Pulling The Plug On Oil

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  • Posted By: vstillwell @ 04/07/2009 12:10:54 PM

    BummerDude: Lay off the pot, dude. It's destroying your brain.

  • Posted By: jock59801 @ 04/07/2009 11:09:35 AM

    Mrmustard - First of all, hybrids do not cost 40,000. And secondly, we all do what we can. If one thing doesn't work as well for you, look for other things you can do to help. It will probably even end up benefiting you, if that is the only thing that is important to you.

  • Posted By: mrmustard @ 04/07/2009 10:33:10 AM

    no carpools in my area, no public transportation , why should i go into 40,000 debet by buying a new car?

  • Posted By: gregcovert @ 04/07/2009 12:05:35 AM

    We should get Al "I invented the internet and global warming and I'm still bitter about the 2000 election" Gore to tell us what to do:) I'm just saying....

  • Posted By: Savage1701 @ 04/06/2009 9:29:14 PM

    Yuck. Why does Newsweek give this clown space? The incessant fawning over this administration makes me want to puke. Hey Chu, you're a phsicist, correct? Then why not have the guts to admit that the only 2 things that will ultimately save the day, like it or not, are fission for the moment and fusion for the future. Solar cells aren't going to cut it at 20% efficiency. Crank it up to 40%, maybe. 80% is where it needs to be. Short of materials science magic, that's not going to happen. And at the rate that efficiency is improving it's going to be decades. Wind power? Doubtful. The tree huggers are already groussing about how all those windmills cluttler up the scenery. Impvove the power grid? He's committed to minor improvements that might make minor gains in electricity viz. lower transmission loss.. He's nowhere on mass transit. What he wants to spend won't make a whit of difference. Accept it.

    It's time to admit what other counties already know - we need nuclear fission power for the time being. All the lefties are always so quick to point out how enlightened France is, yet they fall strangely silent when it comes to discussing their commitment to nuclear power. Don't care for 10,000-year dangerous nuclear waste? Then it's time to stop hugging those trees and get behind fusion energy. It's thie ultimate bipartisan issue. Their is enough fuel in seawater to sustain fusion energy for thousands and thousands of years. The radioactive byproducts decay in 50-100 years rather than 10,000. The fuel can't be weaponized. The reactor facility can't be Chernobyl'd or China Syndrome'd The left gets clear blue skies, a zero carbon footprint, and abundant, inexpensive energy so all of the beautiful people of the world can self-actualize. The right gets to bankrupt the radical oil states and their extremism without firing a shot while putting big ol' newfangeld battery-powered SUV's in every garage.

    It's obvious that Chu, yet another lapdog for Obama, wants us all to believe we should take a big step back into the stone age, and while we're at it, let's put yet another tax, the ever-laughable carbon tax, on the energy we use now. Personally I'm sick and tired of a government that tells me to be a good citizen and consume (preferrably American, union-made items) and then tells me I'm a bad citizen for consuming so much. Over and over and over for decades on end. Enough is enough.

    • Posted By: Ytterbius @ 04/06/2009 11:22:25 PM

      Here's a good breakdown of the costs of Nuclear: http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf

      Solar will be the future core of our electricity generation.

    • Posted By: Ytterbius @ 04/06/2009 11:22:05 PM

      Here's a good breakdown of the costs of Nuclear: http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf

      Solar will be the future core of our electricity generation.

    • Posted By: Ytterbius @ 04/06/2009 11:21:45 PM

      Here's a good breakdown of the costs of Nuclear: http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf

      Solar will be the future core of our electricity generation.

    • Posted By: Ytterbius @ 04/06/2009 11:20:54 PM

      Here's a good breakdown of the costs of Nuclear: http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf

      Solar will be the future core of our electricity generation.

    • Posted By: sai_chai @ 04/06/2009 9:47:50 PM

      Excellent thoughts! Yes, "back into the stone age", as if that somehow will help the power elite as well. What is so ridiculous is that what helps the common man also greatly benefits the power elite. Otherwise, we will live in poverty and they will only live as well as the middle class once lived. Their ideas are backward and oppressive and completely insane.

  • Posted By: helenhighwater @ 04/06/2009 10:21:20 PM

    There are no such thing as "agricultural wastes" from which to make biofuels. Good farming practices dictate that any so-called "wastes" should be returned to the soil to add organic matter and replenish what has been removed by the plants that were harvested. They should either be tilled in, left in place to decompose, or composted, but they should NOT be taken off the farm and used to make fuels for cars. And growing edible crops to make biofuels is only going to drive up the price of food worldwide..
    "

  • Posted By: gregcovert @ 04/06/2009 11:01:28 PM

    I can't afford a new car for myself because my taxes went to GM and Chrysler for their bailout. In the mean time, I'm driving my gas guzzling 1997 Ford F-150...14 miles to the gallon baby. No, I'm not bitter:)

  • Posted By: Montana Son @ 04/06/2009 9:27:18 PM

    Energy = strength = independence. The US should be frantically developing every available source of energy right now - including oil and gas. We should be using the prosperity generated from the development of convential energy supplies to build a technological bridge to alternative energy. Instead, we destroy investment in the private sector and use "energy policy" as a means of wealth redistribution. Federal mandates created this problem in the first place; more won't solve it.

    It will not be long before the US is unable to counter the military and technological ambitions of China and Russia. But, hey - we can feel good because our cars get better mileage.

  • Posted By: don'tbedumb @ 04/06/2009 9:21:45 PM

    The Messiah--

    Aren't you actually my tobacco-spittin', daughter-lovin', two different-colored-eyed uncle? Because seriously, you have manure for brains. Sure, the article itself wasn't very well written, but attacking our intelligent, articulate president for actually DOING something (which you evidently don't do) takes all the intelligence of a box of hair. Got off it.

  • Posted By: sai_chai @ 04/06/2009 9:19:17 PM

    Yes, the common people should all be driving Yugos and Fiat 500 death traps while Obama and all the ruling elite drive around in big, safe, slick SUV's -oh -and helicopters. PULEEEZE. The power elite have never nor will they ever change their ways. Change is only for us common folk - a minor detail Obama failed to mention when he talked about "Change".
    Poverty we can believe in.

  • Posted By: zatwali @ 04/06/2009 8:40:48 PM

    This article sounds like it was written by either Mr Obvious or a High School kid. Surely the Secretary of Energy has something to add to the conversation vs stating all the stale old mantra we've heard for years now???

  • Posted By: adsd23 @ 04/06/2009 2:15:43 PM

    daplane,

    What has physics done for us? Hmm, you are posting comments on a computer, are you not?

  • Posted By: DisciplineIsFreedom @ 04/05/2009 3:30:31 PM

    "With these investments, we can create new jobs and make sure the next generation of biofuels and fuel-efficient cars are made right here in America."

    How naive. Doesn't the author realize that no one in industry has any desire to see anything manufactured in America? We taxpayers are to invest our tax dollars in creating this new technology, so that it can be utilized in Taiwan/China/Brazil take your pick of "developing" countries, and sold back to the fewer and fewer Americans who are able to find jobs at all. Only the owners of the manufacturing companies will be "enriched Americans" unless and until there are some major changes in our government's regulation of multinational corporations. Meaning that there needs to be some regulation, or there will be very little American employment aside from cops and politicians. If you want to make a point that each of us needs to act to save the planet and that we can make a difference with choices for fuel conservation, fine, make that point. But don't try to relate that to our employment needs, because we aren't buying that one anymore.

  • Posted By: nejking @ 04/04/2009 2:34:32 PM

    It's frightening that our secretary of energy is so ill-informed and obviously living on Venus. Or maybe Mars. Point is that most americans can ill-afford to buy groceries and pay the most basic utility bills. Buy a hybrid? Why don't you buy me one. Generate enough electricity to charge up one of these battery-hungry land crabs with solar and wind? What world does he think he lives on. The most efficient of these methods can power a toxic CFC bulb for about an hour and you can't store what you don't use. Chu is an alarmist who should never be allowed a soapbox. The planet has stopped warming that spine-tingling .5°F from the past century. But the vested nutjobs have only one thing in mind: control your behavior and do as they say, regardless of the bad science, flawed computer models (I know, an oxymoron), and headline-grubbing media.

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