New Vote Vets Ads - Energy Independence

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZnzxuT_sZA[/youtube]
LINK

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbyWiFpDNXM[/youtube]
LINK

Just in case anyone thinks that our military members want to be in harms way to keep oil flowing.

Andy
MSgt, USAF, Retired

It's a no brainer (sorry, Karen). I really don't see why more people don't understand the connection and demand that our dependence on foreign oil be lessened or eliminated.

Sadly, it's about the $$$. Too many politicians and people with power make too much $$ off of oil. Why would they change? It's not THEIR kids who are going off to war. [/rantoff]
:evil:

Sadly it really seems to be all about the money.

As Americans we get to pay to subsidize the oil companies, then pay to reinforce the military that protects the supply chain, then pay again at the pump. Wheeee! This is Fun!...Not...

Yes, there IS a plan to get us off our oil addiction....

http://electrificationcoalition.org/electrification-roadmap-download.php

Hi Mitch,

There are a couple of plans, actually. One other is the Pickens Plan. I'm familiar with the program and am a Texas district rep in the 'Pickens Army'. The broad-brush overview is:

Significantly expand our US wind corridor to provide electric generation capability (~20%)
Build-out the transmission infrastructure to get the power to electrical consumers
This frees up some of the natural gas used to generate electricity
The 'liberated' natural gas can be 'retasked' to long-haul trucks which use 1/3 of our oil imports.

I really like the 'add wind' part. I really like the transmission system upgrade part. I'm not as happy with the 'natural gas for transportation' part, only because it will take a bunch of money to build a distribution and dispensing infrastructure for another non-renewable resource (but it will certainly move cash around thru the economy and create plenty of jobs which would be a very good thing). BUT - this isn't intended to be a long-term plan - it's intended to be a bridge plan between where we are now and where we're going (ELECTRIC!).

Mitch - do you know who and/or how the Electrification Coalition is lobbying/briefing/financing to push their plan?

Andy

Energy Independence sounds great, but it is myth / pipedream. I've stopped drinking that koolaid.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/03/17/the-myth-of-energy-independence.html

ps : If we reduce our oil consumption by 50% and nationalise all the oil companies - then we can talk about Energy Independence. Until then it is just an empty political rhetoric.

AndyH said:

(snip)
Mitch - do you know who and/or how the Electrification Coalition is lobbying/briefing/financing to push their plan?
Andy

Click to expand...

They seemed to have gained some ground with the Obama administration, as the "EV Project" was funded with 99.8 million from the "bailout plan" money from the DOE, so the government is taking this seriously, at least until the next Republican/Big Oil president gets elected, but hopefully by then we will be well down the road and it won't be reversable.

the ev project: http://www.theevproject.com/ and http://www.theevproject.com/overview.php

I don't see any reason why the pickens plan and this plan can't coexist, they are both trying to achieve a common goal.

evnow, we need to start somewhere, to have "demand destruction" we need to use less oil, its really just that simple. In order to do that, we need to buy less oil from outside of the us, the only way to do that is to power transportation with a different energy source. It's better to start down this road and have a chance of reaching the goal of using less foriegn oil eventually, than to never try...

evnow said:

Energy Independence sounds great, but it is myth / pipedream. I've stopped drinking that koolaid.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/03/17/the-myth-of-energy-independence.html

ps : If we reduce our oil consumption by 50% and nationalise all the oil companies - then we can talk about Energy Independence. Until then it is just an empty political rhetoric.

Click to expand...

I have to respectfully disagree with this. I know, for example, that when the military goes into an area they bring everything with them - fuel, batteries, fuel cells, generators, solar panels - everything. From this we can at least suspect that some parts of the government understands the need for energy security.

Our grandparents understood self-sufficiency. Some of our parents did as well. That seems to be something we've allowed to atrophy due primarily to abundant cheap oil. We have the technical ability to greatly expand our wind and solar generation capability. We have the technical ability to expand the electrical transmission infrastructure. We have plenty of Americans looking for work. All we need is a plan and someone with enough foresight and intestinal fortitude to make it happen.

I'll agree that it's been empty political rhetoric far too long but we can change that if we choose.

Andy

mitch672 said:

It's better to start down this road and have a chance of reaching the goal of using less foriegn oil eventually, than to never try...

Click to expand...

I didn't say we shouldn't try.

The biggest myth is that we can do this AND not have to change our lifestyles & priorities. That we can't.

It is easy to assume new technology will solve all the problems without any pain. Thats what politicians want to tell - otherwise they will be out of the job quickly. Everyone keeps saying we can reduce emissions without any impact to "growth". BS.

AndyH said:

Our grandparents understood self-sufficiency. Some of our parents did as well. That seems to be something we've allowed to atrophy due primarily to abundant cheap oil. We have the technical ability to greatly expand our wind and solar generation capability. We have the technical ability to expand the electrical transmission infrastructure. We have plenty of Americans looking for work. All we need is a plan and someone with enough foresight and intestinal fortitude to make it happen.

Click to expand...

Run the numbers and show me how it works. Until then, it is not real.

evnow said:

The biggest myth is that we can do this AND not have to change our lifestyles & priorities. That we can't.

It is easy to assume new technology will solve all the problems without any pain. Thats what politicians want to tell - otherwise they will be out of the job quickly. Everyone keeps saying we can reduce emissions without any impact to "growth". BS.

Click to expand...

Can you give an example of what kind of impact on 'growth' we might have if we move to home-grown energy from OPEC oil? I don't understand.

evnow said:

Run the numbers and show me how it works. Until then, it is not real.

Click to expand...

The numbers have been run and can be found on this board! And just because one closes their blinds, it does not mean the sun has stopped shining.

The Pickens Plan

The Pickens Plan is a bridge to the future - a blueprint to reduce foreign oil dependence by harnessing domestic energy alternatives, and to buy us time to develop even greater new technologies.

Building new wind generation facilities, conserving energy and increasing the use of our natural gas resources can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports in 10 years. But it will take leadership.

The Electrification Coalition

Here you can find both an overall plan and a complete economic analysis.

Sorry...two link limit. Google "Sustainable Energy without the hot air" for another rigorous look at energy numbers - one can build a complete plan based only on the info in this sole source.

The plans have been written, the numbers crunched. Multiple millions of people are behind them (not including the efforts of Plug in America, the Sierra Club, and other groups). And there's absolutely ZERO reason for any of this to negatively impact the people of the country or their/our lifestyles.

Sorry - I don't buy into the 'Eeyore Myth'.

Andy

I attended an Energy Town Hall meeting in San Antonio last August as part of the process for San Antonio to plan it's energy future.

One of the point made during the meeting is that in spite of having a BUNCH of wind turbines planted in West Texas, we can only get about 10% of the energy to the consumers because there isn't enough transmission infrastructure.

Not only do we have plans, but we've already bought the equipment, planted them and watched them grow. And because the state continues to drag its feet (it's oil country, after all...) the energy withers on the vine.

Don't tell me we it won't work - tell me how to make it work.

Andy

Delivers only 10% of the wind power?
Does that mean that 90% of the installed wind machines are sitting idle?
If so, ... what a waste!
Who made such an apparently unproductive investment?

Require Texas to make a "real" AC grid-synchronized, committed connection in several spots to the electrical grids of each surrounding state.
Currently, I heard that there is only one connection across the Texas state line, and that is high-voltage DC, so it can easily be dropped, and thus is not really "committed" to maintaining the US power grid.

With the added connections, delivering wind power from west Texas to US users would likely be much easier. But, perhaps the wind power is only there for Texas, to use when the oil supply dwindles?

evnow said:

Energy Independence sounds great, but it is myth / pipedream. I've stopped drinking that koolaid.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/03/17/the-myth-of-energy-independence.html

ps : If we reduce our oil consumption by 50% and nationalise all the oil companies - then we can talk about Energy Independence. Until then it is just an empty political rhetoric.

Click to expand...

Is that article is supposed to wean me off of the koolaid? All the 'fact's' and suppositions in the article were either by the author of the book that's he's selling or from oil executives. Both biased sources.
It's the same thing as a fat person looking at a lo-cal meal and saying, "It won't make me thin by tomorrow, so what's the point?" I'm guessing after we get done cleaning up the gulf after BP's mess, that some meaningful 'energy independence' is discussed. I look at it like EVs themselves....all it takes is enough people to start thinking differently and suddenly what's 'accepted' has changed.

Besides, even if the idea is empty hope (which it's not), it sure beats the alternative.

Jimmydreams said:

Is that article is supposed to wean me off of the koolaid?

Click to expand...

No. Just the first that came up in my search. If you can tell me what you mean by "energy independence" I can give a better reference. The beauty of something nebulous like "energy independence" is that every one can get behind it because they define it the way they want it - projecting their desires on to it.

In general if you want to understand energy, a good start would be to readup theoildrum.com and such blogs. Also read read books that deal with the issue.

Instead of "energy independence" we should be looking at broader idea of sustainable living.

Perhaps the first-order meaning of working toward "Energy Independence" would be having the goal of no longer needing to import energy (into some humaniod-defined "region").

A larger picture might be to provide "sufficient" energy to all, in a non-destructive, globally-responsable, sustainable manner.

Yes, life style changes will be comming. Some now, and a lot more "later". Not if, but when.

garygid said:

Perhaps the first-order meaning of working toward "Energy Independence" would be having the goal of no longer needing to import energy (into some humaniod-defined "region").

Click to expand...

How would we acheive this ? Even if we cut oil consumption by 50%, if the global oil prices are high, the oil from Alaska will be exported. We won't get it. Do you think the oil companies care about "energy independence" ? The oil will go to the highest bidder - irrespective of his location. Are we ready to impose export ban and/or nationalize oil companies ?

How about the embodied energy in various products and food we import ?

The world of manufacturing is so interconnected, if some countries can't get oil to make their products and ship them to us, things stop working here as well.

For eg : UK acheived goodCO2 emission reduction this decade - but it turns out most of it was because manufacturing shifted to China. So, instead of UK reducing emissions, it was just exported to China.

Another eg : If we import fertilizer instead of manufacturing, we would have reduced NG consumption. But have we really reduced energy consumption ?

Moral of the story : Unless we cut all import of goods, we are not energy independent, even if we don't "import" oil. If we cut all import of goods, how exactly will the internation trade - the basis for our current way of life and civilization - function ?

Yes, life style changes will be comming. Some now, and a lot more "later". Not if, but when.

Click to expand...

Not if or when - will it be willingly accepted or will everyone be forced by circumstances to accept the reality ? Expect gas rationing in 5 to 10 years. May be we will be energy independent because we can't procure the oil that we want to import.

really you only have to say 1 word

CHINA

China will suck up all of the worlds oil, as the U.S. had been doing for the past 150 years, and, they can, because, we have given them the money to do it.

Keep shopping at Walmart.

enoug said.

we either get off oil, or we are done, it's pretty basic when you come right down to it.
The 20th century was America's, the 21st century is China's...

evnow said:

May be we will be energy independent because we can't procure the oil that we want to import.

Click to expand...

That's exactly what I mean by energy independence. We become responsible for our own energy needs. Let the rest of the world use the oil. Heck, we'll export it out of Alaska and wherever else we have it just like the Saudis do. But for OUR energy, I'd like to see whatever combo of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, etc. that we need to get the job done with MINIMUM reliance on foreign oil. The greener the better, but importing oil as our country's lifeblood is not a good idea. It's too easy to hold us hostage (more than we already are).

One step at a time....