. It can't replace all of it but it would help. Thing is, alot of times a petrol prodict is used with something else already. Many plastics are a simple mix of petrol based solvents and cellulose, although those see alot less use now in light of much better alternatives.
When asked why pot was illegal I said "Because of the oil companies" and I drew some attention.
Hemp can be put into a threshing type machine to make the fibers, whether combined with modified hemp oil or a petro product, it can become a viable plastic.
In fact it may be superior in longevity, giving big money yet another impetus to keep it off the table.
The fact is nothing changes until we change, and right now nobody hardly knows what that means. If you were to boycott gas right now, and ride a bicycle everywhere, it would not accomplish anything. Even if you ride to the store every day to buy food, all of it, it still got there by means of oil.
Ride out to the mall and pickup a new iPod, it technically took more in oil to make it than it would to drive there, unless you rode a really long time.
But there are things about oil. Touching upon the middle east real quick, Kuwait had heavy crude while Iraq had light sweet crude. This is why the Kuwaitis crossdrilled across the border, stealing Iraqi oil for years.
The light sweet yields more gasoline and aromatics and is very easy to crack. The heavy crude yields less gas and whatever and a good portion of it becomes linoleun. It is not worth a hundred and change per barrel to say the least, it does not trade the same.
What's more heavy crude has a higher viscosity which can make it harder to pump out of the ground. It is also harder to force through any pipeline, so when that light sweet is going for over a hundred bucks a barrel, this other stuff ain't. It is that simple.
However that does not mean it is useless. Actually China's desire for oil is not so much for gas, what do you think a billion people all bought Hummers all the sudden ? No, everything they make has plastic in it, and it takes oil to make plastic. Their exports depend on plastic, and plastic depends on oil. They are probably buying the Kuwaiti stuff for that purpose. But not at no $130 a barrell.
And the main reason it does not trade at the quoted price is that it takes more energy to crack it. As much as they have refined the process over the years, some of it cracks easier.
And long term ? We have pumped a sea of oil out of the ground, almost literally from under our own feet. From deserts, and perhaps that is OK. Maybe with the oil gone the elevation will go down resulting in flooding. And if you know anything, you know that flooding in of seawaters is exactly what makes land fertile, or ready to become fertile.
Sometimes I think nature will correct any challenge we present, and in fact we are part of nature. Unless you were not born on this planet, what you do is part of nature.
What our ultimate effect on the environment is, not clear. Probably not good overall, but I say this, we have every right to do it, but then we don't.
Got kids ? Want to destroy their future environment ? Of course not. But we do have an effect on this planet just by being here and we need not feel guilty about it or anything. Just see it for what it is.
Or we can go chicken little, Al Gore, the sky is falling because we heated up the planet by 0.00000000002%, it'll be the end of things ! NO NO DON'T LIGHT THAT CIGARETTE, you might tip the delicate balance and cause armegeddon.
Yup, right, put your arms in here. And we got a room for you, padded walls, you'll love it.
T
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