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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (947)	7/25/2008 11:01:15 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Oil is a strategic asset only because we refuse to diversify our energy sources. No matter what we do to diversify our energy sources, oil is going to be a strategic asset for decades, probably until after we are both dead. It will be vital as an energy source for us, as an energy source for the rest of the world (which effects us), and for plastics, lubricants, petro-chemicals etc.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (947)	7/25/2008 12:44:25 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 86355

The Brazilians are pivoting pretty heavily to oil ... because they've found an awful lot of it offshore their country. ------------------------------------------------------- I think you shouldn't talk so haughtily about vison, strategy, etc. Have you considered (or are you even aware) that most alternative energy sources (solar and wind) will use natural gas as their backup? And that in the future we're going to be importing larger and larger amounts of natural gas as LNG from abroad, much from the ME? Windpower, according to sources I've read, produces only about 30% of the time is is unreliable as to timing. Therefore it needs very flexible backup (if you consider 70% backup) and THE flexible power source we have is natural gas. Solar power on a big scale will be the same way. Electric powered cars (hybrid or other) are going to use a lot more electricity. We have a problem adding coal plants. And nuke plants aren't coming very fast. So this means more demand for natural gas. Now it happens that billions of dollars in infrastructure are already being constructed to import more LNG. And many more billions of infrastructure is planned. Where is the LNG gonna come from? Well, a lot will come from the ME. This isn't because some evil people WANT us to be increasingly dependent on ME natural gas. Its just that if we keep adding demand for natural gas we're going to use more than we can produce - even given the big burst of activity in our shale gas reserves that high natural gas prices have produced.