Thread: Congress on oil, the facts.

If you can free yourself from the pump and save oil/money why not. My grandfather had a small pickup that ran off propane. Hank Hill wouldve been proud. During WWII the french cabbies ran thier cabs with methane. If you can do it, do it.
I did see the piece on TV, not a big fan of T. Boone, but I believe hes right, we shouldnt box ourselves in with just one commodity. there needs to be alternatives, especially for a free market to work with checks and balances.

Anyone else remember THIS??? It was actually in nascent stages when Reagan killed it because gas prices went down.

Originally Posted by ScottS

Anyone else remember THIS??? It was actually in nascent stages when Reagan killed it because gas prices went down.

Yeah, Reagan has a lot to answer for. Sure hope there's a god.

j

The Charles Higham book TRADING WITH THE ENEMY does not specify how the Standard Oil Tankers identified themselves to the U-boats. They probably had a flag or light for recognition. Agents were very active also. Before the Enigma Code was broken much radio communication was never exploited. The torpedo approaches were very close then-in only hundreds of yards, and sometimes hundreds of feet! Sometimes closer! Submarine crews could easily identify prey with visual or sonar. Before convoys, tankers were nearly helpless from being torpedoed or shelled with deck guns. American blue chip companies in collusion with the enemy during WWII is a very disgusting revelation to me. I was naive believing that American business was without blemish THEN. Oh well, Buisness is still business...I guess it all works out in the end. Damn, I even owned a Porsche and a Mercedes once! Worst of All, I owned Fords (Ford supplied trucks to the Nazis in occupied France)! Its time I watched some more John Wayne movies and get on with what I can take care of here and now and not worry about the real world.

Originally Posted by billyjeff2

What do you folks make of the T. Boone Pickens piece about natural gas? In case you haven't seen the video, Pickens (who is an oil man himself) suggests the best way out of the current situation is to use natural gas as auto fuel. He claims n.g. is relatively inexpensive, that the US has plenty of it, and that the technology already exists to runs cars on the stuff.
I haven't seen any substantive rebuttals to his point so far.
Anyone have an opinion on this?

It shouldn't be a big deal to do. The Navy heavily use natural gas powered vehicles on bases as well as dual fuel. As far as I know the engine was exactly the same. The dual fuel ones had the N.G. tank in the trunk; I once had to drive one from Point Mugu, CA to San Diego. Almost freaked out when it was out of gas, pulled into the gas station, only to find the thing was full. Turns out I'd been running on natural gas the whole time, and just had to flip a switch to run it on gasoline.
Also had a close call once, when supporting an airshow, the squadron's duty fan was used to ferry everyone. Turned out when it was low that transportation had switched out our vans for maintenance, and this was a CNG only vehicle. Kindof hairy finding a station that could fill it in time.
Still, it works and apparently has for some time (the first instance was in 1997) pretty much just like gasoline as far as how the car drives. No lack of power (yes, I have a lead foot) no complaints.

John P.

Nord Jim (post#27) gave us The BEST U-BOAT Site EVER! u-boat.net-The U-boat War 1939-1945. Please check it out. It is more than fascinating! It is a shame that governments and big money pull deals behind the scenes during wars. Somebody suffers and somebody makes out when wars happen. I guess it has always been that way. Again, what a shame on us all!

There are many natural resources that are being shamefully ignored. Take wind energy for one, in western Kansas there are vast amounts of open land that are perfect for harvesting wind energy. The wind turbines end up paying for themselves because they capture free energy, whereas steam turbines require coal/oil/natural gas to operate.

Not an expert, but a quick google search finds these figures:

The average cost for 1 kilo-watt-hour is ~8.6 cents
The East Coast pays closer to 12 cents
The West Coast pays around 7.5 cents
Wind power is estimated to deliver 1 kwh at 4 to 6 cents
One avergage coal fueled power plant produces 3.5 billion kwh

If we estimate 3 cents saved by wind turbines, that would mean that there would be an extra ~100 million dollars floating around in the hands of the American people if the current amount of energy could be produced via wind turbine.

Just another option that ought to be pursued, not the definitive answer to the energy crisis but wind is domestically produced/harvested and will never be in short supply.

Anyone else have more in depth knowledge?

My last outfit had us often detached to San Clemente Island, off the coast of California, to pick up torpedoes and launch targets in the sea test range (and fight fires-something that has since come in very useful for that outfit a few times since). To my knowledge, the entire island (base) was powered by several wind turbines that were on top of a ridge. They were pretty huge, and very very quiet.
I once saw someone convincing a young newbie to the place that they were "fog dissipators" and that they only started up to keep the air over the island clear...


I think it has its places. There are power companies in this country that are IMHO worse monopolies and have worse practices than "big oil" ever dreamed of. There are things we could do, only IMHO the political/environmental/etc restrictions need to be re-evaluated IMHO to see if they still apply with current technologies, and the NIMBY issue needs deal with also...


John P.