Re: GAS-L: Re: San Francisco Bay Area is Banning Masonry He

[LINVENT@aol.com]

Dear Tom Reed and others,
    Unfortunately for all of the doomsayers about the end of the fossil fuel 
era, there are more discoveries made each day and as one Secretary of State 
said "The world is floating on a pool of oil".  Even some recent discoveries 
have cast doubt upon the theory of oil being derived from biological sources, 
i.e., plant matter and occurred in the formation of the earth which gives 
rise to even larger possibilities of oil existence on the earth.  Some time 
ago Omni magazine had an article on the radical thinkers who came up with 
alternative theories and one of them was relating to the nature of occurrence 
of oil on earth.  If this is true, then we should be able to find it on other 
planets also, a real impetus to do additional planetary exploration.
    Oil, costs, are all the political game which like war, man is hard 
pressed to give up because it is a mechanism by which power is concentrated.  
Once concentrated, it can be sought and controlled.  Do we absolutely need 
the Mideast Oil?  Probably not.  If we exerted the same influence over 
Mexican, Venezulan, and other oil sources we could do without it and the 
political and economic millstone which it represents. Our dependence upon 
foreign crude is the single most debilitating factor which our country allows 
to occur.  It gives rise to various forms of blackmail and extortion renamed 
to Mideast Policy, plus a huge drain on our cash reserves AKA foreign balance 
of payments.  I recently had a conversation with a DOE director of oil and 
gas operations (the current DOE Secretary is from New Mexico and appointed 
him), and he said we do not have an energy policy.  
    Our technical abilities will certainly allow us to implement any numbers 
of forms of improved energy conversion and use besides petroleum, either here 
or foreign derived, however, until we take the easy way out and pump other's 
oil, we will continue to make buggy whips and use them when we could be doing 
much more interesting things.
    Write your congressman, boycott oil, disconnect from the grid, etc., and 
they will get the picture.
    Anyone have any idea how much it is going to cost to decommission Palo 
Verde Nuclear Generating Facility? Any wheeled or alternative power has to 
contribute to the costs of decommissioning of the plant.  Ouch! You send a 
rescue craft to save the ship and the ship throws their anchor on your deck.  
What idiots.  Politics at it's worst. Probably take a Federal Court decision 
to get rid of that law.  We have the same here in the State of New Mexico 
under the guise of "deregulation".  We pay for any "stranded costs" incurred 
by the large public utility PNM, if wheeling or other generation power is 
used in the State.  How much?  Who knows, you can't connect to hook up the 
power without PNM's blessing.  
    So, it isn't energy policy, it is politics which keeps technology down.  
Imagine regulating computer chips?  We would still be using abacus. 

Tom Taylor
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