Deflection

It is totally incomprehensible that a US presidential candidate would make a campaign promise to lower the emissions of carbohydrates at the expense of the economy. If anyone would have told me this, I would have stated that they were lying. What responsible human being would ever take actions against the US economy? It does not make sense. But I saw the video of the presidential candidate making this campaign promise. As for those of us that lived through the 1976 petroleum crisis, we are aware that the supply and cost of petroleum has a big impact on the economy. We not only learned that there is a finite amount of petroleum available, the price of petroleum has an impact on the economy, and there is a huge need alternate energy sources. However, to destroy the economy instead of developing policies to promote alternative sources of energy, is taking the energy issue and deflecting it totally out of shape. With politicians that care about people around the world and the economy, this issue can be bent back into shape.

With long lines of vehicles at the gas pumps in 1976, there was inflation like we had never seen before. Since everything that we consume has to be transported, every item that was purchased cost more to purchase. This is what made the 1970s petroleum crisis so devastating.

When we look at this issue from a global persecutive, petroleum is part of every service and product that we come into contact with every day. One might simply ask how one product can have such a huge impact on our second to second lives. Although most people probably do not think about it, but, going back to antiquity, people have always been have been moving from place to place. As for the American Natives, they moved from summer communities to winter communities fostering biannual transportation. As the years past, humans were able to improve their transportation needs from foot to horse to steam to petroleum. And, as for today’s transportation needs, we have fallen totally dependent on petroleum.

With the price of gas having a big impact the economy, a graduated gas tax was talked about in the 1970s. If inflation was at an acceptable rate, like four percent, there would be high taxes on gas, with the extra revenue going towards development of alternative energies. With high or low inflation rates, the gas tax would fall to maintain the highways, as the intent of the gas taxes. By putting high funds in to the economy, with lower gas tax, during high inflation rates, it would correct the high inflation rates back to the preferred rate of inflation. This was an ingenuous idea to not only correct the inflation rate but to get funds into the development of alternative energies. But, unfortunately, the politicians would not have anything to do with this idea, since they wanted to be in control of the gas tax rate. With today’s economy being larger that it was in the 1970s, the impact of the graduated gas tax may be minimal. And, as for today’s situation, we would have been better to have funds going into the development of the alternative energies.

With the opening of new petroleum fields and oil well fracking, there has been more petroleum available than what could have been predicted in the 1970s. With so much petroleum available, it seemed like there is no need for alternative energy sources. But, with a limited source of petroleum available, there is a need for alternative energy sources. With the extremely hot summer, this maybe caused by the high amount of hydro carbons being burnt.

During the 1970s, nuclear fission plants were being constructed to meet the electric power needs, despite the fact that there was a concern with the storage of the spent radio active spent nuclear rods. (it should be noted that the spent fuel rods do not have the density radio active material needed for nuclear bombs.) However, with safety concerns from the 1970s and beyond, including the Three Mile Island incident, the construction of the nuclear plants was suspended. However, there are nuclear power plants now under construction with more planned in the future and there is active research into smaller nuclear plants. The disposal of spent rods is the major reason that fission is not the best alternative energy source.

There was talk about nuclear fusion in the 1970s, if one can imagine harnessing energy with temperatures as hot as the sun. Trying to smash two atoms together has been an ongoing research even before the 1970s. If it can be imagined, by removing the deuterium atoms out of a gallon of water, there could be be enough energy in these atoms to power the city of New York for a week without any harmful emissions. This is why this research is so important to meet the worlds future needs. By reviewing the current technology, it seems like researchers are getting closer to accomplishing the goals of this energy type. And, as with nuclear fission, it seems like the French are leading the charge for this technology. Also, there are private industries now taking an interest in nuclear fusion. And, this is what it is going to take for this technology to become viable, since government policies only hamper the supply and demand system and slow the progress of the implantation of this technology. As with any technology, private industry came move faster than the government funded programs, if there is a profit.

It would be remiss not to comment on wind or solar energies. Although wind power seems like a good energy source without any impacts to the environment, but there is a problem deposing of deteriorated blades. Traveling west of Levelland, Texas, there are acres of broken blades, without any method to recycle or reclaim the material. So, to introduce this new form of energy, it seems irresponsible to install wind mills without a method of reclaiming the broken blades. If there is no way to reclaim the blades, then there is a huge waste of carbohydrates to make the blades in the first place.

It makes no sense to take crop land out of production solar panels, if America is to feed the world. Or, as crop land disappears due to solar panels and land development, how is this country to feed its citizens? As with wind power, how are the deteriorated panels to be disposed of in the future? By looking at the weather in the northern midwest, is there enough hours of sunlight to keep justify the installation of solar panels? By taking the month of November, it seems like practically everyday is overcast, without much energy being collected. Then there is the issue of storing the energy. (As with carbohydrate power plants, they operate above the demand for power and the extra energy is wasted.) Since the sun shines mostly on hot days, it seems like the energy would be going directly into the air conditioners. There seems to be a few issues here that have not been worked out for these types of energies to be reliable.

It seems like there should be comments made on the future of transpiration vehicles. Ultimately, it seems like hydrogen would be the energy used for transportation with a few of the major benefits: the emission is only water vapor; there will be more than enough extra energy from a nuclear fusion plants to process hydrogen; the hydrogen vehicles will have a long range, as with petroleum, before refueling; and the hydrogen vehicles will be easy to recycle, since they will be mostly steel as petroleum vehicles. However, hydrogen is very explosive, and can be an issue in the crash of a vehicle.

Electric vehicles may seem to be the answer, since they are using electric from the power plants, but there are a number of issues with electric. There are big losses in energy from the power plant to the electric motors on a vehicle, the vehicles have a limited range before the batteries need to be charged, this is a limited number of locations for recharging in the west, and there will always be an issue with recycling parts of the vehicle, like the batteries. Electric vehicles may work well in the urban areas, but they will be difficult in the remote areas of the country were power is hard to find.

It makes not sense to buy petroleum from other countries and burn the hydrocarbons here the US, since the hydrocarbons are emitted into the air were they are burnt and not were they are extracted from the earth. Unfortunately, until other energies come on line, we are stuck with petroleum. By reviewing the different types of energy sources, it seems like nuclear fusion is the best hope for the future. And, with private industry taking an interest in fusion, it may only be a matter of time before there is a viable energy to meet our future needs.

From a political stand point, it sound good to eliminate the hydrocarbons being emitted into the air, but focus need to be on alternative energies. Until alternative energies, like nuclear fusion is on line, fuels containing hydrocarbons will need to be used. To try to eliminate these hydrocarbon fuels before the alternative energies are on line, will only deflect the progression of process of a hydrocarbon atmosphere. With the correct political pressure, these alternative energies will come on line sooner than later.